Intel's 12th Gen Alder Lake K-series CPUs Arrive At Amazon Overseas

Intel Core i9-12900K
Intel Core i9-12900K (Image credit: Amazon Netherlands)

Update 10/03/21 12pm PT: Hardware sleuth momomo_us has uncovered new Amazon listings of the Core i9-12900K, Core i7-12700K and Core i5-12600K in France and the U.K. We've added the pricing and amended the story.

Original article:

Amazon Netherlands (via Dellchannel21) has revealed the pricing for three of Intel's 12th Generation Alder Lake processors. The prices include value-added tax (VAT) and could be placeholders before Intel officially announce Alder Lake. For now, we recommend you take pricing with a bit of salt.

The Amazon listings for the Core i9-12900K seem to agree that the 16-core processor could cost over $800, whereas the Core i7-12700K and Core i5-12600K may have price tags above $600 and $300, respectively. In fact, Amazon France and Amazon Netherlands seemingly agree that the Core i7-12700K could sell for $615 and the Core i5-12600K for $310.

Even without VAT, the pricing for the three Alder Lake K-series chips still look out of place. Then again, computer hardware is usually more expensive outside the U.S. market. Provantage, a veteran U.S. retailer, had put up the Core i9-12900K, Core i7-12700K and Core i5-12600K for $605, $422 and $289, respectively. Another U.S. store had previously listed the same processors for $705, $495 and $343, respectively.

Intel 12th Gen Alder Lake Pricing

Swipe to scroll horizontally
ProcessorAmazon U.K.Amazon FranceAmazon Netherlands
Core i9-12900K$893$889$812
Core i9-12900KF$850$849N/A
Core i7-12700K$621$615$615
Core i7-12700KF$448$421N/A
Core i5-12600K$352$310$310
Core i5-12600KFN/A$390N/A

Naturally, Alder Lake requires a new platform, more specifically motherboards with Intel 600-series chipsets and the LGA1700 socket. Thus far, we haven't seen any retailer listings for the new motherboards so pricing still remains a big mystery. We presume they will carry a premium due to the necessary components to get DDR5 memory and PCIe 5.0 up and running.

Besides the motherboard and processor, consumers will also have to take into consideration new memory. Memory vendors are diligently preparing their DDR5 products for Alder Lake's launch. TeamGroup previously had a DDR5-4800 32GB (2x16GB) memory kit up for purchase at $310.99 before it sold out. That gives us a more or less estimate of what DDR5 could retail for.

The 12th Generation chips will be an interesting launch for many reasons. Alder Lake is Intel's first hybrid processor on a desktop platform. More importantly, the processors are the first consumer chips to embrace the next-generation DDR5 memory and PCIe 5.0 interface.

Intel will be holding its Intel Innovation event on October 27 to 28 so we may hear more about Alder Lake then. Hopefully, the chipmaker will finally give us a launch date.

Zhiye Liu
News Editor and Memory Reviewer

Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

  • Why_Me
    The B660 boards and locked cpu's should be the big sellers imo if Alder Lake isn't a bust.
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    The prices though. 9900K for $360 and 10850K for $400, both on mature platforms and technology and don't require DDR5 or Windows 11, and neither are performance slouches.
    Reply
  • Why_Me
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    The prices though. 9900K for $360 and 10850K for $400, both on mature platforms and technology and don't require DDR5 or Windows 11, and neither are performance slouches.
    https://hothardware.com/news/asus-z690-motherboards-alder-lake-support-ddr5-memory
    Reply
  • Giroro
    ""16-core""
    Reply
  • barryv88
    If this kind of pricing holds out to be somewhat true, then AL is slated for a disastrously bad launch.

    Performance: Leaks show AL in the lead in some areas while regressing in others against Zen. Not off to a good start, but we'll see...
    Cost: Simply horrible. Platform cost and DDR5 for the flagship will easily send the price rocketing over $1600+. While a 5950X Zen setup will cost significantly less. Hell, you can even reduce costs further by using Zen's midrange and older chipsets.
    Power: Those PL2 numbers are atrocious. Even for the i5. Long term running costs for AL will cost you more. Bigger PSU is required too vs Zen. More unnecessary added costs.
    Heat and Noise: Given the above, the AL platform will be more uncomfortable to work with for those that seek quieter systems.
    DDR5: Price/variety/quantity/availability world wide may complicate AL's launch. Intel will have to bare the brunt of this impact, for the better or worse. Zen's entry to DDR5 will likely come at a much better time when the previous mentioned issues are sorted.
    Those small cores: Man these things are controversial. How would AL perform if it had an all big core design? Isn't a new node and a new architecture supposed to improve heat/power draw? Intel's move from 14nm to 10nm seems far out of whack in comparison to Zen going 14nm to 7nm.
    AL stinks. So far.
    Reply
  • cc2onouui
    barryv88 said:
    If this kind of pricing holds out to be somewhat true, then AL is slated for a disastrously bad launch.

    Performance: Leaks show AL in the lead in some areas while regressing in others against Zen. Not off to a good start, but we'll see...
    Cost: Simply horrible. Platform cost and DDR5 for the flagship will easily send the price rocketing over $1600+. While a 5950X Zen setup will cost significantly less. Hell, you can even reduce costs further by using Zen's midrange and older chipsets.
    Power: Those PL2 numbers are atrocious. Even for the i5. Long term running costs for AL will cost you more. Bigger PSU is required too vs Zen. More unnecessary added costs.
    Heat and Noise: Given the above, the AL platform will be more uncomfortable to work with for those that seek quieter systems.
    DDR5: Price/variety/quantity/availability world wide may complicate AL's launch. Intel will have to bare the brunt of this impact, for the better or worse. Zen's entry to DDR5 will likely come at a much better time when the previous mentioned issues are sorted.
    Those small cores: Man these things are controversial. How would AL perform if it had an all big core design? Isn't a new node and a new architecture supposed to improve heat/power draw? Intel's move from 14nm to 10nm seems far out of whack in comparison to Zen going 14nm to 7nm.
    AL stinks. So far.
    Well it's not all a fair argument, sure ddr5 may be not a good deal at first and "only maybe" Alder lake as a whole platform "price wise" but this maybe will be mostly because of the new memory, the performance should not be blamed too early, in my opinion if it was 15% faster than ZEN 3 with 20%_+ for the whole platform why not( if intel lowered the price to ZEN level "on faster than ZEN CPUs" then this will encourage customers to buy the new not cheap memory for a better over all system) the performance\power\temp that is something we have to wait a confirmation on so if a ZEN platform cost 1200$ a 1450$ faster system is not bad unless maybe if you have to pay too much for the new windows 11, I'm talking about the prices only in comparison but I don't believe even a 16 big cores processor should cost over 400$ neither 700$ for the best GPU but it is what it is.
    Reply
  • Phaaze88
    Whoa, this reminds me of X299 cpu prices on the 7740X to 7900X when they first came out.
    Huh...

    Welp, not much longer now...
    Reply
  • JfromNucleon
    barryv88 said:
    Cost: Simply horrible. Platform cost and DDR5 for the flagship will easily send the price rocketing over $1600+. While a 5950X Zen setup will cost significantly less. Hell, you can even reduce costs further by using Zen's midrange and older chipsets.
    I mean, technically one could go for DDR4
    Reply
  • barryv88
    JfromNucleon said:
    I mean, technically one could go for DDR4
    Yip, but that only alleviates cost. You can also do the same alleviating with Zen (going with B450/X470/B550) instead of X570.
    All those hundreds of dollars saved can go towards a better GPU, bigger monitor etc. for a better overall experience with Zen. The i3 and i5's won't make any sense after launch either as they can only run on a high-end chipset. That already defeats the purpose of a budget build that those CPU's are aimed at. How long will B660 take to come out? Tick-tock Intel...... tick tock.
    Reply
  • hannibal
    Well Intel was not happy with previous generation price. No it is just going back to normal pricing.
    Buy yeah. Low end motherboards would be nice to get, but low end budget customers should look 10000 and 11000 series in anyway. This is Intels new highend, luxury cpu line, so not having cheap options in the beginning is understandable. hen we get 2 performance 4 efficient core version to the market, then low end board also is needed badly.
    Reply