Intel Silently Increases the Cost of Older Core i3/i5/i7/i9 Processors by Up to 15% Abroad

Over the past few weeks, Intel has been subtly raising the cost of its older desktop CPUs, which has an especially negative impact on consumer-favorite mid-range and low-cost chips. Between late September and mid-October, the Core i3-14100F’s price increased by 15%, from 121,000 won to 140,000 won, according to South Korean pricing tracker Danawa. At 298,000 won, the Core i5-14600KF has also increased by 13%. In certain stores in Japan, the Core i5-14400 has seen a notable 20% hike. The more costly Core i7 and i9 processors, on the other hand, have only seen slight price changes of about 5%. This suggests that Intel is targeting the high-volume vendors who account for the majority of their desktop sales rather than boosting prices consistently.

Intel’s latest desktop “Arrow Lake” CPUs were released at the same time as these price increases. Although the Core Ultra 200S chips were supposed to highlight Intel’s most recent developments, many builders have chosen to stick with older models due to conflicting performance assessments and high prices. Even with the release of new models, do-it-yourselfers continue to use older generation chips, which allows Intel to make more money on devices made using its well-established Intel 7 and Intel 10 process nodes. These earlier chips are completely under Intel’s control with regard to production costs and pricing, unlike Arrow Lake, which depends on TSMC’s external foundries and restricts Intel’s flexibility.

Intel is fully aware of the most popular SKUs. The chips with the biggest price increases in international markets are those found in prebuilt systems and do-it-yourself builds, such as the i5-14400F and i3-14100F. Price increases for some models in Asian regions are approaching 20%, while price increases for U.S. buyers may be about 10%. Customers are disappointed because they expected the introduction of new chips to lower the cost of older ones. Nonetheless, Intel appears to be more concerned with maintaining its profit margins than with reducing inventory. Maintaining solid revenues from prior generations seems to be a better short-term strategy for Intel to finance new product development and sustain the company financially, especially as Arrow Lake sales have fallen short of estimates.