Why do Intel CPU prices seem so... overpriced?

[Commander Matt]

Edit: TheDarkOne198 posted exactly the kind of explanation I was looking for. Synphul also posted an excellent explanation of the market/financial side of things. Everyone contributed greatly to the thread, and I enjoyed reading every post. Thank you, everyone, who posted. I know in the future I'll re-read this thread, and I know people in the future will see and read this thread. Thank you, everyone! 😀
TheDarkOne198's answer:

Spoiler

lets not forget certain other factors,such as the fact that AMD used a CMT (Clustered Multi Threading) design called Bulldozer (colloquially known as "CAT Cores",e.g. Caterpillar) a more server oriented design that assumes all cores being used equally,against the STRONG recommendations of them not using it from their design staff,because the marketing side of the company wanted something out right away (Source: The Tek). They should have probably started a new design from scratch,something they are doing now,or continued along the Phenom path,with higher speed single cores. The Zen CPU designs are using SMT (Simultaneous Multi Threading) which has been used by Intel for quite some time and is basically what HT is,just with a fancy name. AMD has also made some dumb decisions in the past,though I attribute that more to pressure on them. I know I make some dumb decisions myself when under pressure,sometimes. A corporation with staff to warn against things should be more immune to this,though and some argue that buying ATI was also a big mistake,though I personally think there is a lot of potential in the HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) and HUMA (Heterogeneous Unified Memory Architecture) ideas that buying ATI flourished. Lots of potential there,but it is probably very much ahead of its time as it requires software to develop in a manner that uses the GPU in an APU for computing,especially if used for floating point. Technically speaking,an APU could (possibly,IMO) stomp an i7 quad core with HT,if software was coded to use it and its GPU properly (source: "Sapphire" Ed on Tech Talk with Jaystwocents and Baraculese Nerdgasm). There is,of course the source of that pressure,that being Intel. There is all the shady things Intel has tried to do in the past that border,if not cross the line,on trying to form a monopoly (paying OEM's,or giving them major discounts to not use AMD chips in their PC's). That financially hurt AMD a lot and while Intel got in trouble for it and AMD MAY have squandered the money they won from the court case by buying ATI. Intel has continued to use some somewhat shady practices,though not strictly illegal,I dont think. Just questionable. They are more expensive,as SBM said,because they basically can be due to having market share. This is exactly WHY AMD should be supported,IMO. If AMD goes out of business,its BAD NEWS for Intel fans. No competition in the X86-64 market will cause Intel to charge way more. I bet a dual core Pentium would end up being near $200 USD and the i5 or i7? Forget about it. I do have some pretty good faith in AMD in the future,though. I am hoping that Zen will do well and will likely upgrade to it (after seeing some benchmarks and comparisons,of course) and AMD separating the Radeon division was likely a great move. The Radeon guys can now basically do what they are meant to do,which is design the best GPU they can along with the drivers for it while the parent company's designers can focus its time and resources on the CPU side. I am hoping AMD can turn themselves around and secure at least 40% of the market,or more. That will force Intel to lower prices,which is healthier for all consumers.

Synphul's answer:

Spoiler

It could go either way with competition but just because amd has lower prices at the moment doesn't mean that will necessarily continue. It might and it might not. They can't really charge more than they are based on current performance to keep price/performance competitive. There might be a few dollars in savings but being competitively priced doesn't mean giving it away either.

Assuming zen can make substantial improvements and catch up to intel's performance they have a choice. Try and undercut intel and make the competition tighter possibly causing intel to lower prices. The other option is if they're delivering intel level performance they may increase the price of their cpu's to match intel.

Having a history of less expensive cpu's doesn't mean amd is a charity, they need to make money. In their current financial position they need to make all the money they can to pay off debts and cover the costs of all the r&d put into zen. That could just as easily mean intel-like prices instead of brand new high performing cpu's at old outdated lesser performing cpu prices. If they were to produce a zen cpu capable of competing head to head with a $250-350 i5/i7 I certainly wouldn't hold my breath for a $165 price tag.

This isn't just in cpu's it's business in general. Pepsi and coke used to sell 2L bottles of soda for around 95 cents. Then $1.05 and eventually $1.25 and so on. When pepsi's price went up to $1.25 coca cola's response wasn't to permanently leave their competing soft drink at 90 cents for the same size bottle. They increased price together. Rather than playing a price war of cut throat price games trying to undercut and outsell the competition they sort of 'agree' on a price. Price wars are great for consumers but getting out of hand means cutting deeply into profits and cutting their nose to spite their face.

If coke and pepsi were the only two soft drinks available there's nothing preventing them from deciding together to keep prices similar and both raise them. What are people going to do? They can either stop drinking the product or pay up. Bigger profits for both companies, it's a win win. If companies purely marketed on the premise of undercutting their competition companies would be broke and everything would be dirt cheap but that's definitely not the case.

In the case of amd/intel, intel's latest chips have gone up in price. While it may not be great news to the consumer it may actually help amd. Instead of being forced to sell a new cpu at $180 they may have more wiggle room to up their price to say $200 or $220 and still remain price competitive with intel. The further intel lowers their prices the lower amd is forced to lower theirs and their profit margins could be negated. Lowering prices far enough and long enough intel could easily put amd out of business by not giving them room to earn a profit they desperately need.

Again, thank you everyone for contributing to the thread!
Original question:

Okay, so first I'd like to say I am NOT trying to start a flame war or an AMD vs Intel war. I'm only familiar with AMD, and do not know much about Intel (aside from how Hyper Threading works). Please avoid starting flame wars.

While scrolling through PCPartPicker's CPU list, time and time again I notice Intel CPUs being far more expensive than an AMD equivalent (or a better AMD). Why is this? Intel is a smart company, so they wouldn't make their components so pricey without good reason.

As an example, why is the i7-4820K $335? Why is it more expensive than an FX-6300? An FX-8350?

Again, I'm not trying to start any flame wars. I'm extremely curious about this, as it seems there's no pattern between CPUs. A $1k Intel CPU with slower speeds has a higher TDP than the faster lower TDP Intel CPU, for example (again, for example).

Am I missing something? Is there some secret Intel chip inside that turns each i7 into a 7-head-robo-hydra? Maybe a robotic Elmo that laughs and hugs you to death? Or... maybe... that robohead on all of Intel's boxes????

 

[USAFRet]

Because (putting on my flame retardant suit) they are better CPUs than the AMD offerings, with more R&D behind them.

And because they can.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

I use to build with AMD only and switched to intel a few years ago , they are worth the extra price.

 

[Commander Matt]

Because (putting on my flame retardant suit) they are better CPUs than the AMD offerings, with more R&D behind them.

And because they can.

Nice suit! Is it designer?

But how do they have better CPUs? More efficient architecture? Somehow faster L1 caches? Robotic hydro Elmo??
Sorry I'm being so picky.

I use to build with AMD only and switched to intel a few years ago , they are worth the extra price.

But how is it worth the extra price?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Run cooler and more efficient.

Superior architecture and design.

 

[Th3-Hunter333]

They have FAR better single threaded performance which helps a ton when it comes to some games/gaming.

Arma is a big example.

P.S. I use to own the fx 8350

 

[Commander Matt]

Run cooler and more efficient.

Superior architecture and design.

But why would the i7-5820K have a higher TDP and slower speed than an FX-6300?

They have FAR better single threaded performance which helps a ton when it comes to some games/gaming.

Arma is a big example.

P.S. I use to own the fx 8350

But the i5-2500k performed worse than the cheaper FX-6300 in this benchmark?

 

[USAFRet]

A selling price for a CPU is based on a couple of things.
Overall cost, incl R&D and some profit, and what the market will bear.

Evidently, the market will bear what Intel is charging. So that is what they do.

They are not in the business of providing low cost, high end CPU's to you.
They are in the business of making a profit.

 

[USAFRet]

Run cooler and more efficient.

Superior architecture and design.

But why would the i7-5820K have a higher TDP and slower speed than an FX-6300?

TDP and a theoretical GHz number are not the only factors.
Given a specific task, which performs better?

 

[Th3-Hunter333]

You cant use the 5820k as as example here lol.

The 5820k is a 6 core 12 threaded monster of a chip, its a workstation processor.

Also, the fx 6300 at 4.5ghz is more along the lines of being equivalent to 3.3ghz on intel (the architecture is not the same)

 

[SBMfromLA]

As a consumer you should know the answer. In every industry.. there is an unwritten rule that says the "market leader" should jack up their price. Allow me to explain.

Sodas: Coke has the largest share.. hence costs more than Pepsi

Cell Phones: Apple is the market leader... iPhones are more expensive

GPSs: NVidia is considered the market leader.. thus more expensive

Another belief and theory I'll add is.. if AMD was larger than Intel and was the market leader.. they would be the ones with the higher prices... that's just how it works in this world.. The leader will always charge the premium price...

 

[Commander Matt]

A selling price for a CPU is based on a couple of things.
Overall cost, incl R&D and some profit, and what the market will bear.

Evidently, the market will bear what Intel is charging. So that is what they do.

They are not in the business of providing low cost, high end CPU's to you.
They are in the business of making a profit.

Very true... I forgot about the iGPU that's in every single Intel CPU (unless I've overlooked one?), so I'm assuming that contributes to the cost a fair bit?

You cant use the 5820k as as example here lol.

The 5820k is a 6 core 12 threaded monster of a chip, its a workstation processor.

Also, the fx 6300 at 4.5ghz is more along the lines of being equivalent to 3.3ghz on intel (the architecture is not the same)

I'm not sure the 12 threads is fair; Hyper-Threading isn't better than a full core, after all.
Also, I understand what you're saying, but I still don't get it.
A cycle is a cycle, so why are Intel's cycles better than AMD's?
Sorry about how picky I'm being.

As a consumer you should know the answer. In every industry.. there is an unwritten rule that says the "market leader" should jack up their price. Allow me to explain.

Sodas: Coke has the largest share.. hence costs more than Pepsi

Cell Phones: Apple is the market leader... iPhones are more expensive

GPSs: NVidia is considered the market leader.. thus more expensive

Another belief and theory I'll add is.. if AMD was larger than Intel and was the market leader.. they would be the ones with the higher prices... that's just how it works in this world.. The leader will always charge the premium price...

This makes the most sense to me, but it still seems silly on Intel's part. Why price hundreds of dollars more?

Addition answers are welcome despite me picking a solution.

 

[Th3-Hunter333]

A selling price for a CPU is based on a couple of things.
Overall cost, incl R&D and some profit, and what the market will bear.

Evidently, the market will bear what Intel is charging. So that is what they do.

They are not in the business of providing low cost, high end CPU's to you.
They are in the business of making a profit.

Very true... I forgot about the iGPU that's in every single Intel CPU (unless I've overlooked one?), so I'm assuming that contributes to the cost a fair bit?

Not exactly every single one, for example mine does not. The entire x99 socket has no iGPU if im not mistaken

 

[Commander Matt]

A selling price for a CPU is based on a couple of things.
Overall cost, incl R&D and some profit, and what the market will bear.

Evidently, the market will bear what Intel is charging. So that is what they do.

They are not in the business of providing low cost, high end CPU's to you.
They are in the business of making a profit.

Very true... I forgot about the iGPU that's in every single Intel CPU (unless I've overlooked one?), so I'm assuming that contributes to the cost a fair bit?

Not exactly every single one, for example mine does not. The entire x99 socket has no iGPU if im not mistaken

The x99 CPUs are workstation/server level, though. No iGPU makes sense in that case (why have an iGPU in a server, or in a workstation promises to have a more powerful GPU). Consumer grade, though, I keep finding iGPUs in their CPUs.
Which CPU do you have?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

They cost more because they are better.

 

[Bem-xxx]

Okay, so first I'd like to say I am NOT trying to start a flame war or an AMD vs Intel war. I'm only familiar with AMD, and do not know much about Intel (aside from how Hyper Threading works). Please avoid starting flame wars.

While scrolling through PCPartPicker's CPU list, time and time again I notice Intel CPUs being far more expensive than an AMD equivalent (or a better AMD). Why is this? Intel is a smart company, so they wouldn't make their components so pricey without good reason.

As an example, why is the i7-4820K $335? Why is it more expensive than an FX-6300? An FX-8350?

Again, I'm not trying to start any flame wars. I'm extremely curious about this, as it seems there's no pattern between CPUs. A $1k Intel CPU with slower speeds has a higher TDP than the faster lower TDP Intel CPU, for example (again, for example).

Am I missing something? Is there some secret Intel chip inside that turns each i7 into a 7-head-robo-hydra? Maybe a robotic Elmo that laughs and hugs you to death? Or... maybe... that robohead on all of Intel's boxes????

Overpriced? Surely. Give you the best performance? Not always.
http://www.technologyx.com/featured/amd-vs-intel-our-8-core-cpu-gaming-performance-showdown/?hootPostID=282b782e2a8d67e68bbb50aeea079e96

 

[synphul]

I think part of the problem with that benchmark on 7 zip (which is about the only one the fx lineup excels in) is that it's only counting mips. It doesn't say how fast it performed an operation in 7zip. In this TH benchmark the same 3770k that scored lower in mips than the 8350 managed to perform a medium compression in 7zip faster than the 8350.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2015/-31-7-Zip,3723.html

I suppose if you spend your day zipping a lot of files and not much else the 8350 is a bargain. Most users who even zip files (some don't) spend very little of their overall time on a pc doing so. I would say it accounts for less than 5% of their time on a computer and that's being pretty generous. The other 95% of the time the intel i5's and i7's will be outpacing the fx chips.

The pricing isn't really more expensive, they're priced according to performance. An i3 and fx 63xx are priced similarly and perform similarly. An 8350 is around the same price as a low end locked i5 and loses out to the i5 by just a little. An i7 is more expensive and amd has no direct competitor to an i7. It's a bit like comparing a diamond and a ruby, they're both gemstones but of different demand/quality/value so are priced differently.

 

[TheDarkOne198]

lets not forget certain other factors,such as the fact that AMD used a CMT (Clustered Multi Threading) design called Bulldozer (colloquially known as "CAT Cores",e.g. Caterpillar) a more server oriented design that assumes all cores being used equally,against the STRONG recommendations of them not using it from their design staff,because the marketing side of the company wanted something out right away (Source: The Tek). They should have probably started a new design from scratch,something they are doing now,or continued along the Phenom path,with higher speed single cores. The Zen CPU designs are using SMT (Simultaneous Multi Threading) which has been used by Intel for quite some time and is basically what HT is,just with a fancy name. AMD has also made some dumb decisions in the past,though I attribute that more to pressure on them. I know I make some dumb decisions myself when under pressure,sometimes. A corporation with staff to warn against things should be more immune to this,though and some argue that buying ATI was also a big mistake,though I personally think there is a lot of potential in the HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) and HUMA (Heterogeneous Unified Memory Architecture) ideas that buying ATI flourished. Lots of potential there,but it is probably very much ahead of its time as it requires software to develop in a manner that uses the GPU in an APU for computing,especially if used for floating point. Technically speaking,an APU could (possibly,IMO) stomp an i7 quad core with HT,if software was coded to use it and its GPU properly (source: "Sapphire" Ed on Tech Talk with Jaystwocents and Baraculese Nerdgasm). There is,of course the source of that pressure,that being Intel. There is all the shady things Intel has tried to do in the past that border,if not cross the line,on trying to form a monopoly (paying OEM's,or giving them major discounts to not use AMD chips in their PC's). That financially hurt AMD a lot and while Intel got in trouble for it and AMD MAY have squandered the money they won from the court case by buying ATI. Intel has continued to use some somewhat shady practices,though not strictly illegal,I dont think. Just questionable. They are more expensive,as SBM said,because they basically can be due to having market share. This is exactly WHY AMD should be supported,IMO. If AMD goes out of business,its BAD NEWS for Intel fans. No competition in the X86-64 market will cause Intel to charge way more. I bet a dual core Pentium would end up being near $200 USD and the i5 or i7? Forget about it. I do have some pretty good faith in AMD in the future,though. I am hoping that Zen will do well and will likely upgrade to it (after seeing some benchmarks and comparisons,of course) and AMD separating the Radeon division was likely a great move. The Radeon guys can now basically do what they are meant to do,which is design the best GPU they can along with the drivers for it while the parent company's designers can focus its time and resources on the CPU side. I am hoping AMD can turn themselves around and secure at least 40% of the market,or more. That will force Intel to lower prices,which is healthier for all consumers.

 

[CountMike]

My pick is answer "Because they can".
Why is AMD is not selling for more is "Because they can't". If you look at financial records of AMD, they are loosing money all the time but make it up on other products.

 

[synphul]

It could go either way with competition but just because amd has lower prices at the moment doesn't mean that will necessarily continue. It might and it might not. They can't really charge more than they are based on current performance to keep price/performance competitive. There might be a few dollars in savings but being competitively priced doesn't mean giving it away either.

Assuming zen can make substantial improvements and catch up to intel's performance they have a choice. Try and undercut intel and make the competition tighter possibly causing intel to lower prices. The other option is if they're delivering intel level performance they may increase the price of their cpu's to match intel.

Having a history of less expensive cpu's doesn't mean amd is a charity, they need to make money. In their current financial position they need to make all the money they can to pay off debts and cover the costs of all the r&d put into zen. That could just as easily mean intel-like prices instead of brand new high performing cpu's at old outdated lesser performing cpu prices. If they were to produce a zen cpu capable of competing head to head with a $250-350 i5/i7 I certainly wouldn't hold my breath for a $165 price tag.

This isn't just in cpu's it's business in general. Pepsi and coke used to sell 2L bottles of soda for around 95 cents. Then $1.05 and eventually $1.25 and so on. When pepsi's price went up to $1.25 coca cola's response wasn't to permanently leave their competing soft drink at 90 cents for the same size bottle. They increased price together. Rather than playing a price war of cut throat price games trying to undercut and outsell the competition they sort of 'agree' on a price. Price wars are great for consumers but getting out of hand means cutting deeply into profits and cutting their nose to spite their face.

If coke and pepsi were the only two soft drinks available there's nothing preventing them from deciding together to keep prices similar and both raise them. What are people going to do? They can either stop drinking the product or pay up. Bigger profits for both companies, it's a win win. If companies purely marketed on the premise of undercutting their competition companies would be broke and everything would be dirt cheap but that's definitely not the case.

In the case of amd/intel, intel's latest chips have gone up in price. While it may not be great news to the consumer it may actually help amd. Instead of being forced to sell a new cpu at $180 they may have more wiggle room to up their price to say $200 or $220 and still remain price competitive with intel. The further intel lowers their prices the lower amd is forced to lower theirs and their profit margins could be negated. Lowering prices far enough and long enough intel could easily put amd out of business by not giving them room to earn a profit they desperately need.

 

[Commander Matt]

lets not forget certain other factors,such as the fact that AMD used a CMT (Clustered Multi Threading) design called Bulldozer (colloquially known as "CAT Cores",e.g. Caterpillar) a more server oriented design that assumes all cores being used equally,against the STRONG recommendations of them not using it from their design staff,because the marketing side of the company wanted something out right away (Source: The Tek). They should have probably started a new design from scratch,something they are doing now,or continued along the Phenom path,with higher speed single cores. The Zen CPU designs are using SMT (Simultaneous Multi Threading) which has been used by Intel for quite some time and is basically what HT is,just with a fancy name. AMD has also made some dumb decisions in the past,though I attribute that more to pressure on them. I know I make some dumb decisions myself when under pressure,sometimes. A corporation with staff to warn against things should be more immune to this,though and some argue that buying ATI was also a big mistake,though I personally think there is a lot of potential in the HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) and HUMA (Heterogeneous Unified Memory Architecture) ideas that buying ATI flourished. Lots of potential there,but it is probably very much ahead of its time as it requires software to develop in a manner that uses the GPU in an APU for computing,especially if used for floating point. Technically speaking,an APU could (possibly,IMO) stomp an i7 quad core with HT,if software was coded to use it and its GPU properly (source: "Sapphire" Ed on Tech Talk with Jaystwocents and Baraculese Nerdgasm). There is,of course the source of that pressure,that being Intel. There is all the shady things Intel has tried to do in the past that border,if not cross the line,on trying to form a monopoly (paying OEM's,or giving them major discounts to not use AMD chips in their PC's). That financially hurt AMD a lot and while Intel got in trouble for it and AMD MAY have squandered the money they won from the court case by buying ATI. Intel has continued to use some somewhat shady practices,though not strictly illegal,I dont think. Just questionable. They are more expensive,as SBM said,because they basically can be due to having market share. This is exactly WHY AMD should be supported,IMO. If AMD goes out of business,its BAD NEWS for Intel fans. No competition in the X86-64 market will cause Intel to charge way more. I bet a dual core Pentium would end up being near $200 USD and the i5 or i7? Forget about it. I do have some pretty good faith in AMD in the future,though. I am hoping that Zen will do well and will likely upgrade to it (after seeing some benchmarks and comparisons,of course) and AMD separating the Radeon division was likely a great move. The Radeon guys can now basically do what they are meant to do,which is design the best GPU they can along with the drivers for it while the parent company's designers can focus its time and resources on the CPU side. I am hoping AMD can turn themselves around and secure at least 40% of the market,or more. That will force Intel to lower prices,which is healthier for all consumers.

This was the kind of answer I was looking for, same for synphul's.

TheDarkOne198's answer had an awesome explanation; explained multiple points, explained why the why (e.g., why is AMD's Bulldozer known as "slower than Intel"), and then some, then backed it all with sources.
Synphul's answer(s) did a great job explaining the marketing side of things, especially with that coke-pepsi metaphor.

Can a mod (or someone who can change the solution) please pick TheDark's answer as solution, and then give synphul a cookie (or cake, or... whatever his/her favorite dessert is)?

I'm going to edit the original post to quote TheDarkOne and Synphul, and then to list a few honorable mentions.

Thank you everyone who posted! Everyone contributed one way or another, so thank you! I greatly appreciate it!

Edit: Little disappointed that there wasn't any 7-head-robo-hydra involved, but oh well. 😛

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Thread Solution changed for OP.

 

[TheDarkOne198]

It could go either way with competition but just because amd has lower prices at the moment doesn't mean that will necessarily continue. It might and it might not. They can't really charge more than they are based on current performance to keep price/performance competitive. There might be a few dollars in savings but being competitively priced doesn't mean giving it away either.

Assuming zen can make substantial improvements and catch up to intel's performance they have a choice. Try and undercut intel and make the competition tighter possibly causing intel to lower prices. The other option is if they're delivering intel level performance they may increase the price of their cpu's to match intel.

Having a history of less expensive cpu's doesn't mean amd is a charity, they need to make money. In their current financial position they need to make all the money they can to pay off debts and cover the costs of all the r&d put into zen. That could just as easily mean intel-like prices instead of brand new high performing cpu's at old outdated lesser performing cpu prices. If they were to produce a zen cpu capable of competing head to head with a $250-350 i5/i7 I certainly wouldn't hold my breath for a $165 price tag.

This isn't just in cpu's it's business in general. Pepsi and coke used to sell 2L bottles of soda for around 95 cents. Then $1.05 and eventually $1.25 and so on. When pepsi's price went up to $1.25 coca cola's response wasn't to permanently leave their competing soft drink at 90 cents for the same size bottle. They increased price together. Rather than playing a price war of cut throat price games trying to undercut and outsell the competition they sort of 'agree' on a price. Price wars are great for consumers but getting out of hand means cutting deeply into profits and cutting their nose to spite their face.

If coke and pepsi were the only two soft drinks available there's nothing preventing them from deciding together to keep prices similar and both raise them. What are people going to do? They can either stop drinking the product or pay up. Bigger profits for both companies, it's a win win. If companies purely marketed on the premise of undercutting their competition companies would be broke and everything would be dirt cheap but that's definitely not the case.

In the case of amd/intel, intel's latest chips have gone up in price. While it may not be great news to the consumer it may actually help amd. Instead of being forced to sell a new cpu at $180 they may have more wiggle room to up their price to say $200 or $220 and still remain price competitive with intel. The further intel lowers their prices the lower amd is forced to lower theirs and their profit margins could be negated. Lowering prices far enough and long enough intel could easily put amd out of business by not giving them room to earn a profit they desperately need.

I wouldn't mind seeing AMD chips priced that high,though AMD does have a history of being a bit less expensive,even still. Even if its only about 15-20 dollars less,it would be welcome. In PC building,every dollar counts and saving small amounts here and there can save big amounts in the end,as we all know. Thanks for the best answer Matt

On a side note,I miss those 3 liter bottles that were out back in the day,haha.

 

[synphul]

Haha, just got through thanksgiving and another holiday approaching. Cookies, just what I need lmao.

I don't think amd users would be overly mad at seeing a bit higher prices if in fact the performance was there to justify it. Saving money is always a good thing and especially on a tight budget where it could mean the difference between a lower end component and an upgraded version. On the other hand many core components last people several years and aren't frequent repeat purchases so a price hike isn't the end of the world.

Anymore $15-20 isn't much in a pc build. I remember when case fans were averaging around $5-8 for decent ones, a decent mouse or keyboard could be had for $15-30 and so on. Sure there were premium items with significantly higher prices. Now it's not abnormal for a decent case fan to run $12-18 and plenty of keyboards and mice running $50-70 each. That doesn't even scratch the top end mechanical keyboards running $140+.

 

[CountMike]

And computer cases, don't forget them, if i stuck my parts in some medium to top priced ones it would easily double the price of it without any better performance.