Intel’s fastest Raptor Lake flagship CPU seen at retail, and it looks expensive
Intel’s incoming Core i9-13900KS, which will be a new version of the flagship Raptor Lake CPU, capable of boosting to 6GHz out of the box, without overclocking, could be 20% more expensive than the current 13900K.
What VideoCardz (opens in a new tab) highlighted, this is due to a tweet from hardware leaker @momomo_us who spotted the 13900KS, and other incoming Raptor Lake processors, which are listed on the retailer PC Canada (opens in a new tab) (Keep your skeptical head firmly, naturally.)
The 13900KS is priced at C$927, and compared to the price of the existing 13900K at the same retailer, that’s a 22% markup.
A bunch of other Raptor Lake processors are listed and priced here, models that have already been leaked before (in fact, by Microsoft). They include the Core i3-13100 at the other end of the spectrum from the 13900KS, a quad-core processor priced at $207 CAD (or $170 for the 13100F, which is the variant that removes the integrated GPU to keep the cost lower). .
Analysis: Beware of the Dangers of Placeholder Pricing
Intel is set to reveal these new Raptor Lake processors at CES 2023, which isn’t too far away now. The Core i9-13900KS and other 13th-gen models appearing at this Canadian retailer are a tantalizing suggestion that they could hit shelves soon after the initial reveal of the CPUs. We’ll usually see new models unveiled a while before they actually go on sale, but this is an indication that the wait for additional Raptor Lake silicon won’t be long.
Regarding actual prices, these are likely to be placeholders, as is often the case when pre-release chips show up at retailers early, so don’t put too much stock on the price tags that are displayed.
That being said, this could be a reasonable rough indication of the kind of premium to expect for the 13900KS compared to the 13900K. At the high end, you’ll always see a big dent in your wallet, especially when a chip like the ‘KS’ version of an Intel flagship comes out, so an extra 20% may not be an unrealistic proposition. However, with the 13900K still retailing up to the $700 mark in the US, even though the Black Friday discounts have brought it down a bit with some retailers, that could leave the 13900KS at a fairly low level. dazzling.
Assuming this is the sort of extra outlay on the cards, is that worth paying for what is essentially an extra 200MHz boost compared to the 13900K? Well, that’s certainly debatable, and it remains to be seen how the 13900KS will perform in terms of the raw grunt it can muster and how it will be affected by temperatures and throttling (although the cooling solution used will also come into play here). , obviously).
For enthusiasts who want the best, though, the niche market the KS model is targeting will likely stretch out any extra expense without too much difficulty. Let’s face it, these are the people buying Nvidia’s new Lovelace GPUs, which are much, much more expensive than even the 13900KS.
