Will Price Cuts Save intel from 7nm AMD Zen 2? Intel Rumored to Slash CPU Prices by 15%

Things Don’t Look Well for Intel

Intel fourth-quarter 2017 financials & "in-silicon" CPU fixes 

Intel fourth-quarter 2017 financials & “in-silicon” CPU fixes

Thanks to AMD’s next-gen 7nm Zen 2 CPUs are going to end Intel’s monopoly over the desktop CPU market as Zen 2 provides better performance for way lower prices than Intel’s competing CPUs but, Intel’s price cuts may change everything. 

Intel Price Cuts

Thanks to Digitimes, we know that Intel has a high chance of slashing their desktop CPU prices by 10-15% so that they can compete with AMD’s next-gen 7nm CPUs which are reportedly going to be released on July 7th. This means that Intel’s most powerful gaming CPU, the Intel Core i9-9900K can get its price slashed down by up to $75 which means that it could cost as low as $425. Intel’s mainstream gaming CPU, the Intel Core i7-8700k can get its price reduced by up to $52.50 which means that gamers will be able to pick it up for as low as $300. Intel is most likely going to slash their higher-end CPU prices by 15% and the lower-end ones by about 10%.

AMD Zen 2 Specs

AMD’s next-gen 7nm CPUs are going to be very powerful thanks to their high core counts and good single-core as well as multi-core performance. For the low price of $199, gamers will be able to get their hands on a 6 core/12 threads CPU which hasn’t been seen at this price range. Right now, for $30 more you can pick up the Intel Core i5-9600K which features 6 cores/6 threads as well as a max frequency of 4.6 GHz.

AMD Ryzen 3000 Desktop AM4 Series
Cores/Threads | Base Clock | Turbo Clock | TDP | MSRP
Ryzen 9 3950X
7nm 16C / 32T
3.5 GHz
4.7 GHz
105W
  TBC
Ryzen 9 3900X
7nm 12C / 24T
3.8 GHz
4.6 GHz
105W
 499 USD
Ryzen 7 3800X
7nm 8C / 16T
3.9 GHz
4.5 GHz
105W
 399 USD
Ryzen 7 3700X
7nm 8C / 16T
3.6 GHz
4.4 GHz
65W
 329 USD
Ryzen 5 3600X
7nm 6C / 12T
3.8 GHz
4.4 GHz
95W
 249 USD
Ryzen 5 3600
7nm 6C / 12T
3.6 GHz
4.2 GHz
65W
 199 USD

Will Intel be Able to beat Zen 2 With These Price Cuts?

Unfortunately, right now this question can’t be answered with certainty as we don’t have benchmarks that compare AMD Zen 2 to Intel’s competing CPUs but, we can make a somewhat accurate guess. With the price cuts, if Intel does slash the price of the i7-8700k by 15%, they may be able to take on AMD as it’ll mean that the 8700k will be a little cheaper then AMD’s Ryzen 7 3800x and, it may feature better gaming performance thanks to it’s higher turbo clock. The Core i9-9900k may not have much of a chance to compete with AMD Zen 2 as the lowest price that it can get to is $425 which means that it’ll be a competitor to the Ryzen 7 3800X which features 8 cores/16 threads as well as a boost clock of 4.5 GHz. The Core i9-9900k features 8 cores/16 threads and 5.0 GHz Turbo.

Of course, it must be noted that AMD Zen 2 CPUs are going to feature more cache than Intel’s competing CPUs as well as lower TDPs in some cases. Unfortunately for AMD, Intel still has the hand in terms of CPU frequency but, we can’t choose a clear winner as we’ll have to wait and see the benchmarks and see if Intel’s higher turbo clocks make up for what it lacks in other departments.

Tags and Keywords:
Technology, Video Games, Intel, AMD, AMD Zen 2, Intel Price Cuts, Intel vs AMD, AMD Ryzen 3000, 7nm AMD Zen 2 CPU, AMD Ryzen 3000 vs Inte, Intel Coffe Lake

Ali F
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