Intel may limit or discontinue the Pentium G4560

Update 7/12/2017: Intel has stated that the Pentium G4560 will continue to be manufactured and sold throughout the foreseeable future. Some news outlets speculate that the rise in price is due to a supply shortage caused by cryptocurrency miners buying up the silicon as the CPU could feasibly offer a good price-to-performance for cryptocurrency mining. (via The Tech Report)

The Intel Pentium G4560 is perhaps the best value CPU currently offered by Intel. Based on Intel’s 14 nm Kaby Lake platform, the G4560 has successfully picked up the crown from the now legendary Pentium G3258, which was Intel’s most successful low-budget Pentium processor in recent history. The G4560 has been widely popular with budget-oriented and cash strapped PC gamers hoping to build a competent gaming rig on the cheap. But Intel may be slowing or halting production of the G4560 altogether, due primarily to the competition it created with itself.

The G4560 is a dual-core hyperthreaded CPU with a base clock of 3.5 GHz and 3 MB of L3 Cache. The chip was originally priced at $65, which was a heck of a deal when it was released. Compared to the competition, however, the lowly Pentium is actually a reasonable alternative to more expensive options, including Intel’s own Core i3 line. Although the G4560 isn’t quite on par with Intel’s Kaby Lake Core i3s (such as the i3-7300) and lacks some of the features of its bigger brothers, it is also about half the price.

There have been assumptions that the G4560 would cannibalize some of Intel’s own Core i3 sales, and that seems to be the case. But Intel’s response, according to Digiworthy, seems to be creating an artificial shortage of the Pentium chips. This seems to be the case, as the price of the G4560 has risen quite a bit in recent months. It is currently listed at $83 on Amazon and $108 on Newegg, which places it much closer to the pricing of some Core i3 models (typically around $115-120). This may make the Core i3 look much more attractive to potential buyers, as it now offers higher clock speeds, better onboard graphics, and a few extra niceties for $15-20 more rather than doubling the cost.

Right now, these are just rumors and should be taken with a grain of salt. However, it may be hard (if not impossible) to get a Pentium G4560 over the next few months due to rising prices and falling stock.

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