CPU Price Watch: 9900K Incoming, Ryzen Cuts

Subsequently this calendar week we'll finally be able to publish our benchmarks for Intel's new 8-core CPUs similar the 9900K. In the concurrently, it might be a good thought to check out how CPU pricing has inverse over the last few months, encounter what products are the all-time value right now, and whether we'll continue to see changes throughout the remainder of the yr.

We haven't had a good reason to talk in-depth near CPU prices notwithstanding, we've done it for GPUs with fluctuating prices that were all over the place, but for a long fourth dimension CPU prices accept stayed fairly consistent. Intel and AMD would launch their new products at a certain MSRP, and and so over time prices would drop slightly until the next generation was prepare to launch.

All the same this isn't what's happening right now, at least on Intel's side. You've probably heard almost Intel's struggles with 10nm manufacturing, which resulted in delays and shortages with current 14nm products. Merely recently Intel spoke about how they're investing money to increase 14nm capacity and until that chapters spins up, the company is prioritizing high-finish, loftier margin products over some of the lower-stop products. Budget chipsets in particular are rumored to accept made manner for other chips.

So with Intel struggling for capacity, we're in a position where Intel cannot supply the amount of processors the market demands. This unbalance causes prices to go upwards. To what extent, we'll explore in a moment. Meanwhile on AMD's front, everything seems to be going smoothly as far equally most CPUs are concerned.

We'll outset with Intel pricing, in this chart nosotros have Intel's about popular CPUs ranging from the Core i7-8700K through to the Cadre i3-8100 and Pentium Gilt G5400. Nosotros also have pricing information for these products' launch MSRP, July retail cost at Newegg, and electric current pricing every bit of Oct xv. For current prices, we've taken the lowest price for in-stock products beyond a range of retailers, including Amazon, Newegg and several others.

	Launch MSRP	July 2022 Pricing	Current (Oct 2022) Pricing
Core i7-8700K	$ 380	$ 350	$ 376
Core i7-8700	$ 315	$ 305	$ 330
Core i5-8600K	$ 260	$ 250	$ 260
Core i5-8400	$ 190	$ 180	$ 220
Cadre i3-8350K	$ 180	$ 170	$ 170
Cadre i3-8100	$ 120	$ 120	$ 130
Pentium Gilded G5400	$ 75	$ 75	$ 110
Ryzen 7 2700X	$ 330	$ 320	$ 295
Ryzen 7 2700	$ 300	$ 295	$ 265
Ryzen v 2600X	$ 230	$ 220	$ 210
Ryzen 5 2600	$ 200	$ 190	$ 160
Ryzen 5 2400G	$ 170	$ 160	$ 160
Ryzen 3 2200G	$ 100	$ 100	$ 100
Athlon 200GE	$ 55	N/A	$ 60

3 products in this chart are much harder to find than the rest. The Core i5-8400 and to a lesser extent the Core i3-8100, are out of stock at reasonable prices in many places. The Pentium Gold G5400 is available simply still appears to be teetering on the border of stock issues.

As for pricing, back in July everything was looking pretty normal, and all products were in stock. Intel'due south mid-range and budget chips were ordinarily available at the MSRP or slightly below, information technology was typical to notice a $10 disbelieve on chips like the 8600K and 8400. And the Cadre i7-8700K was the most heavily discounted, selling for $30 under the MSRP at an attractive $350.

Simply since July, prices take gone upward for nearly every product in this line-up, the one exception being the Cadre i3-8350K, which isn't a surprise considering that CPU is pretty poor value as is. Some price hikes accept been fairly small, the Core i5-8600K and Core i3-8100 have only risen by $ten, and in the case of the 8600K this only brings it back to an MSRP level.

The Core i7-8700K has risen from $350 to $376 on Amazon, which puts it support around the launch cost. That'southward non terrible, it'south nevertheless slightly below the MSRP, only it has completely reversed the downward trend in pricing up to July.

One of the larger hits is to the Core i5-8400 which is well known to be the best value production in Intel'due south eighth-gen desktop line-up.

One of the larger hits, though, is to the Core i5-8400 which is well known to be the all-time value production in Intel's 8th-gen desktop line-upwardly. Three months agone, 8400s were in plentiful stock at effectually $ten lower than its $190 launch price. Today, 8400s are out of stock at many retailers, with the cheapest in-stock CPU going for $220. That'south a 22% increase on July pricing and 16% on the MSRP. And then there's the G5400, which used to sell for $75 and now tin can't be constitute for less than $110, a massive 47% increment that really hurts the value of this budget chip.

Over on the AMD front, information technology's a completely different story. Not a single Ryzen CPU is selling for in a higher place the MSRP at the moment, in fact the simply fleck that remains at the MSRP is the Ryzen three 2200G, every other SKU has fallen in toll. The recently-released Athlon 200GE is the only real concern here, it'due south currently out of stock at nigh retailers, and before it went out of stock, it was selling for about $5 to a higher place its $55 MSRP.

The pricing tendency for AMD CPUs is clear: in July, you were able to get a decent disbelieve for nigh products, and today that discount is even larger. The Ryzen 5 2600X, Ryzen 7 2700 and Ryzen 7 2700X are betwixt nine and 12 percent cheaper than their MSRPs, while the Ryzen 5 2600 has seen a significant twenty percent price drop. Unlike on the Intel side with the Core i5-8400, AMD is very aggressively pricing their best value CPU at the moment, the 2600 with a price tag of just $160. Prices for 8-core Ryzen CPUs are very adept as well, the 2700 is currently available for around the same price equally Intel's 6-core, vi thread Core i5-8600K.

Unlike on the Intel side with the Core i5-8400, AMD is very aggressively pricing their all-time value CPU at the moment, the 2600 with a price tag of just $160.

So this is a very different market state of affairs to when these products launched. Fifty-fifty flicking back to the launch of 2nd-gen Ryzen, nosotros had slightly cheaper Intel CPUs and full toll Ryzen CPUs, whereas today the value proposition has swung much more towards AMD's favor. But how much in AMD's favor? Well let's take a look at some performance and value graphs to see where everything falls.

Here nosotros have data for Blender running on Intel and AMD's higher-finish processors. This is data taken directly from our original Ryzen 5 2600 review. Yous'll run into a mix of both stock and overclocked results here, and but quickly, for the overclocks we had the 8700K and 8600K at 5.2 GHz all core, while the 2700X and 2600 were at 4.ii GHz, and the 2600X at 4.ane GHz. But you can check back to our total review if you're interested in a performance breakdown.

Anyway in Blender we had the stock 2700X beating the 8700K, though Intel claws back the lead when overclocked. Meanwhile the 2600 and 2600X smoke the Core i5-8400. With these results it'due south no surprise to come across AMD take a resounding win with today's CPU prices: their entire line-upwardly of Ryzen five and Ryzen seven CPUs are better value than Intel'due south competing options, fifty-fifty the 2700X is amend value than the Core i5-8400, Intel's value champion, and fifty-fifty a 5.2 GHz overclock for the 8600K tin't lucifer the stock 2700X for value. That's all down to Ryzen's highly competitive toll and Intel'south rising prices, particularly for the 8400.

In fact when we become back and wait at July pricing, the 8400 is immediately much more than competitive in this workload. It's non Ryzen five 2600 levels of value, but it trades blows with other AMD processors, though AMD can handily reclaim the lead when factoring in overclocking. We also see a state of affairs where the 2700X is much closer to the 8700K in terms of value, compared to current prices where the 8700K is non-competitive.

Looking at the budget end of the spectrum, again it's a stiff victory for AMD. The Ryzen 3 2200G remains a fantastic value CPU for budget organisation builders, destroying the Core i3-8100 from a value perspective when stock, and of course yous can overclock it to extend the lead further. The G5400 is shocking value at its massively inflated $110 price point, but with the Athlon 200GE mostly out of stock, it'll exist interesting to see how that conversation changes if the 200GE returns with a higher price.

Handbrake isn't as kind to AMD processors: hither Intel's line-upwards outperforms their AMD counterparts, especially when overclocked. When looking at value, it's an interesting chart even going on today's pricing. Stock or overclocked, the 8700K is still the worst value CPU and gets handily beaten by the much cheaper 2700X in terms of value.

The 8600K looks okay when overclocked, but realistically it will be worse value than the Ryzen 7 2700 not seen in these charts, which performs around the same as the 2700X when overclocked, simply comes in at the same cost every bit the slower 8600K. And then of course, we have the Ryzen 5 2600 which is by far the best value CPU of the lot right at present, with its crazy $160 price tag.

Looking back to July pricing, and things would be different: the 8700K is very competitive with either the 2700X or 2700, the 8600K and 8400 are both decent buys, and the 2600 isn't equally much of a clear value winner. Today, it's a different story.

Of course, nosotros all know that AMD CPUs are potent for productivity workloads, how about gaming? Well here we have Battlefield 1 in a CPU limited situation, running at 1080p medium settings with a GTX 1080 Ti, and we're specifically looking at the 1% low results. Intel's unabridged line-upward beats even the fastest Ryzen processor in this test, and in that location's quite a large margin betwixt the 2700X and 8700K when overclocked.

Even with today's prices that heavily favor AMD, Intel remains competitive from a toll to performance perspective. The 8700K is only slightly worse value than the 2700X, and will lose by a larger margin to the 2700. An overclocked 8600K is a pretty good match value-wise compared to the 2700 or the cheaper 2600X, while the 8400 even at its inflated toll tag is competitive confronting the similarly-priced 2600X, whether stock or overclocked. Nonetheless again, the Ryzen 5 2600 is the standout value choice, beating every other CPU by a big margin.

Three months ago information technology was a completely different story, Intel'due south line-upwards was much better value for gaming, peculiarly the Core i5-8400, but even the 8700K was a standout purchase upwards against AMD'southward viii-core offerings. AMD'south aggressive price cuts take definitely evened up that race.

Of grade, information technology'south likewise of import to note that this gaming value word merely applies in CPU limited scenarios, like 1080p with a flagship GPU. Anyone playing at higher resolutions, or with slower GPUs, will see the value of Intel's faster gaming CPUs shrink, and AMD retake a stiff lead. Certainly if yous're GPU express, there's no reason to buy an 8700K over the fantabulous value Ryzen 5 2600.

So looking across the line-up of CPUs you tin can currently buy, it's non a great time to buy an Intel CPU, peculiarly with AMD's aggressive price drops for their Ryzen line-upwardly. The Ryzen 5 2600 is the best value CPU on the marketplace right now by a fair margin, though those that demand something faster should also consider the Ryzen seven 2700, whether you're gaming or running productivity apps. Upkeep shoppers should be looking at the Ryzen 3 2200G, or the Athlon 200GE if yous can observe one in stock for a reasonable cost.

I haven't even factored in platform costs here, for things such as a motherboard or retention, which often swings things fifty-fifty more into AMD's favor. For example, y'all tin can comfortably overclock the Ryzen 5 2600 on a budget B450 board, whereas Core i5-8600K buyers volition have to fork out for a more expensive Z370 board to admission overclocking.

I think this is also a good forerunner for what's to come with 9th-gen. The Cadre i5-9600K, Intel's new half dozen-core, six-thread replacement for the 8600K, is $20 more than the 8600K right now, and the 8600K is already worse value than Ryzen alternatives. Then we have the viii-core 9700K going for $410, which is more than the 8700K, so it'd accept to offer much higher performance to position itself as a value contender. And then of class, the 9900K at $530. Well, it's hard to come across how that competes with the $300 Ryzen vii 2700X unless again, it is capable of monstrous performance.

It's non looking good for Intel on the value section, equally they don't accept a single win correct now and information technology'll take something crazy with 9th-gen to accept that modify. It's too bad news for consumers, as AMD really doesn't accept any incentive to further lower the cost of Ryzen processors: they are standout value options right now, then why make them cheaper? A more than competitive Intel line-up could take forced farther cost cuts, or a nice price battle between the two companies, but we're just not going to get that right at present.