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Raptor Lake vs Zen 4 price war supposedly results in thinner retailer profit margins for Intel chips and horrible sales for AMD Zen 4 CPUs

Raptor Lake profit margins are reportedly much lower than Alder Lake. (Source: Gam-Ol on Pixabay, AMD, Intel-edited)
Raptor Lake profit margins are reportedly much lower than Alder Lake. (Source: Gam-Ol on Pixabay, AMD, Intel-edited)
Intel launched the 13th gen Raptor Lake chips recently at prices that compete very favorably with the AMD Zen 4 CPUs. Serial leaker Tom from the Moore’s Law is Dead YouTube channel alleges that the Raptor Lake CPUs have significantly reduced profit margins for the retailers than the Zen 4 chips, allowing Intel to price the processors as it did.

Intel launched the Raptor Lake CPUs on September 27. The chips include the Core i5-13600K/KF, the Core i7-13700K/KF, and the Core i9-13900K/KF. Prices of the 13th gen processors start at US$294 for the Core i5-13600KF and go up to US$589 for the Core i9-13900K. Hardware leaker Tom from the Moore’s Law is Dead YouTube channel reports that Intel has achieved these prices by significantly reducing profit margins for the retailers.

A source that allegedly works at a major retailer told the leaker that the retailer was “blindsided” by the final Raptor Lake pricing. The retailer was expecting to sell the Core i5-13600K for around US$349 “with a 10% margin” but the less-than-expected Raptor Lake prices have resulted in a 5% margin with Intel supposedly eating up the remaining 5% for a price drop. So, it is harder for retailers to make money with Raptor Lake than with Alder Lake chips as far as MLID’s source is concerned.

On the other hand, the same source explained that, with AMD Zen 4, the retailer is “making a solid 10-20% on each SKU”, a wider margin than the retailers usually enjoy. Tom maintains that this information is consistent between different sources.

All in all, Tom thinks that because Raptor Lake CPUs cost more to make and have slimmer profit margins, it is unlikely that the chips will often go on sale or fall in price as quickly as Alder Lake at retail outlets.

Moving on, the leaker reports that the AMD Zen 4 processors such as the Ryzen 5 7600X have quite good profit margins, so AMD could do price drops if the company feels like it. The company might want to slash prices as, based on early information received by MLID, Zen 4 CPU sales are horrible for the most part even though there is ample supply.

As always, the information presented here is based on anonymous sources of MLID. So, take it with a grain of salt.

Buy the Intel Core i5-12400 desktop processor on Amazon

(Source: MLID)
(Source: MLID)

Source(s)

Moore's Law is Dead on YouTube, Teaser image: Gam-Ol on Pixabay, Intel, AMD (edited)

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2022 09 > Raptor Lake vs Zen 4 price war supposedly results in thinner retailer profit margins for Intel chips and horrible sales for AMD Zen 4 CPUs
Fawad Murtaza, 2022-10- 3 (Update: 2022-10- 3)