News Intel Core Ultra 200K CPU pricing exposed by overseas retailer — Arrow Lake priced up to 8% higher than Raptor Lake Refresh

[Admin]

A UK-based online retailer posted listings of Intel's upcoming Arrow Lake desktop chips.

Intel Core Ultra 200K CPU pricing exposed by overseas retailer — Arrow Lake priced up to 8% higher than Raptor Lake Refresh : Read more

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

And if they follow AMD's lead they'll be below MSRP by November and well below by Black Friday.

 

[KyaraM]

As the article points out, these aren't final prices. Wouldn't be the first time the actual MSRP is lower. Of course, it also wouldn't be the first time the listing is indeed correct. We will see next month latest I guess.

 

[Elusive Ruse]

I bet these are just placeholders, 14900K launched at £580 IIRC.

 

[baboma]

UK pricing has never matched up 1:1 with US. It's an idiotic compare.

The valid takeaway is that ARL-S launch on 10/10 will be backed up with real shipment.

OTOH, nothing has been heard for Z890 boards, so launch availability still remains a question mark, and of course there'll be a hefty price premium.


>And if they follow AMD's lead they'll be below MSRP by November and well below by Black Friday.

Doubtful. For 12/13/14th gens, Intel CPUs have had small discounts relative to AMD Ryzens 5K/7K (and presumably 9K). BF sales are typically for last-gen products, not products just launched.

 

[usertests]

Pricing leaks are pretty worthless. Too many placeholder prices, foreign prices not directly translating even if you want to play around with VAT, and the companies can change them at the very last minute if they want to. And no matter what, it's likely to be within 5-10% of what you could guess by yourself. I advise people not to care, just wait until announcements.

 

[YSCCC]

Will be interesting to see consumer reaction when real pricing is out

 

[baboma]

>Pricing leaks are pretty worthless. Too many placeholder prices, foreign prices not directly translating even if you want to play around with VAT

I keep hoping THW would budget for less incompetent "filler" writers. Disregarding the fact that most these filler pieces were scraped directly from other HW sites, the regurgitating is always cringeworthy, as to wit this garbage piece.


>Will be interesting to see consumer reaction when real pricing is out

The only people who actually care are 0-day early adopters, and by definition they are price-insensitive. "Consumers" won't care one way or another. Pricing will be in-line with prior gen, a few dollars more or less.

 

[strobolt]

What's up with the naming scheme of Arrow Lake? Why is the 900 now 85 and not 90? Same with 700/65 and 600/45. Are they reserving numbering for a "refresh" with slightly increased clocks? Imo, would've been great if the they are changing things up that they would've gone with the number of P-cores for the first number and then second number is relative order of the processors with the same number of P-cores based on clocks.

In general, how is this new naming working now? "Core Ultra" translates to "i" I guess and the 2 in the hundreds is the generation? Meteor Lake was 100, Arrow lake is 200, Lunar Lake is 200V and Panther lake is 300. What's the logic in that?

 

[baboma]

>Why is the 900 now 85 and not 90? Same with 700/65 and 600/45.

The new scheme is more consistent than the prior 'i#' scheme. Before, the tier i5/7/9 number is the same as the part number for 7 and 9 (14700/14900), but not 5 (14600). Now, they are decoupled for all tiers.

>Are they reserving numbering for a "refresh" with slightly increased clocks?

The decoupling may not matter for '7' and '9', which have only one model per tier, but is relevant for '5' and reportedly '3', which have multiple models.

>Imo, would've been great if the they are changing things up that they would've gone with the number of P-cores for the first number and then second number is relative order of the processors with the same number of P-cores based on clocks.

The goal is to make parts simpler to understand for users. Yours above gets into the weeds. As it is, consumers already need a decoder ring to understand CPU names, especially for mobile CPUs.

That said, part of a product name is the marketing, which is always important. The "Core Ultra" series, starting with Meteor Lake, is a new design, and needs to have a new name to highlight its new features.

Core Ultra 9 is admittedly less shorthand-friendly than Core i9. Perhaps CU will become the new shorthand, or perhaps people will just use the 3-digit part number (which imparts more info anyway). When it comes to klunky names, Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is definitely worse, and is a good example of marketing gone amok.

 

[vijosef]

Processor naming has become a labyrinth. I can no longer determine a CPU's performance based on its name alone.

 

[bit_user]

First, does anyone have any further insight into how or whether the 20A node cancellation is affecting Arrow Lake? I thought Arrow Lake was the only product using it, meaning Intel would have to incur delays by doing a TSMC N3 version. Is that not true?

If it is the case, then pretty much forget the current launch dates, performance leaks, and potentially even pricing leaks.

I honestly expected there to be some follow-up on this stuff, after that 20A bombshell.


Second:

"Intel's Arrow Lake chips beat inflation."

Okay, but it kept the same core counts, which has been how they've traditionally justified higher prices.

Of course AMD also kept the same core counts, but then Ryzen 9000 MSRP is actually below that of Ryzen 7000! Nowhere does the article even mention that!

Highlighting how Arrow Lake beat inflation is definitely putting a positive spin on their price increases. I'm not trying to say the author is Intel-biased, but please try harder to put things in a fair perspective.

 

[Mama Changa]

Processor naming has become a labyrinth. I can no longer determine a CPU's performance based on its name alone.

How did you do it in the past. By the label i5, i7, i9. Now it's Ultra 5, 7 or 9. That's all you need to know. Ultra 5 14 cores, Ultra 7 20 cores, Ultra 9 24 cores, same as with raptor lake. In the past they startd the model number with the generation so eg Raptor Lake was 14th gen so numbers started with 14. Meteor Lake was beginning of new architecture so generations start at 100 and jump 100 for each new generation. Meteor Lake 100, Arrow Lake 200, Panther Lake 300 etc. So any Arrow Lake number must start with a 2. This time instead of using 900, 700, 600, 500 etc for cpus, they are using 8x, 6x, 4x, 2x

 

[ikjadoon]

First, does anyone have any further insight into how or whether the 20A node cancellation is affecting Arrow Lake? I thought Arrow Lake was the only product using it, meaning Intel would have to incur delays by doing a TSMC N3 version. Is that not true?

If it is the case, then pretty much forget the current launch dates, performance leaks, and potentially even pricing leaks.

I honestly expected there to be some follow-up on this stuff, after that 20A bombshell.

My pessimistic, but perhaps realistic assumption: Intel has known for some time that Arrow Lake on 20A would never ship. The disclosure is the slow drip of Intel's execution problems.

Big fanfare → vague positive news → suddenly dead as the launch date nears.

My first thought is: "Intel sent all the ARL dies to TSMC months back, but only let the news out recently."

With a fab taking months to complete a wafer, however, it also seems to match Intel's familiar pace: low volume high-end SKUs in Q4 → high volume mainstream SKUs in Q1 (e.g., the Alder Lake launch was only K-series i5 / i7 / i9). There were rumors the high-end SKUs were destined for TSMC.

//

OTOH, nothing has been heard for Z890 boards, so launch availability still remains a question mark, and of course there'll be a hefty price premium.

These have popped up at retailers, if one knows where to look. No pricing yet, but I suspect the same as you: motherboards in general, but esp. Z-series, have being getter pricier faster than most parts.

https://store.intcomex.com/en-xcl/Products/ByKeyword?term=Z890&typeSearch=&r=true

 

[YSCCC]

>Why is the 900 now 85 and not 90? Same with 700/65 and 600/45.

The new scheme is more consistent than the prior 'i#' scheme. Before, the tier i5/7/9 number is the same as the part number for 7 and 9 (14700/14900), but not 5 (14600). Now, they are decoupled for all tiers.

>Are they reserving numbering for a "refresh" with slightly increased clocks?

The decoupling may not matter for '7' and '9', which have only one model per tier, but is relevant for '5' and reportedly '3', which have multiple models.

>Imo, would've been great if the they are changing things up that they would've gone with the number of P-cores for the first number and then second number is relative order of the processors with the same number of P-cores based on clocks.

The goal is to make parts simpler to understand for users. Yours above gets into the weeds. As it is, consumers already need a decoder ring to understand CPU names, especially for mobile CPUs.

That said, part of a product name is the marketing, which is always important. The "Core Ultra" series, starting with Meteor Lake, is a new design, and needs to have a new name to highlight its new features.

Core Ultra 9 is admittedly less shorthand-friendly than Core i9. Perhaps CU will become the new shorthand, or perhaps people will just use the 3-digit part number (which imparts more info anyway). When it comes to klunky names, Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is definitely worse, and is a good example of marketing gone amok.

Actually changing naming scheme is one of the dumbest move I’ve seen in years.

A good product naming gets one understand what product segment one product is in.
The i3,5,7,9 makes sense as it simplifies its Intel for the various target market segments (3-just give me something that works for office, 5-mainstream capable of doing some encoding or gaming, 7- enthusiast, 9- geeks or totl seeker)
Changing that I to ultra sounds really…. Childish? It sounds like what a 7-10 year old will come up with “let’s call it ultraaaaa and it sounds so much stronger”

Then for naming coding I don’t think that’s really needed to encode something like corecount in the name.

For each gen, 99% just goes by the i3,5,7,9 category, most ppl won’t up pay their purchase because one have a 24 core vs 16 core but pay according to their budget. For those who cares, in this age we don’t need to buy a pc magazine to look for specs, a quick Google search will do all and ppl don’t just try decipher the name for that sake.

Changing the name alone just makes consumers confuse and some will easier to look for competitors also as “we have to learn the new market segment naming anyway

 

[Kondamin]

Why would you look at us inflation and not uk inflation? It’s being sold in the uk where vendors need to be able to make a profit in a world where everything got more expensive including local rent power wages. Which are disconnected from the us

I wonder if these are going to be as much as a hit as zen 5 is with practically no one buying

 

[thestryker]

A good product naming gets one understand what product segment one product is in.
The i3,5,7,9 makes sense as it simplifies its Intel for the various target market segments (3-just give me something that works for office, 5-mainstream capable of doing some encoding or gaming, 7- enthusiast, 9- geeks or totl seeker)
Changing that I to ultra sounds really…. Childish? It sounds like what a 7-10 year old will come up with “let’s call it ultraaaaa and it sounds so much stronger”

I agree completely, but my bet is that they probably got a consulting firm in as business loves to do and that firm said something like "well Apple calls their top product Ultra so..."

Though I will say Core Ultra 7 268V is significantly better than Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 even though I'm sure both came from the same idiotic place.

Changing the name alone just makes consumers confuse and some will easier to look for competitors also as “we have to learn the new market segment naming anyway

I don't really think changing "i" to "Ultra" is going to make any difference at all to your average customer beyond some people wondering why.

 

[YSCCC]

I agree completely, but my bet is that they probably got a consulting firm in as business loves to do and that firm said something like "well Apple calls their top product Ultra so..."

Though I will say Core Ultra 7 268V is significantly better than Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 even though I'm sure both came from the same idiotic place.

I don't really think changing "i" to "Ultra" is going to make any difference at all to your average customer beyond some people wondering why.

I would say the AMD AI thingy is as pointless and stupid... both just got random childish schemes which are confusing

Changing the i to Ultra at least IME, ppl now ask: why are both on the market, is it for server or laptop or something? is U9 vs i9 different lineup? I used to use an i5, so does it means another category???

as such, since architecture literally means core count doesn't matter, and quite a bit have heard news (from stock crash) that intel is in deep trouble right now, so they will inevitably goes into digging into AMD vs intel next gen, back then if the i name is kept, some will "arrrrh I 've been using i5 since forever, just get me another i5", those are the parts intel will risk losing when they are forced to dig into a new product line (naming scheme). and generally speaking, if the final digit have any meaning, those who have no clue will tend to prefer a scheme where they have to read less into to not buy the wrong chip.

e.g.
before: Just buy an i7 k cpu if you want reasonably fast current gen CPU and not bother with the mega bucks i9, you won't buy the wrong chip in microcenter

now: the ultra 7 265k and maybe the 268k, what's the difference between 5 and 8? do I need it? will I got a lot less perf with the 8 ending or it means some functions I will never need?

 

[baboma]

>Why would you look at us inflation and not uk inflation?

Better approximation below.

UK (incl VAT) vs US (no tax) launch MSRP/RRP:

14900K: £580, $589
14700K: £400, $409
14600K: £320, $319

13900K: £589, $589
13700K: £400, $409
13600K: £320, $319

UK launch prices (UK retailer LambdaTek, via Videocardz):

Ultra 9 285K: £566
Ultra 7 265K: £393
Ultra 5 245K: £301

14th-gen pricing was same as 13th's. UK pricing hewed very close to US pricing, with exchange rate diff negated by VAT inclusion, among other factors.

While LambdaTek's pricing for ARL-S isn't RRP, it's a fairly close approximation, with same contour, and the reasonable takeaway is that ARL-S pricing will be same or slightly lower than 14th-gen.