Have you checked what currency I'm using? It's dollar, not EUR. 500 EUR and $600 next to it. 5800X is $450 and 5900 is $550.
"reality check you cannot find any 5800X at €500 in Europe"
Well, actually my pal, you are simply LYING or just have no clue regarding prices. Caseking:
469 EUR, Mindfactory:
458 EUR. In my country (Hungary), many shops are selling it from 162000 to 170000 Ft which is 450-470 EUR and we have Europe's highest VAT rate with 27%. All these prices in EUR are parallel with the $450 MSRP (+20-27% VAT). If you see a 5800X for much higher prices it means supplies are short. That's the only reason.
The other reason you see 500 EUR - $600 in the TPU news is the thing the 500 EUR price doesn't include the VAT. 500+ 20% VAT = 600 EUR. That's the price tag you will see on the 11900K - if $600 is the MSRP Intel set.
Of course nobody likes that CPUs got a $50 inrease. BUT at least with Zen 3 you can argue for that increase (if you are a representative from AMD): huge (and really huge) IPC boost, great increase in single core and even multi core performance (all leading to the fact that your 6/12 CPU is beating or being really close the rivals 8/16 CPU in applications), much better efficiency than even the good efficiency it had earlier and still having an all-generation AM4 compatibility with B450 motherboards, supporting all 4 generation of Ryzen CPUs.
).
