What just happened? In the battle between Intel and AMD, team blue has long been the more expensive option, even as Ryzen closed the performance gap. But it appears that Intel is taking advantage of its rival’s supply issues by dropping the prices of some 10th-generation Comet Lake CPUs.
As spotted by Tom’s Hardware, Intel’s Core i7-10700F processor, as in the one with the multiplier lock and no iGPU, is down from $315 one month ago to just $229 on Amazon. You can also grab a Core i5-10400F for just $150 also on Amazon, while Staples is offering it for $142 — though it’s already out of stock there.
As you can see from our Product Finder, which includes a price tracker showing the lowest and highest prices on Amazon over the last 120 days, several Comet Lake chips have been getting cheaper recently.
The Core i7-10700K, one of our ‘Best Gaming CPU’ picks, can be found for $344, down from its average of $384, while the Core i9-10900KF is $463.
In addition to the reduced prices, the other appealing element about the Comet Lake chips is that they’re actually available to buy. Because the company has its own manufacturing fabs, Intel isn’t fighting with other industries for capacity at TSMC, as is the case with AMD, which is also dealing with low Ryzen 5000 stock.
Intel’s 11th-gen Rocket Lake chips are expected to arrive in the first quarter of the year, though they won’t support motherboards with H410 or B460 chipsets. The company recently grabbed some CPU market share back from AMD for the first time in 3 years; by reducing Comet Lake prices, the firm appears to be capitalizing on these gains.