Intel’s 12th Gen Alder Lake processors are known for their leadership gaming performance. The Golden Cove cores with their potent IPC and high boost clocks obliterate AMD’s Ryzen 5000 CPUs in pretty much every game. The low-power Gracemont cores make sure these chips don’t fall behind in heavily multi-threaded workloads such as content creation. In addition to this, Alder Lake launched with increasingly aggressive pricing, undercutting the Zen 3 parts in every aspect. Roughly six months after launch, even the higher-end Core i7-12700K has dropped to just $188.99.
In comparison, AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600X which is much slower than the 12700K is going for $209. Its nearest Intel rival, the Core i5-12600K is selling for $137.99, pretty much making it an instant buy. It’s worth noting that even the 12600K is faster than AMD’s fastest gaming CPU, the Ryzen 9 5900X which is presently discounted to $399 on Newegg.
Interestingly, Newegg is the only etailer offering these cutthroat prices. Both the discounted CPUs are being shipped from China, so it’s hard to tell if they’re 100% legit. Microcenter which generally has the lowest prices is Core i5-12600K for $249.99 and the Core i7-12700K for $349.99. In comparison, AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 7 5800X are going for $209.99 and $319.99, respectively. The Ryzen 9 5900X is discounted to $399 while the Core i9-12900K is priced at $549.99.
Update: Prices of the Core i7-12700K and the i5-12600K have returned to MSRP.
