Ryzen vs Coffee Lake Prices Late 2017: Core i7, i5 cost 17% above MSRP
There is still a big difference between the market prices of AMD Ryzen and Intel Coffee Lake processors. Ryzen, on average, is selling well below the official MSRP, whereas Coffee Lake prices are significantly higher than originally stated by Intel.
Intel Coffee Lake Prices ~17% above the Official MSRP, Ryzen 15% Cheaper
AMD’s Ryzen CPUs (including Threadripper) are available at 7-28% below the launch price. The prices fell as part of their Cyber Monday deals, which are still partially in effect to this day.
Intel, at the same time, suffers from delivery problems and so their 8th Gen Coffee Lake processors are consistently expensive, especially the Core i7 and i5 models. In the best case scenario, you can find a Coffee Lake chip priced at 8% above the official MSRP, while it can be worse up to 26%, at an average increase of 16.9%.
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The limited product availability is to blame for this, which has plagued Intel’s latest desktop lineup since the launch in late September. The company is, however, trying to address this situation as it assembles new Core i7 and i5 Coffee Lake CPUs at its plant located in Chengdu, China.
As for why the Coffee Lake pricing is so surprising is because many reviewers were not able to predict the real situation for the release. At the time of first Coffee Lake reviews, Intel MSRP and AMD’s then prices for Ryzen were assumed. In reality however, Intel Core processors are now significantly expensive and AMD Ryzen family is cheaper.
Fortunately, this doesn’t affect all latest-gen Intel processors. The Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X HEDT processors are currently available below their list prices – although not quite as far below as Ryzen.
We can hope Coffee Lake prices to get back to normal with better availability in the first quarter of 2018. Speaking of the Q1, AMD is already expected to launch their 12nm Ryzen Gen 2 chips early next year to better compete with Intel Coffee Lake. Indeed, engineering samples of these processors are already out in the wild.