Intel's enthusiast, mainstream and budget tier processors have received massive price cuts by a certain list of retailers. The price cuts come just a few days after AMD announced their new Ryzen processors that feature highly competitive pricing and great performance numbers.
Intel Kaby Lake, Skylake and Haswell Processors Get Massive Price Cuts By Retailers - Team Blue Beginning To Feel The Imminent Threat of AMD Ryzen Processors
Over at Microcenter, we can see a large array of Intel processors that have undergone insane price cuts. We are looking at processors from the Kaby Lake, Skylake and even Haswell generations that are going at discounts of up to $300 US. Following is a list of all the processors that have seen price cuts at the retail site:
- Intel Core i7-6950X ($1599 US) - $300 Price Cut
- Intel Core i7-6900K ($999 US) - $200 Price Cut
- Intel Core i7-6850K ($549 US) - $150 Price Cut
- Intel Core i7-6800K ($359 US) - $140 Price Cut
- Intel Core i7-5820K ($319 US) - $100 Price Cut
- Intel Core i7-7700K ($299 US) - $80 Price Cut
- Intel Core i7-6700K ($259 US) - $140 Price Cut
- Intel Core i7-4790K ($279 US) - $90 Price Cut
- Intel Core i7-7700 ($289 US) - $50 Price Cut
- Intel Core i7-6700 (259 US) - $90 Price Cut
- Intel Core i5-7600K ($199 US) - $70 Price Cut
- Intel Core i5-6600K ($179 US) - $$90 Price Cut
- Intel Core i5-4690K ($189 US) - $70 Price Cut
- Intel Core i5-7500 ($189 US) - $30 Price Cut
- Intel Core i5-6500 ($179 US) - $50 Price Cut
- Intel Core i5-4590 ($159 US) - $60 Price Cut
- Intel Core i3-7350K ($159 US) - $20 Price Cut
- Intel Core i3-7100 ($114 US) - $15 Price Cut
- Intel Core i3-6100 ($109 US) - $20 Price Cut
- Intel G4400 ($49.99 US) - $20 Price Cut
- Intel G3258 ($49.99 US) - $27 Price Cut
As you can tell, these are some serious price cuts which show that Intel or at least retailers know that to keep up sales of Intel processors, they would have to offer some pretty serious price cuts. Several CPUs also come with a further $30 savings promotion when bundled with a compatible motherboard. A total of 12 such processors are listed on Microcenter.
Are We Looking at a Serious Price War Between Intel and AMD in 2017?
A price war is inevitable where performance lacks from either side. Intel knows that their performance is challenged by Ryzen, which came as a surprise. AMD bested their own goal of achieving 40% IPC on Zen by pumping out up to 52% IPC gains from Ryzen. This puts some serious competition ahead of Intel and with not much happening by them in the processor department except the 8th generation family which will be launching later this year and deliver a 15% performance improvement (not IPC), things could get difficult for Intel.
However, if Intel directly engages in a price war, they may as well take a upper hand. Intel has two lines of desktop processors launching later this year. The Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X for HEDT and Coffee Lake in the mainstream department. While Broadwell-E was priced horrendously high, the new processors can be pitted in the same range as Ryzen while delivering better performance enhancements over Broadwell-E parts.
Intel's Coffee Lake chips are expected to feature up to 6 cores on the mainstream products so that will in return give performance benefits which we are keen to see. For now, Ryzen has totally stole Intel's show in the CPU department and that will not change until mid of 2017 when we will see some new products from Intel. As for the price cuts, I think we can be looking at several other retailers doing this soon after Ryzen launch.
The Price Cuts on Intel CPUs by Retailers are Great For Gamers
The deals are pretty good as you can now purchase a gaming focused Core i5-7600K or i5 6600K chip for under $200. The entry level HEDT 6 core chips are now under $400 US while Core i3 chips are retailing at less than $120 US. The Core i7-6700K at $259 US is an absolute steal since it's priced close to the Core i5-7600K's official retail price.
