AMD’s new Ryzen desktop processor family is about to arrive in an over-packed station wagon in a matter of days, threatening to put a dent in Intel’s current performance desktop processor market share. AMD has already baited customers with an option to pre-purchase its three top-of-the-line chips, with the most expensive model costing $500 and performing on a par with a similar Intel processor costing over $1,000. That has pushed Intel to lower its prices before the Ryzen family arrives with a bang.
The price cuts have already shown up on Microcenter, revealing reductions ranging from $15 to $300. For instance, the Intel Core i7-6950X chip originally sold for $1,900, but is now $300 less, representing the biggest price reduction so far. This is a ten-core processor launched in the second quarter of 2016 with a base clock speed of 3.0GHz and a boost clock speed of 4.0GHz.
Here are the price reductions seen on Microcenter so far:
Core i7 |
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| Core i7-6950X | Core i7-6900K | Core i7-6850K | Core i7-6800K | |
| New Price: | $1,599 | $999 | $549 | $359 |
| Price reduction: | $300 | $200 | $150 | $140 |
| Core i7-5820K | Core i7-7700K | Core i7-6700K | Core i7-4790K | |
| New Price: | $319 | $299 | $259 | $279 |
| Price reduction: | $100 | $80 | $140 | $90 |
| Core i7-7700 | Core i7-6700 | |||
| New price: | $289 | $259 | ||
| Price reduction: | $50 | $90 |
Core i5 |
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| Core i5-7600K | Core i5-6600K | Core i5-4690K | Core i5-7500 | |
| New price: | $199 | $179 | $189 | $189 |
| Price reduction: | $70 | $90 | $70 | $30 |
| Core i5-6500 | Core i5-4590 | |||
| New price: | $179 | $159 | ||
| Price reduction: | $50 | $60 |
Core i3 |
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| Core i3-7350K | Core i3-7100 | Core i3-6100 | ||
| New price: | $159 | $114 | $109 | |
| Price reduction: | $20 | $15 | $20 |
Pentium |
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| Pentium G4400 | Pentium G3258 | |||
| New price: | $50 | $50 | ||
| Price reduction: | $20 | $20 |
Microcenter isn’t the only online retailer slashing the prices of Intel desktop processors. Amazon is showing discounted prices, too, such as the $315 Core i7-6700 now priced at $305, and the Core i7-6850K reduced from $628 to $580. Meanwhile, the Core i7-6700K currently costs $310 over on Newegg, down from $370. The Core i5-6600K now costs $230 instead of $250.
Currently, AMD’s $400 Ryzen 7 1700X desktop processor is the second-best-selling CPU on Amazon, slotting behind the $340 Intel Core i7-7700K and ahead of the $240 Intel Core i5-7600K. AMD’s $330 Ryzen 7 1700 chip resides in seventh place while the $500 Ryzen 7 1800X falls into thirteenth place. All three AMD processors are up for pre-purchase only, and won’t actually become available until March 2.
Just for kicks, let’s compare the two top-selling desktop processors that just happen to sport the same price tag:
| Core i7-7700K | Ryzen 7 1700X | |
| Cores: | 4 | 8 |
| Threads: | 8 | 16 |
| Base speed: | 3.60GHz | 3.6GHz |
| Boost speed: | 4.20GHz | 3.8GHz |
| Cache: | 8MB | 20MB |
| Maximum power draw: | 91 watts | 95 watts |
| Integrated graphics: | Intel HD Graphics 630 | None |
| Graphics base speed: | 350MHz | n/a |
| Graphics max speed: | 1.1GHz | n/a |
| Price: | $400 | $400 |
As shown above, AMD’s chip has twice the number of cores and threads, but consumes more power. In Intel’s defense, the i7-7700K includes integrated graphics, thus AMD customers still need to purchase an additional GPU solution. Moreover, Intel’s prices may drop even further later this year when the launch of its eighth-generation “Coffee Lake” processor family grows near.
