Intel Core i7-9700K Binned At 5.1GHz On Sale for $570

salgado18

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Feb 12, 2007
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Also, Ryzen is a much better value.

But some people want that 1% faster, because yes. For this niche market, Sillicon Lottery (not Intel) has a product, for a price.

I think they made more sense when the stock Intels had lower clocks because of lack of competition.
 


Its not Intel that is setting this price point, its Silicon Lottery. Basically they're buying 100's of 9700k's overclocking them and then selling them as a proven processor to run at a certain speed and voltage. You're paying for a premium service to guarantee a speed on a CPU.

So you can buy a 9700k for $410 on amazon and hope it hits 5.1Ghz or pay $570 and know it will hit 5.1Ghz.
 


It's a good CPU if it does its rated clock speed, and does what you need it to in a reasonable amount of time. Anything above that rated speed is silicon lottery as to how fast it will function... it depends on the process that makes them. Some turn out better than others. Intel, in this case (AMD in other cases, or those who make ARM processors,) already sorts them for the most part. As already stated, Silicon Lottery (the company) buys a bunch of them, tests them to see how much past base clock they can safely get them, thus binning them with a finer sifter. You pay for the service on top of the CPU itself. Is it crazy-stupid? Depends on your point of view... you can try to do it on your own, but the variances in the manufacturing process may only give you one that doesn't do well going much more than all-core turbo speeds allow.
 

PapaCrazy

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Man, overclocking just keeps getting more expensive and boring. First they forced us onto expensive unlocked chips to do it. Then the mobos started to OC all on their own, taking away some of the fun. Then the chips themselves started to OC themselves, and took away the rest of the fun. And now just send a ton to money in the mail to Si Lottery, and they have all the fun!
 


1) We all know you hate Intel so there's that, but you are correct in that it is ridiculous.
2) Pertaining to #1, nobody is forcing you to buy an Intel product.

Anyway, this is an extreme example of diminished returns in increased performance vs. increased price. Game benchmarks will yield immeasurable results with that additional 200MHz, especially at higher than full HD resolutions, and even productivity benchmarks will yield essentially worthless improvement results. Only a clueless fool would spend 27% more on a CPU for only 4% more theoretical speed.
 

animalosity

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I do not and will not understand the pricing for this thing. I am an Intel owner and have been for a long time, but why is the 9700k priced so high? The 2700X from AMD is a lot more attractive with similar performance for $200 less. Someone want to help me out here?
 


Well, the 9700K is $419 right now; which I'm pretty sure is sold out everywhere. Intel seems to be controlling their inventory (my thoughts) but rumored to be in a shortage of 14nm wafers. I would agree with you though, the 9700K seems like it should be a $349 cpu. (*and that would still be Intel's premium price; ie. priced high)
 
Oct 23, 2018
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never buy a realease unless u r that noob dude linus from youtube.. and oh well, i remember him traying in desperate sell some vegas drain power crapps...
 

jsomiller44

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This is a bigger increase than it appears. Normally only 2 cores run at the max speed. If the max speed is increased and all cores can run at that speed then this is more like a 10% speed increase.
 
Paying a premium for a 9700K binned at only 4.9GHz seems like a poor deal. According to them, all 9700Ks can overclock to that speed, and 69% can to overclock to 5.0GHz or higher, so you are basically paying extra to guarantee yourself one of the bottom-of-the-barrel worst overclocking chips. : P By buying a random CPU at retail, you should be guaranteed to get at least that, and there's a more than 2/3 chance of getting a higher clocking chip.


For someone who is overclocking, it's not much of an increase at all. As I pointed out, Silicon Lottery claims 100% of the 9700Ks they tested overclocked to 4.9 GHz, 69% overclocked to 5.0GHz, and 28% to 5.1GHz. So, chances are that the average 9700K bought at retail will OC to 5.0GHz on all cores, and at the very least will overclock to 4.9GHz.

Then, consider that 5.1GHz is only a 2% increase in clocks over what the average 9700K can do with an overclock, or only a 4% increase over the absolute worst performing chips. They're selling the CPUs that they have tested to OC to 5.1 GHz for $570 plus shipping. This processor has a $374 MSRP, so that's a more than 50% markup over MSRP for performance that is only 2% better on average. Even compared to the currently marked up launch pricing due to low availability, Amazon is selling the 9700K for $410, so that's still about a 40% increase in cost over that.

I also wonder if Silicon Lottery is setting aside any chips that clock higher still, such as to 5.2GHz, to be sold at a higher price later on once they acquire sufficient stock. Meaning, these binned 5.1GHz chips might not even be the best that one could potentially get by buying a CPU at random.