Intel Kaby Lake European Prices Pop Up

With just under two months to go, Intel’s new Kaby Lake processors have started popping up online. Last month, we got the first glimpse at what the US prices might look like, with the i7 7700K coming in at $350 and the i5 7600K at a lower $240 USD. Since then, no other prices have popped up but we now have some Euro prices from new listings. The cheapest pre-orders so far are from centralpoint.nl which has the i7 7700K at €434 and the i5 7600K at €301.

Of course, these prices are with VAT added in so they are more expensive than the American counterparts. Listings for some of the other chips like the i5 7400 at €235, i5 7500 at €253, i5 7600 at €277 and the i7 7700 for €386. At this point, it seems like Intel is pretty much keeping the Skylake launch pricing, perhaps with a slight trend upwards. Given the close relationship between the two prices and the timeline, I suspect these will be the prices we are going to get, with perhaps a slight decrease once the chips launch and become widely available.

Based off of the new 14nm+ process and Kaby Lake architecture, the new series of chips offers some of the highest stock clocks ever. Set at launch in January close to CES, Intel will be facing their first real competition in a long while. AMD is set to release and launch their new Zen based CPUs in the same month, with the new architecture reportedly set to match Intel’s Broadwell CPUs in IPC.

According to other leaks, AMD’s Zen is set to have an 8C/16T chip at $350, 6C/12T at $250 and 4C/8T for just $150. At those prices, AMD will be offering unprecedented value if their performance claims hold true. Since Core 2 Duo, Intel has maintained a stranglehold on x86 CPU marketshare, if AMD does deliver, it will be interesting to see how it all plays out, especially if Intel maintains their relatively higher prices.