With the launch of Intel’s 11th generation Rocket Lake-S CPUs just around the corner, more leaks were bound to happen at some point. Twitter user Momomo_us shared a screenshot from a Belgian retailer, with what appears to be prices for all of Intel’s upcoming chips. We’d take this with a grain of salt, however, as we’ve had no official word from Intel on pricing yet, and retailers have been known to markup hardware products above their MSRP upon release – such as the i9 10900K selling for $600 instead of Intel’s recommended $488 MSRP.
When comparing these prices to previous generation Comet Lake CPUs, the flagship i9 11900K, which is also a likely contender for one of the best gaming CPUs, is listed at €500 without tax. Directly converting to dollars isn’t the most accurate way to determine what we’re in for at launch, but if the chip costs around $600, this would be on par with the price of the previous 10900K at release. The price per core is still more expensive compared to the previous generation due to reduced cores in the new chip, but this shouldn’t be a problem with up to 19% IPC gains – which are backed up by recently leaked benchmarks.
However, it seems like some chips may be increasing in price. The upcoming i7-11700K is listed at €376 without tax – the equivalent of $456. This is a 14% increase on the cost of the previous generations equivalent, the i7-10700K, which came in at $400.
If the pricing of these i9 CPUs are accurate, it looks like Intel has priced these down to go right up against AMD’s flagship chips – undercutting the Ryzen 9 5900X’s $550 price tag by 9%.
🚀 | ☄ pic.twitter.com/Qxys9cEa4c
— 188号 (@momomo_us) January 17, 2021
If you’re looking for a CPU upgrade and you’re firmly team blue, it’s worth questioning whether you should wait for Intel’s 12th gen CPUs, also coming this year. These will add DDR5 RAM support and further instructions-per-cycle gains.