In Rare Move Intel Comments On Rumors Of A Core CPU Price Hike
You may have noticed that technology firms are not real keen on addressing leaks and rumors, choosing instead to stay mum no matter what gets thrown out there. Sometimes, however, they make an exception. Such is the case with Intel responding to rumors that its 13th Gen Core processors based on Raptor Lake are about to go up in price.
What started it all was a post by PCGamesHardware forum moderator "power clock" claiming to have heard from wholesalers Intel is planning a price hike on all CPUs currently in production. As the story went, Intel made the decision to help finance the construction of new chip fabs, which they cited as the same reason for withdrawing from direct NUC sales (Intel ended up licensing the NUC brand to ASUS).
"Corresponding letters are currently being sent to the respective buyers at the wholesalers. Plans have already been adjusted accordingly. Typically, we will quickly feel the consequences for the end customer market. At the latest when current stocks are sold out," poker clock wrote (via Google Translate).
The rumor seemed plausible enough to gain some traction within the news media, and that apparently did not sit well with Intel, which has come out and denied having sent any such letter. Intel also went one step further and said outright that it is not planning to change its CPU pricing right now.
"Generally, Intel does not comment on speculation regarding price changes to its portfolio. However, we can confirm that Intel has not sent the letter described to customers or partners and has not initiated a price change to its CPU portfolio at this time. We have no further comment to share on the matter," Intel said a statement to hardwareLUXX (also via Google Translate).
So there you have, there are no price hikes headed to Raptor Lake in the immediate future, if ever. Typically, we see CPU pricing go down over time, not up, though there have been exceptions on occasion. Now is not one of them—it would be curious timing with Intel (12th Gen Alder Lake and 13th Gen Raptor Lake) and AMD (Zen 4) competing to build a base of customers on bleeding edge platforms supporting DDR5 memory and PCI Express 5.0 technologies.
Intel offers over two dozen desktop Raptor Lake SKUs when accounting for "KS," "K," "KF," "F," and "T" variants, along with non-designated models. Here's a look at where street pricing (on Amazon) stands for some of them...
- Core i9-13900K: $568.70
- Core i9-13900KF: $544.99
- Core i9-13900: $499.99
- Core i7-13700K: $409
- Core i7-13700KF: $389.99
- Core i7-13700: $379
- Core i5-13600K: $317.43
- Core i5-13600KF: $289.99
- Core i5-13500: $247.98
- Core i5-13400F: $206.99
- Core i5-13400: $202.99 after $5 off coupon
- Core i3-13100: $139.99
- Core i3-13100F: $111
Bear in mind that these are current street prices, which can (and do) fluctuate. Intel's recommended customer price (RCP), which is the cost for bulk orders in 1,000-unit trays, for each SKU is generally around the same (give or take a few bucks in either direction). For example, the RCP for the Core i9-13900K is $589-$599, while the RCP for the Core i5-13600KF is $294-$304.
The above street pricing is current at the time of this writing, which we can refer back to in the future weeks and months to see if there's any movement.
