Intel’s “great value” CPUs are getting taxed before they even hit the shelves.
Chipzilla’s Arrow Lake Refresh parts, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, are showing up at retailers with pre-order prices higher than the suggested figures.
The launch chatter has been that Arrow Lake Refresh brought more cores, higher clocks and new toys like the Binary Optimisation Tool for gaming and everyday apps.
Intel originally pitched the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus at $299, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus at $199, and the Core Ultra 5 250KF Plus at $184.
Retail guidance was meant to sit around $289 to $299 for the 270K Plus, $189 to $199 for the 250K Plus and $174 to $184 for the 250KF Plus.
Instead, the Core Ultra 5 250KF Plus is already up for pre-order at $199.99 at Newegg, despite the whole point being it was meant to be cheaper.
That 250KF Plus is the 18-core part with six P-cores and 12 E-cores, boosting up to 5.3GHz, needing discrete graphics and using 800-series chipset boards.
The rest of the line is drifting even further from the tidy pricing reviewers used when they praised the value proposition.
The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, with 24 cores split into eight P-cores and 16 E-cores, is listed at $357.12 on Amazon, which is 19.3 per cent above MSRP.
Newegg and Micro Centre are listing the 270K Plus at $349, while B&H Photo lists it at $329, and none of that screams bargain.
The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is no better, with listings at $219 on Newegg and B&H Photo, while Amazon and Micro Centre list it at $249.
That puts the 250K Plus anywhere from 10 per cent to 25.1 per cent above the $199 figure Chipzilla wanted everyone to remember.
The Core Ultra 5 250KF Plus is taking the same treatment, with Amazon at $227, Newegg at $199, Micro Centre at $229 and B&H Photo at $209.
This lines up with earlier noise that Chipzilla had warned partners about incoming consumer CPU price rises, and Arrow Lake Refresh looks like it got the memo first.
Budget builders who were eyeing these parts for their pricing are now staring at pre-order pages and doing that slow rethink you can practically hear through the case fans.
