Intel won’t further reduce the prices of its 12th Gen Core desktop processors, at least not officially. Contrary to what Digitimes reported the other day, the pricing of all its contemporary chips will remain unchanged. In an official statement to Mydrivers, the company said that the “processor price reduction” rumors are false. Intel’s 12th Gen (and even 13th Gen) CPUs are already selling well below their MSRPs at most retailers, so this isn’t too surprising.
The news about “Intel PC processor price cuts” is false. There are currently 11/12/13 generation Core products in different price ranges available to customers, and at the same time, it is working with OEMs to find new opportunities and new demands in the market to reduce inventory.
Intel to Mydrivers (machine translated)
Intel and its peers have been struggling with excess inventory for over a year now. The chipmaker reported a disastrous fourth quarter with an operating revenue of less than a billion dollars from its client segment. At the time of writing, the Core i5-12600K, i7-12700K, and i9-12900K are going for $250, $310, and $408, respectively.
Considering that their launch prices (i9: $589, i7: $409, and i5: $289) have already dropped by over $100, don’t expect further cuts until the competition (read: AMD’s Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs?) brings in something substantial.