Upgrading your PC is getting more expensive thanks to Intel
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Intel has surreptitiously raised MSRPs for some of its Alder Lake processors, driving MSRPs up 10%.
This isn’t exactly an unexpected move, as Intel announced its intention last year to raise prices for most of its chip products by 10% to 20% – we just weren’t sure if this would apply to consumer CPUs . Now we know this is the case, but the price hike has left us in an odd situation where some Alder Lake processors are now more expensive than their newer, faster Raptor Lake equivalents.
As Tom’s hardware (opens in new tab) Intel has not formally announced a price increase for the 12th Gen, but has updated the recommended prices in its Ark database that lists all Core family CPUs (and other products) to reflect the said 10% price increase.
This means the flagship Core i9-12900K now has an MSRP of $648 in the US, which is a $59 increase from its previous price tag of $589. That compares to the current generation Core i9-13900K, which still has an MSRP of $589 as listed in the Intel database.
Similarly, other Alder Lake models are now more expensive, such as the Core i7-12700K with a new MSRP of $450 (was $409), compared to the Core i7-13700K which is still $409.
The Core i5-12600K, Core i5-12400 and Core i3-12100 also gained 10% over the previous MSRP.
Analysis: Raptor Lake should definitely be next for hikes, and soon?
The first thing to note here is that this has only just happened in Intel’s product database and the 10% increase is not yet reflected in the actual retailers selling these Alder Lake processors. In other words, as you might expect, the Core i9-12900K can still be had for significantly less than the Core i9-13900K (at Newegg in the US, for example, the former costs $410 and the latter costs $610, at least at the price ). time of writing).
It will take some time for these price increases to affect the actual inventory sold at retailers, but make no mistake: they will manifest in time as Intel is now charging more for these Alder Lake chips. Likewise, while it’s obviously kind of ridiculous to have Alder Lake products pitched at a more expensive level than faster Raptor Lake silicon, it won’t stay that way for long.
We expect this 10% increase – because it will certainly have been the same level of increase applied – will come quite soon for Raptor Lake processors, because it just doesn’t make sense otherwise. What we can imagine is that Intel wants to push Alder Lake first because Raptor Lake CPUs are so new that Team Blue wants to give it a little more time before they start making MSRPs for that, so as not to get any bad feelings about those price increases (or at least minimize case).
Clearly, this is a broad signal for consumers to expect Intel processors to become more expensive in the near future, and that means the company will appear less competitive against AMD, which recently lowered the prices of its Ryzen 7000 CPUs. has lowered.
AMD’s Zen 4 processors plummeted in price for Black Friday, with those discounts running through the holiday season, and even now there are still hefty price cuts on many Ryzen 7000 models.
Given that cheaper AM5 motherboards are expected to arrive soon enough, and the overall cost of upgrading to Zen 4 will be further reduced – from an admittedly (relatively) expensive level – Intel could leave the door open for AMD to get back on track. coming into play with Ryzen 7000. That’s something AMD has struggled with so far against Raptor Lake, which was the reason for the aforementioned price cuts in the first place.