Although for a long while it seemed that nobody would be able to challenge Intel’s position of dominance in the processor market, AMD shocked everyone this year with its new Ryzen line of CPUs. Because these not only offered an increased number of cores across the board (even the low-end Ryzen 3 models feature four cores) but shipped at affordable prices too, making Ryzen the hot technology item of the year for many.
Of course, Intel did not take long to respond to the Ryzen threat and announced that its Coffee Lake processors for desktops would be hitting shelves in the fourth quarter of the year. And given that Intel’s 8th gen CPUs for laptops are already available and do offer a substantial increase in performance, it’s clear many enthusiasts are anxiously awaiting the release of Intel’s new processors in early October.
Intel has not quoted any suggested retail prices yet, although one UK retailer is already taking pre-orders for the upcoming Coffee Lake processors. As reported on AnandTech, Lambda-Tek has listed UK prices for Intel’s upcoming processor line, and you can see these in the table below.
Intel Coffee Lake prices have emerged online (source: AnandTech).
Bear in mind that US prices are obtained here by converting directly from UK prices, but this still gives a rough idea of how much you can expect to pay for Intel’s new Coffee Lake CPUs nonetheless (US prices don’t include tax).
And here we see that Intel’s top of the line Core i7-8700K (£353.86) is not dearer than AMD’s high-end Ryzen 7 1800X (which currently retails for £399.95 on Amazon UK). But despite the fact that the Core i7-8700K only features six cores (the AMD processor has eight) Intel’s is likely to perform comparably to AMD’s offering due to its strong single core performance.
Also, the Core i5-8400 (£177.40) could be an interesting alternative to the Ryzen 5 1600 (which retails for £179.99) as it’s the first i5 to sport six cores, and should therefore offer a big jump in performance relative to its 7th gen equivalent the i5-7400. And the Core i3-8350K (£174.35) looks like it will offer a substantial bang for your buck too as recent benchmarks have suggested, putting even the likes of AMD’s Ryzen 5 1500X (£163.98 on Amazon UK) under pressure.
It is clear, though, that those looking to pick up an Intel 8th gen CPU this fall will do so at a premium as component prices tend to fall over time and processors are always costlier at launch.
Nonetheless, this is clearly Intel’s most exciting processor launch in a very long time, and given that we could be seeing the biggest performance jump since the Sandy Bridge architecture debuted in 2011, plenty of PC gamers will be waiting with bated breath for the blue-chip company’s new desktop processors to come out this fall.
Core i7 8th gen (Intel Corporation)