Notebookcheck Logo

Retailer lists the Intel Core i9-9900K for pre-order at €689 but it's likely false

Take those prices with a grain of salt. (Source: Videocardz)
Take those prices with a grain of salt. (Source: Videocardz)
European online retailer CentralPoint has listed the Intel Core i9-9900K and the Core i7-9700K for pre-order. CentralPoint expects the stocks to arrive as early as September 7 and has listed the i9-9900K for €689 + VAT and the i7-9700K for €539 + VAT. Given that we will not know the MSRP of these chips before September, the listed prices are to be taken with a grain of salt.

Intel is still a few months away from launching the 8th generation 'Coffee Lake-S Refresh' CPUs such as the Core i9-9900K and the Core i7-9700K but CentralPoint, a European online retailer, has already put up listings for both these CPUs and is ready to take pre-orders. CentralPoint is expecting to stock the CPU on September 7, which is too good to be true. A more shocking fact is that the retailer has listed the prices even before Intel made them official.

The listed price of the Core i9-9900K is €689 excluding VAT. That is just unbelievable considering that the current Intel mainstream desktop flagship CPU, the Core i7-8700K, retails from €329.99 in Europe. Granted that the Core i9-9900K features 8 cores 16 threads and can push 5 GHz turbo out of the box but the price difference simply appears too large to warrant a pre-order at this stage — especially, when Intel itself hasn't made these CPUs official yet. 

The Core i7-9700K also gets a listing at €539 + VAT, which still is a lot more than the Core i7-8700K. The Core i7 in the upcoming 'Coffee Lake-S Refresh' lineup will not feature Hyperthreading. We will get to know if that really makes a difference in gaming and other tasks once we get to review the CPUs post launch. 

In any case, we advise readers to take those prices with a grain of the proverbial salt. Logically, it doesn't make sense that these prices would be real. This seems to be more of a cash-grab by online stores to increase pre-orders. Think of it for a second. If Intel is to come anywhere close to AMD in the price-to-performance parameter — which it really needs to do — there is no way that it can price an 8-core CPU more than the combined price of an AMD Ryzen 7 2700X and a high-end X470 motherboard, that too for what is basically the same 14nm+ architecture as the current 'Coffee Lake-S' CPUs.

Either that, or Intel is planning to do something special with these chips. For now though, we'll lean towards the improbable and suggest you do the same as well.

Source(s)

static version load dynamic
Loading Comments
Comment on this article
Please share our article, every link counts!
> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2018 08 > Retailer lists the Intel Core i9-9900K for pre-order at €689 but it's likely false
Vaidyanathan Subramaniam, 2018-08-24 (Update: 2018-08-24)