[Hardware] U.S. Retailer Reveals Alder Lake Boxed, Tray Pricing: Up To $600

[Hwak]

Provantage (via Harukaze5719), a retailer in the U.S., has listed pricing for Intel's 12th Generation Alder Lake K-series processors. Alder Lake will be the first hybrid x86 desktop chips on a mainstream platform, and given the competitive price listings, they certainly look like they'll compete with AMD's Ryzen 5000 chips for a spot on our list of Best CPUs for Gaming.

Although Provantage is a reputable store, we recommend you approach the pricing with caution. Alder Lake won't debut until Fall 2021, so Provantage's pricing could just be a placeholder. However, the prices do fall in line with the listings from another retailer, so they could be a very good indication of how Intel could price the heterogeneous processors.

Provantage listed the Core i9-12900K, Core i7-12700K, Core i5-12600K, and their corresponding KF-series counterparts. The KF models come with a $26 to $27 discount, so that's seemingly what Intel's Gen12 Xe graphics is worth. That's not a huge surprise, considering that Alder Lake has been rumored to retain the Xe-LP graphics engine that's inside Intel's Tiger Lake chips, but with up to 32 EUs.

Intel 12th Generation Alder Lake Pricing
Processor    Boxed Pricing    Tray Pricing    Base / Boost Clocks (GHz)    L3 Cache (MB)    TDP (W)    Boxed PN    Tray PN
Core i9-12900K    $604.89    $605.92    3.2 / 5.2    30    125    BX8071512900K    CM8071504549230
Core i9-12900KF    $578.13    $578.49    3.2 / 5.2    30    125    BX8071512900KF    CM8071504549231
Core i7-12700K    $422.17    $420.26    3.6 / 5.0    25    125    BX8071512700K    CM8071504553828
Core i7-12700KF    $395.61    $392.36    3.6 / 5.0    25    125    BX8071512700KF    CM8071504553829
Core i5-12600K    $288.77    $283.59    3.7 / 4.9    20    125    BX8071512600K    CM8071504555227
Core i5-12600KF    $261.77    $263.15    3.7 / 4.9    20    125    BX8071512600KF    CM8071504555228
Provantage has the Core i9-12900K, and Core i9-12900KF listed at $604.89 and $578.13, respectively. The pricing looks modest compared to another retailer that posted the same processors for $705 and $674, respectively. However, if we look at the current Rocket Lake lineup, the Core i9-11900K and Core i9-11900KF sell for $549 and $529, respectively. Apparently, the Alder Lake equivalents carry a $55 and $49 premium.

Pricing-wise, the Core i9 models compete with the Ryzen 9 5900X, which has a $549 MSRP. However, AMD's chip features 12 Zen 3 cores with SMT, and while the Core i9-12900K has 16 cores in total, only eight are high-performance Golden Cove cores. So it'll be interesting to see how Golden Cove stacks up to Zen 3 with a four-core disadvantage.

Intel 12th Generation Alder Lake

Intel 12th Generation Alder Lake (Image credit: Provantage)
The Core i7-12700K and Core i7-12700KF, on the other hand, might cost $422.17 and $395.61, respectively. For comparison, the other retailer listed them for $495 and $464, respectively. The Core i7-11700K and Core i7-11700KF are available for $409 and $384, respectively, so we're looking at a price increase between $11 and $13, which sounds reasonable.

The only Zen 3 chip in that price range is the Ryzen 7 5800X that debuted at $449. This might be a fair fight as the Core i7 SKU is rumored to rock eight Golden Cove cores, and the Ryzen 7 5800X has eight Zen 3 cores.

The Core i5-12600K and Core i5-12600KF will likely be the favorite SKUs for gamers. The first may carry a $288.77 price tag, while the latter is priced at $261.77. Again, Provantage's pricing is lower than the other U.S. retailer that listed the Core i5-12600K for $343 and the Core i5-12600KF for $312. The Core i5-11600K and Core i5-11600KF typically go for $272 and $247, respectively. With Alder Lake, it's a $16 higher price tag on the former and a $14 premium on the latter.