Intel Announces Discontinuation of All 9th Generation Core-X Series Processors

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Off go the beasts

A CPU in a motherboard
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Well ahead of their actual discontinuation date, Intel has announced the dates from which you will no longer be able to purchase the 9th-Gen Core-X series processors. The information comes through Intel's usual PCN (product change notification), and it covers all 9th-Gen Core-X chips including the big Core i9-9980XE.

These include the boxed and tray versions of the i7-9800X, i9-9820X, i9-9900X, i9-9920X,  i9-9940X, i9-9960X, i9-9980XE, and the Xeon W-2102, W-2104,  W-2123, W-2125, W-2133, W-2135, W-2145, W-2155, W-2195 chips.

This discontinuation doesn't come as much of a surprise, as Intel has already had its 10th Generation Cascade Lake X chips on the market for quite some time, which includes the mighty Core i9-10980XE -- not that we were fond of it. 

This discontinuation will take place over the course of about a year. Customers and clients will be able to place their last orders no later than January 22nd 2021, after which any open orders won't be cancelable anymore. The absolute last 9th-Gen Core-X series CPUs have to be shipped out by July 9th 2021 at the latest. 

Of course, this is only good news for prices. If you're looking to build an affordable system with one of these chips, they'll be quite cheap over the next year as all inventory gets cleared. After that, you can expect prices to rise again as owners of the rare unused chips sell them at a premium to system admins looking to replace broken chips without building entirely new systems. 

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Niels Broekhuijsen
Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

11 Comments Comment from the forums
  • spongiemaster
    Did they announce when they were going to start shipping the 10th generation series?
    Reply
  • NightHawkRMX
    10th gen has been out for awhile.
    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YP69HTM?tag=pcpapi-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1&pldnSite=1
    They just are IMPOSSIBLE to find in stock at retail price.

    One win for Threadripper.
    https://www.amazon.com/AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-3970X-desbloqueado/dp/B0815JJQQ8/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=3990x&qid=1594736701&s=electronics&sr=1-2
    3rd gen threadripper seem to be in stock at most retailers at or near MSRP.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    I was being facetious. I've said from the beginning, that Intel never wanted to sell these chip at the 50% price reduction from the previous generation and that is basically what has happened. Amazon has never sold these CPU's, all listing are through third parties with prices that "coincidentally" match up with the 9th gen MSRP. None of the 10 series are even listed on Newegg, who has never sold them either. This whole series was a vaporware sham from Intel. They promoted it as having more than twice the price/performance of the 9th gen, but that never came close to happening.
    Reply
  • PCWarrior
    spongiemaster said:
    I was being facetious. I've said from the beginning, that Intel never wanted to sell these chip at the 50% price reduction from the previous generation and that is basically what has happened. Amazon has never sold these CPU's, all listing are through third parties with prices that "coincidentally" match up with the 9th gen MSRP. None of the 10 series are even listed on Newegg, who has never sold them either. This whole series was a vaporware sham from Intel. They promoted it as having more than twice the price/performance of the 9th gen, but that never came close to happening.
    In Europe a lot of retailers have stock of all these skus except from the 10980XE. They are being sold slightly above MSRP pretty much since their launch. Excluding VAT (sales tax) the i9 10940X (boxed version) currently retails for $850 and the tray OEM version retails for $785. Also for a long time the 16-core i9 9960X was being sold for the same price (~850 dollars for the boxed version). Intel also offered to some big e-retailers rebates so they could heavily discount 9000-series parts without loss.
    Reply
  • NightHawkRMX
    Interesting.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    PCWarrior said:
    In Europe a lot of retailers have stock of all these skus except from the 10980XE. They are being sold slightly above MSRP pretty much since their launch. Excluding VAT (sales tax) the i9 10940X (boxed version) currently retails for $850 and the tray OEM version retails for $785. Also for a long time the 16-core i9 9960X was being sold for the same price (~850 dollars for the boxed version). Intel also offered to some big e-retailers rebates so they could heavily discount 9000-series parts without loss.

    It's definitely not like that here in the US.

    10920x ($689 MSRP): $972-$1799 From 3rd party Amazon sellers
    10940x ($784 MSRP): $1082-$1600
    10980xe ($979 MSRP): 2 sellers, $2100 and $2183 (+$7.17 for shipping, over 100% over MSRP, and no free shipping)

    Those prices are dead on arrival. Even if you are already on X299, you'd still probably get better bang for buck replacing your motherboard and CPU with an AMD platform as opposed to just upgrading your Intel CPU.

    If the pricing you listed for Europe is accurate, I can only assume that because Europe is far more pro-AMD than here, whatever little stock they got still couldn't get sold, and the prices reflect that.
    Reply
  • PCWarrior
    spongiemaster said:
    If the pricing you listed for Europe is accurate
    Examples:Mindfactory DE: sells the tray 10940X (in stock) for €671.18=$778.47 pre-VAT. It is sold €798,71=$926.44 including VAT.

    Mindfactory DE: sells the boxed 10940X (in stock) for €694.77= $805.89 pre-VAT. It is sold €826.78=$958.94 including VAT.

    Ebuyer: sells the boxed 10940X (in stock) for £639.22= $813.81 pre-VAT. It is sold £767.06=$976.45 including VAT.

    Mindfactory DE: sells the tray 10980XE (in stock) for €915.13=$1,062.25 pre-VAT. It is sold €1,089.00=$1,264.07 including VAT.

    Novatech: sells the tray 10980XE (in stock) for £884.56 =$1,126.08 pre-VAT. It is sold £1061.47 (=$1,348.06) including VAT.

    Caseking DE: sells the boxed 10980XE (in stock) for €1,096.58=$1,271.53 pre-VAT. It is sold €1,266.25=$1468.37 including VAT.

    spongiemaster said:
    I can only assume that because Europe is far more pro-AMD than here, whatever little stock they got still couldn't get sold, and the prices reflect that.
    I doubt that people in Europe are being more pro-AMD than people in the US. In fact, in Europe you won’t observe the anti-Intel sentiment you observe in the US. And if retail pricing is your metric, then I should note that pre-VAT prices for Ryzen and Threadripper parts are below (or well below) MSRP when converted to USD.

    The reasons you see this kind of pre-VAT pricing in Europe compared to the US are probably the following:

    (i) In the US sales tax is only 0-7.25% with most states having it around 4-5%. On the other hand, in Europe, VAT (sales tax equivalent) is on average 20% (it generally ranges between 19%-23% with most countries setting it at either 19% or 20%). Adding VAT increases retail price considerably so retailers cannot overprice the products too much as they would get less affordable and fewer people would buy them. Also, by law, retailers should by default list the price with VAT, unlike in North America where the list price is always without sales tax and you only get the final price once you are about to pay.

    (ii) Intel has plenty of direct retail channels in Europe, especially in Germany and the UK. These are major retailers who are both system integrators as well as retailers of parts for the DIY market. Aside from Silicon Lottery, you won’t typically see OEM tray parts being sold directly to consumers in the US. But in Europe it is actually very common. You do have plenty of 10980XE tray parts in stock for sale in Europe. In the US, the system integrators, typically don't sell any of the cpus they get. They instead only offer them as parts of entire PC builds.

    (iii)In Europe, many of these direct Intel clients offer “pre-ordering” to consumers for parts that are not in stock (typically at a price slightly higher than MSRP). These are then ordered directly from Intel just for you (the parts are shipped from Intel alongside the next batch of orders the retailer has placed to Intel). For example, if you want to buy a boxed 10980XE and it is not in stock you can place an order as a “pre-order” and it will be shipped to you within 3-4 weeks (if you want to buy a tray part it will probably be in stock anyway and you will get it immediately).

    (iv) Amazon, although big, is not the only game in town when it comes to PC parts in Europe. In fact, unlike in the US, Amazon usually doesn’t get good stock at launch and for some very-high end parts they rarely get good stock. But you will find stock in all other major direct retailers who, being smaller in size and plenty in number, they keep each other in check or at least slow down the creeping-up of prices. That is what competition is about. Then, usually 2-3 months post-launch, when Amazon finally gets good stock allocation, it is sort of forced to follow suit. This always happens for mainstream parts (not so much for prosumer/HEDT parts). Anyway for the parts where Amazon has relatively good stock there is a price-matching algorithm to match (or better) the pricing of the best price offered from any of these other major retailers. And since the price of these retailers -even when they don’t have stock (remember pre-ordering) - is usually kept at MSRP, you won’t see Amazon itself listing prices higher (or at least not much higher) than MSRP either.
    Reply
  • urbanman2004
    Intel canceling 9980XE is inconsequential when it's practically the same as a 10980XE and therefore redundant and artificially half the cost.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    PCWarrior said:
    Examples:Mindfactory DE: sells the tray 10940X (in stock) for €671.18=$778.47 pre-VAT. It is sold €798,71=$926.44 including VAT.

    Mindfactory DE: sells the boxed 10940X (in stock) for €694.77= $805.89 pre-VAT. It is sold €826.78=$958.94 including VAT.

    Ebuyer: sells the boxed 10940X (in stock) for £639.22= $813.81 pre-VAT. It is sold £767.06=$976.45 including VAT.

    Mindfactory DE: sells the tray 10980XE (in stock) for €915.13=$1,062.25 pre-VAT. It is sold €1,089.00=$1,264.07 including VAT.

    Novatech: sells the tray 10980XE (in stock) for £884.56 =$1,126.08 pre-VAT. It is sold £1061.47 (=$1,348.06) including VAT.

    Caseking DE: sells the boxed 10980XE (in stock) for €1,096.58=$1,271.53 pre-VAT. It is sold €1,266.25=$1468.37 including VAT.

    I doubt that people in Europe are being more pro-AMD than people in the US. In fact, in Europe you won’t observe the anti-Intel sentiment you observe in the US. And if retail pricing is your metric, then I should note that pre-VAT prices for Ryzen and Threadripper parts are below (or well below) MSRP when converted to USD.

    Mindfactory sales numbers have often been posted in news articles over here including this site over the years, and have always shown a disproportionately high percentage of sales going to AMD compared to what we see here. That's what I am basing my pro AMD comment on. Most retailers don't post that information, and Mindfactory is only one retailer, but they must be pretty large based on how much we hear about them here, and you are quoting their prices. So they must be some reasonable representation of what the market is in Europe.
    Reply
  • PCWarrior
    spongiemaster said:
    Mindfactory sales numbers have often been posted in news articles over here including this site over the years, and have always shown a disproportionately high percentage of sales going to AMD compared to what we see here. That's what I am basing my pro AMD comment on. Most retailers don't post that information, and Mindfactory is only one retailer, but they must be pretty large based on how much we hear about them here, and you are quoting their prices. So they must be some reasonable representation of what the market is in Europe.
    Citation needed. Not about the Mindfactory sales per se but about how these sales compare to US sales to back the claim that the sales of AMD for that seller are disproportionally higher than your average seller in the US. For the record here is a Gamers Nexus article reporting that amongst its viewers/readers, AMD is moving 93% of the DIY sales by the end of 2019. And here is a similar report with Mindfactory data showing that by the end of 2019 AMD is moving around 77% of the cpu sales. Going by that the sales of AMD in Europe are LOWER than in the US, not the other way around. I can see how they can be equal or slightly higher but disproportionally higher? That's a claim that needs to be backed up by numbers.
    Reply