US retailer Provantage has revealed the prices of Intel"s 12th-gen processors and is also now taking orders. The retailer has accepted pre-orders for some Alder Lake CPUs even though they haven"t been officially launched yet. The pricing list of the vendor reveals that the new CPUs are not significantly more expensive than their predecessors.
Here"s a look at the pricing.
| Model | Boxed Price (w/o VAT) | Tray Price (w/o VAT) | Cores/Threads | L3 Cache Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core i9-12900K | $604.89 | $605.92 | 16/24 | 30MB |
| Core i7-12900KF | $578.13 | $578.49 | 16/24 | 30MB |
| Core i7-12700K | $422.17 | $420.26 | 12/20 | 25MB |
| Core i7-12700KF | $395.61 | $392.26 | 12/20 | 25MB |
| Core i5-12600K | $288.77 | $283.59 | 10/16 | 16MB |
| Core i5-12600KF | $261.77 | $263.15 | 10/16 | 16MB |
With Alder Lake-S, Intel is moving towards a hybrid Big-Bigger design called Performance Hybrid architecture, where it is marrying its big cores (P-cores) with its smaller efficient cores (E-cores). The company also confirmed that Alder Lake and Windows 11 are built around each other for optimal performance.
Although lesser than previously anticipated, the Alder Lake-S processors still carry a premium when compared to Rocket Lake ones. This is due to the new hybrid design and promised better performance.
The Core i5-12600K and the Core i5-12600KF at $288.77 and $261.77, respectively, offer quite a good value for money for people wanting to upgrade their old PCs, especially when Windows 11 won"t support older processors. Intel has also finally ditched the 14 nm fabrication process in favor of 10 nm for the Alder Lake, which could show major performance improvements and better efficiency.