Intel’s Graphics-Free Chips Are Also Savings-Free: Same Price, Fewer Features
by Ian Cutress on January 16, 2019 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Core 9th Gen
We recently reported on the fact that a range of new mainstream Intel desktop processors are coming onto the market without the integrated graphics enabled. This processors, indicated by the ‘F’ designation (not to be confused with Intel’s chips with an integrated fabric, also called ‘F’), have had their specifications released for a short while, except for the price. Intel is now happy to fill that part in.
Intel’s pricing scheme is a little different to AMD. Rather than provide MSRP, or Manufacturer Suggested Retail Pricing, or SEP, Suggested Etailer Pricing, Intel provides ‘tray’ pricing. This value is the company’s list price for OEMs buying literal trays of CPUs, in batches of 1000. We usually write this as ‘1ku’, for one thousand units. OEMs, like Dell or HP or Supermicro, will happily buy thousands of CPUs, often with a single year warranty. This is in stark contrast to the end-user buying a retail unit obviously only wants one processor and often wants a longer (in most cases, the retail box has a three-year warranty).
The on-shelf price of the processor in a retail box, with or without a cooler, is not listed by Intel. The company leaves it up to distributors and then retailers to determine the market value of such a product. This is why the Intel Core i9-9900K, the current flagship of Intel’s 9th Gen Core desktop processor line, has a ‘tray’ price of $488, but actually came to market on Amazon at $582.50, before settling at its current price of $529. This is also why there has been a debate about whether our comparison between the AMD Athlon 200GE ($55 SEP) and the Intel Pentium G5400 ($64/1ku) is suitable, given that only certain regions with an oversupply seem to hit the Intel price point.
With all that being said, here is Intel’s pricing for the new ‘F’ CPUs:
| Intel 9th Gen Core CPUs | ||||||||
| AnandTech | Cores | Base Freq |
Turbo Freq |
IGP | IGP Freq |
DDR4 | TDP | Price (1ku) |
| i9-9900K | 8 / 16 | 3.6 GHz | 5.0 GHz | UHD 630 | 1200 | 2666 | 95 W | $488 |
| i9-9900KF | 8 / 16 | 3.6 GHz | 5.0 GHz | - | - | 2666 | 95 W | $488 |
| i7-9700K | 8 / 8 | 3.6 GHz | 4.9 GHz | UHD 630 | 1200 | 2666 | 95 W | $374 |
| i7-9700KF | 8 / 8 | 3.6 GHz | 4.9 GHz | - | - | 2666 | 95 W | $374 |
| i5-9600K | 6 / 6 | 3.7 GHz | 4.6 GHz | UHD 630 | 1150 | 2666 | 95 W | $262 |
| i5-9600KF | 6 / 6 | 3.7 GHz | 4.6 GHz | - | - | 2666 | 95 W | $262 |
| i5-9400 | 6 / 6 | 2.9 GHz | 4.1 GHz | UHD 630 | 1050 | 2666 | 65 W | $182 |
| i5-9400F | 6 / 6 | 2.9 GHz | 4.1 GHz | - | - | 2666 | 65 W | $182 |
| i3-9350KF | 4 / 4 | 4.0 GHz | 4.6 GHz | - | - | 2400 | 91 W | $173 |
| Relevant Intel 8th Gen Core CPUs | ||||||||
| i3-8350K | 4 / 4 | 4.0 GHz | - | UHD 630 | 1150 | 2400 | 91 W | $168 |
| i3-8100 | 4 / 4 | 3.6 GHz | - | UHD 630 | 1100 | 2400 | 65 W | $117 |
| i3-8100F | 4 / 4 | 3.6 GHz | - | - | - | 2400 | 65 W | $117 |
The only CPU in this list which doesnt have a non-F is the overclockable Core i3-9350KF, showing a 1ku price of $173, which is a few dollars more than the previous generation Core i3-8350K ($168/1ku), and has a turbo frequency.
Normally when a part of a processor is fused off, usually cores, we expect to see a decrease in the listed price. In this instance, Intel is putting the same tray price on its GPU-free processors to make them also savings-free. Given how tray price is often not connected to the retail price, it will depend on how many processors actually make it to market or to retail (if any end up in retail packaging) to see if they will actually be sold at a lower price than the parts with integrated graphics.
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beersy - Wednesday, January 16, 2019 - link
You are completely missing the boat on all of this. These are chips they most likely couldn't sell as their full fledged brothers, so they are repackaging them and trying to sell them for the same price? Why would they charge the same for what is in-essence scrap processors?Further there are a lot of people who want fast cores and QuickSync which is built into the iGPU for content creation. I am one of these. I can use the processing cores to help with my day to day stuff and the iGPU can do some (albeit less effective than software) hardware encoding/transcoding. These are worthless to me. This is a lot of the reason I don't buy AMD high end processors.
woggs - Wednesday, January 16, 2019 - link
By that logic, if they didn't sell those "scrap" processors, the price of all the others would be higher. Lower supply = higher price (unless AMD fills the void). But I agree they should be priced a bit lower, which is likely to actually happen at retail because individual CPU buyers will only chosen the the obvious better one with no price difference. We'll find out soon enough...beersy - Wednesday, January 16, 2019 - link
Every generation would have had these failed iGPU processors and they didn't sell them. They clearly set their prices with NOT selling these processors. It is only because they have the CPU shortage that they are selling these bad processors and doing so without any sort of discount.woggs - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link
The balance of supply, demand and competition is how prices get set. Buy what ever you want. Nobody is holding a gun to your head. And let's see what the actual retail prices settle to... This article is click-bait. A dog whistle to intel haters. Go get an AMD CPU...woggs - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link
This reminds me of a story about an old great uncle (never knew him personally). He was a salesman and had a small shop similar to a pawn shop. He had a set of crystal glasses. A lady comes in and wants one glass. She sees one of them has a small chip.... "Hey, this glass has a small chip. Can you sell this one to me for 50 cents instead of a dollar?" Uncle picks it up and inspects it... "You're right! This is not acceptable and he turns around, tosses the chipped glass in the garbage, shattering it and then raises the price on the rest of the glasses.... "Would you like any of the remaining ones?" And she did...ratbert1 - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link
These chips are not just chips with good iGPU that they are choosing to fuse off. These are chips that would go in the recycle bin because they could not sell them as K chips because of the faulty iGPU. It is a good marketing move to get money for something instead of throwing away. However, the perceived value is less because there is less function available. So pricing them the same is shameful.However, maybe there are not that many and they don't care how many they sell. They will probably sell some. It is the "Build it and they will come" philosophy.
Teckk - Wednesday, January 16, 2019 - link
The Turbo will be still the same as the processors with graphics?won't there be some headroom, or is it for overclocking?jordanclock - Wednesday, January 16, 2019 - link
There is zero expectation of higher overclocking. These are expected to be entirely the same, but with a function removed.Irata - Wednesday, January 16, 2019 - link
@Ian:Thanks for mentioning the debate about whethery our comparison between the AMD Athlon 200GE ($55 SEP) and the Intel Pentium G5400.
I find it interesting that you acknowledge the fact that the comparison may not have been correct from the start since you are comparing MSRP / street prices to purchase price per 1,000 unit (to which seller mark-up needs to be added.
In this respect alone, it may have been prudent to check actual retail prices before writing the article and adjust the CPU selection accordingly (e.g. replace the G5400 with a 2C/2T Celeron that does have the same retail price as the Athlon GE.
Still curious in which region(s) exactly the G5400 hits the Intel 1,000 unit price point (for stores that actually have it in stock) ? Judging by the comments in your comparison, it does not appear to be North America, Europe and parts of Asia.
Care to share which these may be ?
woggs - Wednesday, January 16, 2019 - link
"it may have been prudent to check actual retail prices."Bingo. Same goes for this article as well. It's just click bate. Retail prices will be higher but will differentiate according to demand once end users can buy them.