Core i7-8700K Now at $400 as Intel CPU Prices Continue to Boil

[btarunr]

Intel's mainstream-desktop flagship Core i7-8700K processor is now retailing north of USD $400, a departure from its launch price of $359, which erodes its competitiveness to the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, which can be had for as low as $319. Prices of 8th generation Core processors remain on the boil across the board as reports emerge of the industry facing supply shortages from Intel. In its defense, Intel claims that the shortage is triggered by a spike in demand, and not a drop in supply.

The company raised its capex by $1 billion YoY to increase its manufacturing output, and has even outsourced manufacturing of non-processor components such as chipsets, to other semiconductor foundries such as TSMC. Prices of other popular SKUs are also on the rise. The Core i5-8400, which launched at $184, is now hovering $225, which is supposed to be the launch price of the i5-8600 (non-K). The i5-8600K is fast approaching the $300-mark. Prices of AMD Ryzen processors remain not just stable, but also a touch lower than their launch prices.



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[king of swag187]

Unless you can go to nearby Microcenter and pick one up+ a decent board for ~$430 (they have a promotion going on)
Thats a high price to pay, but atleast its not without merit

 

[hat]

Interesting. Increasing prices doesn't seem like a smart move when you actually have competition... and AMD seems to be doing just fine with Ryzen. So, where's this spike in demand coming from? Unless it's, you know, supply problems that could be attributed to both 10nm problems and the cost of producing larger dies on the older 14nm process.

 

[GreiverBlade]

uh? ... the X700K were above 400$ for years .... where i live ...

it's at last since the time i bought a 4690K (which was more 300$ than 225-250$)


tho indeed a 1700X is 319$ for me (since launch)

 

[btarunr]

So, where's this spike in demand coming from?

From people buying new laptops after years (thanks to increased core counts and SSD becoming standard); and cloud-computing providers soaking up processors at an ungodly rate. I know, they're not all buying 8700K, but there's that much less foundry time to make 8700Ks, leading to shortage, and hence price-hikes.

So Intel has kind of twisted the reality of the situation in its comments. It says "demand is high" but not that "demand of 8700K is high".

 

[Bwaze]

... and cloud-computing providers soaking up processors at an ungodly rate. I know, they're not all buying 8700K, but there's that much less foundry time to make 8700Ks, leading to shortage...

Do we have any hard numbers for this? I have seen it repeated, but I haven't seen any proof of this. The store that publishes its numbers (Mindfactory.de) is showing Intel in a free fall even in server area.

 

[sergionography]

Unless you can go to nearby Microcenter and pick one up+ a decent board for ~$430 (they have a promotion going on)
Thats a high price to pay, but atleast its not without merit

Or better yet, leave it on the shelves where it deserves to be since the introduction of Ryzen lol

 

[techy1]

good! more and more peeps will be "forced" to buy a better and cheaper AMD cpus and Laptop/PC manufacturers will be "forced" to do the same. And then when intel finally will solve this mess and prices will come back to normal market will be close to 50:50, intel will have way less leverage over vendors and manufacturers, and current mainstream mindsets like: "whatever cpu you choose, but make sure it is intel", "if gaming = 1000% intel" will be gone for good (I hope).

 

[dj-electric]

There's a 30$ price hike for 8700K at amazon, that has high possibility of going down a bit a week from now.
Or not. It will become much less relevant to many users though...

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Spike in demand, pfft, its a shortage of supply.

 

[Frick]

+€70 in a few months time here, frim equal pricing to the 2700x to now close to €90 more. The 8600k is about €30 less than the 2700x.

uh? ... the X700K were above 400$ for years .... where i live ...

it's at last since the time i bought a 4690K (which was more 300$ than 225-250$)


tho indeed a 1700X is 319$ for me (since launch)

Look at local prices. The absolute prices are not so interesting (different taxes and so on), the price increase is what's relevant.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Looks similar on Amazon https://camelcamelcamel.com/Intel-i7-8700K-Desktop-Processor-Unlocked/product/B07598VZR8
Was around $340-350 over the past few months, but it's been hitting $400, but right now it's $380.
On the other hand, it was as low as $300 at one point and dipped to around $320 a couple of times.

 

[kastriot]

Looks like a good year for AMD..

 

[qubit]

This convenient price hike for Intel won't be sustainable with this solid competition (finally!) from AMD. I expect that they will have a premium over AMD for a long time, but it will go down over time.

Now we just need AMD to do this for graphics cards too, but I think that's gonna be a harder nut to crack.

 

[GreiverBlade]

+€70 in a few months time here, frim equal pricing to the 2700x to now close to €90 more. The 8600k is about €30 less than the 2700x.
Look at local prices. The absolute prices are not so interesting (different taxes and so on), the price increase is what's relevant.

i did look at local price ... otherwise i wouldn't replied that way ... MSRP is a unicorn for me ... and the inflated price you see right now was the standard from launch until today ...
if you prefer ... i notice no augmentation (it's not tax ... it's greed and idiocy ... you know "Intel is teh bestest" ... many of my retailer are like that ... one even tried to make me change my mind on a 2700X and take a 9900K at launch ... because "it will be at last 2 time faster than that POS" ... ) right now ... (if it goes to 500$ ... because it did augment for the rest of the world into 400-450$ ... then FML )
kinda funny...


8600K 30€ less than 2700X ... well no tergiversation : 2700X all the way (or apple to apple, more or less... a 2600X )


a 4770K : 419chf
a 4790K : 429chf
a 6700K : 429chf
a 8700K : 449chf ...

launch prices ...

i still wonder why i did switch to Intel with the 4690K (second hand i7-920, 4770K and Xeon E3-1275v2 didn't count ... got them at an interesting price ) and why Intel has such price while their perf is not that much higher nowadays than their counterpart (save from some specific situation, usually used to prove me wrong ) shortage? well if there is less of them at a higher price, one less for me will be one more for one willing to pay such price (without any good reason? )

(well positive point i will be able to overinflate the price of my mobo+CPU+RAM bundle if i sell it )

 

[R0H1T]

From people buying new laptops after years (thanks to increased core counts and SSD becoming standard); and cloud-computing providers soaking up processors at an ungodly rate. I know, they're not all buying 8700K, but there's that much less foundry time to make 8700Ks, leading to shortage, and hence price-hikes.

So Intel has kind of twisted the reality of the situation in its comments. It says "demand is high" but not that "demand of 8700K is high".

I think more demand is coming from enterprise, there's spectre/meltdown affected chips that'll be replaced or "exchanged" eventually since the numerous patches/downtime are really serious PITA. Does Intel release the number of chips sold in each segment, or at least for DCG?

 

[fynxer]

Intel are SLOOOOOW, their sculls are so dense they can not comprehend that people have been wanting many cores in main stream for years.

Now when AMD forced them to release first 6 core and soon 8 core in main stream at resonable price the demand is spiking.

Before Ryzen Intel's greed kept them releasing only 4 core because they made a shit load of money with every shrink since every wafer would hold more 4 core dies.

But with only 4 core repeatedly for 6 years in a row people stop upgrading and they lost sales that way instead, PC industry lost sales every year and Intel could not understand why.

AMD actually saved Intel from their own stupidity.

 

[qubit]

Intel are SLOOOOOW, their sculls are so dense they can not comprehend that people have been wanting many cores in main stream for years.

Now when AMD forced them to release first 6 core and soon 8 core in main stream at resonable price the demand is spiking.

Before Ryzen Intel's greed kept them releasing only 4 core because they made a shit load of money with every shrink since every wafer would hold more 4 core dies.

But with only 4 core repeatedly for 6 years in a row people stop upgrading and they lost sales that way instead, PC industry lost sales every year and Intel could not understand why.

AMD actually saved Intel from their own stupidity.

No, they simply had very weak competition from AMD so they didn't need to bother. Made them shedloads of money, so actually a very clever strategy for them, at our expense. AMD would have done the same if the roles were reversed.

EDIT: I remember just how expensive those Athlons were back in 2005 when AMD was on top, proving my point.

 

[medi01]

Just went to check to mindfactory de:

2700x - 309 Euro, sold 7.4k times
i7 8700k - is available in 2 flavors:
tray - 459 Euro, sold 5.5k times
boxed - 489 Euro, sold 21.4k times

Price history from idealo de:

 

[stimpy88]

How the mighty have fallen.

Well done AMD. Fastrack Zen2 to deal the killer blow.

 

[Bwaze]

Just went to check to mindfactory de:

2700x - 309 Euro, sold 7.4k times
i7 8700k - is available in 2 flavors:
tray - 459 Euro, sold 5.5k times
boxed - 489 Euro, sold 21.4k times

Yeah, but how long are they selling both processors for? I think this is more telling what's going on:

And I still haven't got link to data on alleged increased sales of Intel processors for cloud / servers... All we have are rumors.

 

[randomUser]

8700K is 500-550 eur here.
It has been at 350 eur before summer, then 370 eur during summer before the recent price hike.

 

[qubit]

How the mighty have fallen.

Well done AMD. Fastrack Zen2 to deal the killer blow.

Hey, wouldn't it be nice to have these top processors for $200-300 due to strong competition. We can but dream, lol.

 

[ppn]

Might as well buy the maxed out i9 9999 version.

 

[TheOne]

I worry that if AMD can get their gaming performance up that they will just price them along side Intel's if not higher.