A European retailer has accidentally published preliminary prices of Intel's upcoming 12th-Gen Core 'Alder Lake-S' processors for desktops. The list includes Core i5, Core i7, and Core i9 CPUs and not only gives some basic understanding of what to expect from Intel's new processors, but also looks to confirm some of their specifications. As this is a leak, take the news with a grain of salt.
If the information from the retailer is to be believed, Intel intends to offer six Alder Lake-S models at launch (as discovered by @momomo_us), which seems to be consistent with the company's previous launches as well as unofficial information leaked in the past few weeks. The general specifications mentioned by the store also line up with earlier reports as well as listings in Primate Labs' Geekbench 5 database.
As expected, Intel's Core i9-12900K with eight performance and eight efficiency cores will be the flagship offering, accompanied by the Core i9-12900KF model that will have its integrated graphics core disabled. Both CPUs will cost over €700 ($829.67) per unit with BTW (which is Belgian and Dutch VAT / Sales Tax) included. This significantly exceeds the current pricing of Intel's Core i9-11900K as well as Core i9-10900K/10900KF in Europe. It is unclear whether it is the retailer that intends to sell Alder Lake-S CPUs at a premium (as it offers them early), or Intel plans to increase its MSRPs for these chips. This pricing tells us that Intel sees this chip as a worthy competitor to AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Base Clock | Cache | Price per Unit with VAT |
| Core i9-12900K | 3.20 GHz | 30MB | €736 ($872.34) |
| Core i9-12900KF | 3.20 GHz | 30MB | €704 ($834.41) |
| Core i7-12700K | 3.60 GHz | 25MB | €524 ($621.07) |
| Core i7-12700KF | 3.60 GHz | 25MB | €492 ($583.14) |
| Core i5-12600K | 3.70 GHz | 16MB | €365 ($432.62) |
| Core i5-12600KF | 3.70 GHz | 16MB | €333 ($394.69) |
Other SKUs that Intel presumably intends to offer sometime in mid-October include the Core i7-12700K, the Core i7-12700KF, the Core i5-12600K, and the Core i5-12600KF. All of these CPUs are more expensive than Core i5 and Core i7 processors that belong to previous generations (even in preliminary listings), so either the retailer plans to capitalize on agiotage created by Alder Lake-S and sell them at high prices, or Intel that charges more for its first hybrid processors that may dethrone AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X.
Intel does not comment on pricing of unreleased products, but with more performance benchmarks and information surfacing by the day, its clear that we're on the cusp of the Alder Lake launch.
