Amidst the buzz around the launch of Intel's 15th Gen Meteor Lake architecture, a 14th Gen Intel Core i3 has unexpectedly popped up on ShopBLT.com, as initially reported by VideoCardz.
Going to the listing at BLT quickly displays a price of $150.27, though it disappears fast. The Intel Core i3-13100 is listed for $150.54 on the same site, so the pricing on this refreshed Core i3 is expected to be very close to its predecessor. The listing doesn't actually provide a buying option, though: instead, you'll see it's listed as "Currently unavailable" as the price disappears. The chip is seemingly slated to have its listing removed from ShopBLT entirely.
As reflected in leaked Geekbench results we reported on back in October, the Intel Core i3-14100 is listed as a quad core CPU with a Boost clock of up to 4.7 GHz. Sans a 200 MHz boost to maximum Turbo frequency, this CPU is expected to perform near-identically to its predecessor because it's already near-identical.
The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and 5600G are AMD's only competing CPUs available in the price range of these Intel Core i3 chips. Our testing of the last-gen Intel Core i3-13100F revealed that the Ryzen 5 5600X enjoyed a solid ~8% average gaming performance lead over 13th Gen Core i3, but maybe this refresh and its boost to core frequency will help close that gap slightly. And of course, some games and applications (like Far Cry 6 or Adobe Lightroom) will naturally favor Intel architecture over AMD, even in these scenarios where the AMD chip would otherwise outperform them.
That being said, it may end up being better for Intel overall if it can release this Intel Core i3 refresh with the $120 pricing spotted at a Chinese e-tailer last month. This would make it considerably more competitive with the Ryzen 5 5600X than the current 13th Gen Core i3 CPUs are.
