Intel's Core Ultra 7 265K and 265KF CPUs Dip Below $250

[TheinsanegamerN]

The simple answer is upgradability, I was 99% sure i would be able to upgrade my cpu on AM5 to a new generation, even before 9000 series was announced, and im 98% sure i will be able to get a zen6 update can you say that for intel? that's their fundamental problem, is every intel platform is a dead end.

That's a huge waste of money, spending upwards of $500 for a 10-20% boost after 5 years when you could just save that money for a new build. CPUs easily last a decade, I dare you to find me anything that doesnt run right on a 5800x today. You're paying hundreds more for an equivalent AMD platform then spending another $4-500 to get a 10-20% lift over that chip instead of just saving that cash or spending it on a faster GPU instead.

It's like the people that bought a 1700x, then a 2700x, then a 3700x, then a 5800x all on the same mobo (oops that mobo didnt fully support the 5000s, darn) chasing performance and ended up spending over $800 on those "cheap" CPUs instead of just buying a 6 core coffee lake CPU for $350 and riding it for 6+ years.

 

[JustBenching]

It's like the people that bought a 1700x, then a 2700x, then a 3700x, then a 5800x all on the same mobo (oops that mobo didnt fully support the 5000s, darn)

Oh, that's me - although yeah, skipped zen 3 since my mobo got support for it 2 years after launch. The amd upgradability

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

All this gaming talk has my head spinning tbf. Im on a 4 year old 12900k now and the 4090 is a major bottleneck - and yet it's the 2nd fastest GPU on the planet. There are specific scenarios (like MSFS) where the 9800x 3d did in fact fly past the 12900k (around twice the framerate, lol), but they are very far in between (and you still need a GPU from the upper shelf to enable) - the average person that just plays every AAA games will see 0 difference between a 7600x and a 9800x 3d (im using both amd chips to avoid people getting into an amd vs intel argument here).

What arrowlake has done in terms of the mixed workload power draw is absolutely insane. Most of these kinda mixed workloads (gaming included btw) have the 285k being as fast or faster than the 9950x while consuming a truckload less power. Even in gaming the 9950x ends up consuming somewhere between 35 and 100% extra power. Check the following review that has a variety of workloads and their power draw.

Spoiler

I disagree, the 1% low performance of x3d chips is very noticeable even in GPU bound scenarios. Once you go x3d its HARD to go back.

Oh, that's me - although yeah, skipped zen 3 since my mobo got support for it 2 years after launch. The amd upgradability

I went from 1700x to 2700x, then 3900x, then 5900x then landed on the 5800x3d. Wasnt the worst thing, since I was reselling the old chips on ebay, and that 5800x3d I nabbed for $159. but it was objectively a waste of cash, I could have built a 9700k rig (and indeed had one for a different purpose) and simply used it for 6 years and gotten better performance the majority of the time.

The one exception was sins of a solar empire, the x3d absolutely smokes even 14/15th gen intel across the board.

 

[Tyler-98-W68]

My apologies for throwing shade on those wonderful E cores.
It's still a hybrid design. The positive in that design is having more cores and that's very good for productivity and parallel tasks. The bad thing is that this is a hybrid design meaning more than half of those cores are not performing as the top performing cores. In fact they perform much slower. It's like -best case scenario- trying to run an application and 2/3rds of your system cores are already occupied by another application running in the background.

I can show you some massive performance increases generationally in games, specifically BeamNG Drive. You seem to think skymont e cores are skylake era level of performance, no sorry they are not, they are on the level of alder lake and raptor lake p cores. Tell me you have experience with them? Based on your terrible examples im willing to bet you don't. When a 10 core arrow lake cpu can match a 24 core raptor lake cpu....because of the massive increase in performance from the new e cores, obviously something was done performance wise.

Your hybrid argument that it's a bad setup is also easily demolished by benchmarks. Want me to show you a 225 10 core 10 thread cpu beating a 16 core 32thread x3d amd chip? In a real world game?

 

[dgianstefani]

Oh, that's me - although yeah, skipped zen 3 since my mobo got support for it 2 years after launch. The amd upgradability

I think I went 3700X, 5950X, 5800X3D, 7800X3D, 9800X3D. Obviously not value for money, but the old chips went into mates rigs. But TBH I would have preferred a 14900KS or even a 285K than the 9800X3D. Close enough in gaming, but more fun to tune. 14900KS especially, swansong of monolithic.

 

[JustBenching]

I disagree, the 1% low performance of x3d chips is very noticeable even in GPU bound scenarios. Once you go x3d its HARD to go back.

I went for an x3d (9800x 3d), registered no difference at my playing resolution - went back.

 

[dgianstefani]

I disagree, the 1% low performance of x3d chips is very noticeable even in GPU bound scenarios. Once you go x3d its HARD to go back.

I mean, with a 5090 you can push maybe 30 more FPS. It's not a big difference, and you're still getting 120 FPS 1% lows on average even with the "worst" 285K, and that's without the 200S profile that boosts gaming perf by a good bit.

The X3D argument is more for very specific games like Tarkov, or some SIM games, but then ARL also performs really really well in other SIM games, so it's not as big a deal as people make out.

 

[john_]

Yes but you went with an Athlon 3000G at first, which was the lowest of the lowest.
Someone who picked a Celeron G6900 (socket 1700) in early 2022, can upgrade to a 14600K for less than $100 in 2 years (which would then be 5 years later) and make an even greater leap in performance than you did. And that's also not the highest end for that platform that they could upgrade to.
The upgradability of the platform is mostly relevant if you initially picked the high end, because that's when you could face a dead-end.

Yes, because G6900 was total crap. I didn't stayed with the 3000G until today. I kept it for a year or less. Then gone to a 6 core/12thread CPU. So, the equivalent example here would have been going to that 12400 a year after and jumping to a 14600K today. After that the option would be going to a 14900K and that would be the end of that road. And if we assume that the person that started with that G6900 chose a cheaper DDR4 motherboard, means that the 14900K will have to do with that cheaper motherboard. And what if that cheaper motherboard wasn't meant to run a 14900K? Then that 14900K would have to be running at frequencies maybe less than 5GHz, something that I remember seeing in reviews. On the AM5 and the AM4 platform you didn't had to worry about memory type or power consumption from the CPU, because AMD's CPUs where efficient and you had to pair them with the worst motherboard available and the most inefficient cooler available to lose performance.

 

[tfdsaf]

Literally $260 on Amazon US, £265 Amazon UK (no deal, standard price). Even if you can't pop to a microcenter for that extra $20 discount, its still a no brainer over the $45-65 more expensive 9700X.

Amazon US $305, Amazon UK £275 for 9700X.

Performance wise, the 265K competition is the 9900X, price wise, it's between 9600X and 9700X.

With a 4090, the gaming performance difference to non-X3D Zen 5 is 5%, when the Intel CPU is limited to 6000 MT RAM for the benefit of the AMD platform, which cannot reliably run faster than that, and with 200S boost off. The current gen X3D chips start at $472 (9800X3D), so almost twice the price, for ~25% better gaming perf at 720p, with a 4090.

This is clear cut stuff to me in terms of what is best option at these prices, especially considering equivalent AM5 mobos are still 10-20% more expensive.

View attachment 404499View attachment 404500

I'm not in the USA! Dude can you read?

I said for $240 it is a great deal, but garbage deal for $400+, which is what they've been all this time. In my country they are still between $400 and $420 depending on retailer.

Learn to read and reply to what people write, not what you imagine.

At $400 they are still garbage which i suspect is the price on most of the world, including Poland, Belgius, Spain, Vietnam, Japan, Brazil, Australia, etc...

 

[JustBenching]

I mean, with a 5090 you can push maybe 30 more FPS. It's not a big difference, and you're still getting 120 FPS 1% lows on average even with the "worst" 285K, and that's without the 200S profile that boosts gaming perf by a good bit.

The X3D argument is more for very specific games like Tarkov, or some SIM games, but then ARL also performs really really well in other SIM games, so it's not as big a deal as people make out.

View attachment 404520

4k or 1440p would better simulate the average user that doesn't have a 5090. The difference in 1% lows at 4k (with a 5090) is ~0

Yes, because G6900 was total crap. I didn't stayed with the 3000G until today. I kept it for a year or less. Then gone to a 6 core/12thread CPU. So, the equivalent example here would have been going to that 12400 a year after and jumping to a 14600K today. After that the option would be going to a 14900K and that would be the end of that road. And if we assume that the person that started with that G6900 chose a cheaper DDR4 motherboard, means that the 14900K will have to do with that cheaper motherboard. And what if that cheaper motherboard wasn't meant to run a 14900K? Then that 14900K would have to be running at frequencies maybe less than 5GHz, something that I remember seeing in reviews. On the AM5 and the AM4 platform you didn't had to worry about memory type or power consumption from the CPU, because AMD's CPUs where efficient and you had to pair them with the worst motherboard available and the most inefficient cooler available to lose performance.

Just FYI, the 14900k on any motherboard restricted to any power level absolutely smokes the best the Am4 has to offer. The 5950x is vastly slower than even a 14900k limited to 125 watts cause of a crappy mobo. Bad argument.

 

[Tyler-98-W68]

Yes, because G6900 was total crap. I didn't stayed with the 3000G until today. I kept it for a year or less. Then gone to a 6 core/12thread CPU. So, the equivalent example here would have been going to that 12400 a year after and jumping to a 14600K today. After that the option would be going to a 14900K and that would be the end of that road. And if we assume that the person that started with that G6900 chose a cheaper DDR4 motherboard, means that the 14900K will have to do with that cheaper motherboard. And what if that cheaper motherboard wasn't meant to run a 14900K? Then that 14900K would have to be running at frequencies maybe less than 5GHz, something that I remember seeing in reviews. On the AM5 and the AM4 platform you didn't had to worry about memory type or power consumption from the CPU, because AMD's CPUs where efficient and you had to pair them with the worst motherboard available and the most inefficient cooler available to lose performance.

Continue to keep putting your foot in your mouth.

So you say the G6900 was crap compared to the 3000g?

Funny how the single core performance was so much better on the G6900 that is actually had the same multithreaded performance as the 3000g.....

 

[dgianstefani]

I'm not in the USA! Dude can you read?

I said for $240 it is a great deal, but garbage deal for $400+, which is what they've been all this time. In my country they are still between $400 and $420 depending on retailer.

Learn to read and reply to what people write, not what you imagine.

At $400 they are still garbage which i suspect is the price on most of the world, including Poland, Belgius, Spain, Vietnam, Japan, Brazil, Australia, etc...

Why don't we have a look since it's obviously important to you.

265K:
Australia - $509 AUD - $328 USD
Spain 292 Euro - $336 USD
Belgium 319 Euro - $367 USD

So, not that bad as $400, and still competitive against 9700X pricing, which for those three countries is:
Aus -$539 AUD (more expensive)
Spain -318 Euro (more expensive)
Belgium -309 Euro (10 euro cheaper).
AM5 mobos also generally more expensive for equivalent featureset.

Considering 265K is 9900X level perf, not 9700X, that's quite competitive.

The other countries don't have pcpartpicker and I can't be bothered to check manually.

 

[tsunami2311]

yah these builds are extremely tempt $499 for something will run circles around my 6700k, sadly the cloes microcenter to be is 300+ miles I wish there deals along with alot other stuff was shippable but I get why Microcenter want people in there stores and not ordering online.

And I never been keen on Intels barn burner cpus If I was to limit cpu to 95tdp like curent cpu it will probably keep heat well in check but nerf peformance of hard.

 

[dgianstefani]

yah these builds are extremely tempt $499 for something will run circles around my 6700k, sadly the cloes microcenter to be is 300+ miles I wish there deals along with alot other stuff was shippable but I get why Microcenter want people in there stores and not ordering online.

And I never been keen on Intels barn burner cpus If I was to limit cpu to 95tdp like curent cpu it will probably keep heat well in check but nerf peformance of hard.

You can get for the still excellent $260 from Amazon, it's just Microcentre for the $240 K/230 KF deal.

 

[Tyler-98-W68]

If I was to limit cpu to 95tdp like curent cpu it will probably keep heat well in check b

Intel's barn burner CPU...........you ever look at their recent cpu's they aren't burning anything down

 

[Geofrancis]

AMD are still outselling intel with AM4 on amazon due to people still updating those old machines.

so the idea that people dont upgrade is ridiculous, think of all the prebuilt pcs out there that shipped with things like ryzen 3000g or 3400g that are now upgrading to x3d chips. they can be turned into very decent gaming pcs with a CPU and GPU update.

 

[dgianstefani]

AMD are still outselling intel with AM4 on amazon due to people still updating those old machines.

so the idea that people dont upgrade is ridiculous, think of all the prebuilt pcs out there that shipped with things like ryzen 3000g or 3400g that are now upgrading to x3d chips. they can be turned into very decent gaming pcs with a CPU and GPU update.


View attachment 404526

Noone is saying people don't upgrade. What people are saying is upgrading from one gen to the next, unless you're going from low to high end, is mostly pointless and not a good use of money. Especially considering the "upgrade path" argument people are making when talking about ARL and Zen 5, when the reality is there's one more gen on AM5, and you're likely going to be looking at 10-20%, just like previous gens.

Sure, you could have bought a 1600X and waited years before slapping a 5800X3D into your board for a significant and noticeable upgrade, but you could also move to the 9600X and AM5/265K LGA-1700 for a much more significant upgrade at a similar price, meaning it's a platform upgrade anyway, and the socket longevity argument didn't matter. Plus, for those years, you had to have a significantly worse gaming experience than if you had something like a 8700K, which offered comparable CPU gaming perf to something as new as a Zen 3 CPU, about 10% slower (if you didn't simply OC the 8700K), but still faster than the much newer 3700X or Zen 2 in general.

 

[Tyler-98-W68]

AMD are still outselling intel with AM4 on amazon due to people still updating those old machines.

so the idea that people dont upgrade is ridiculous, think of all the prebuilt pcs out there that shipped with things like ryzen 3000g or 3400g that are now upgrading to x3d chips. they can be turned into very decent gaming pcs with a CPU and GPU update.


View attachment 404526

And you think that a prebuilt PC with a 3000g or 3400g came with the supporting hardware to make it a decent gaming PC? I bet they PSU's are crap, so you are looking at a PSU and GPU and CPU........

Just because something "might be selling good" doesn't mean that it's the best choice, herd mentality some people just go with "what they heard" and lots of times that can be very wrong.

 

[JustBenching]

Sure, you could have bought a 1600X and waited years before slapping a 5800X3D into your board for a significant and noticeable upgrade, but you could also move to the 9600X and AM5 for a much more significant upgrade at a similar price. Plus, for those years, you had to have a significantly worse gaming experience than if you had something like a 8700K, which offered comparable CPU gaming perf to something as new as a 5600X.

Exactly what ive been saying. The 5800x 3d was and still is so OBNOXIOUSLY expensive that you are better off just selling your mobo and CPU and buy something else instead. It makes no sense to buy a 450$ on launch CPU and put on your old outdated mobo when with 450$ you could get a much newer and faster CPU + mobo combo.

 

[Geofrancis]

And you think that a prebuilt PC with a 3000g or 3400g came with the supporting hardware to make it a decent gaming PC? I bet they PSU's are crap, so you are looking at a PSU and GPU and CPU........

Just because something "might be selling good" doesn't mean that it's the best choice, herd mentality some people just go with "what they heard" and lots of times that can be very wrong.

there are plenty of low end gpus that would make a decent upgrade to vega onboard graphics an rtx 5060 is only 150w. a gtx1560 is a massive upgrade over vega and doesnt need any power.

Exactly what ive been saying. The 5800x 3d was and still is so OBNOXIOUSLY expensive that you are better off just selling your mobo and CPU and buy something else instead. It makes no sense to buy a 450$ on launch CPU and put on your old outdated mobo when with 450$ you could get a much newer and faster CPU + mobo combo.

a 5700x3d is £200 ? a decent am5 motherboard is £150 and ddr5 is another £80? thats before you even buy a CPU.

 

[john_]

What does this price tell us about what's going on at Intel? Has anyone seen other i7 this cheap just a few months after release?

If they have a deal with TSMC that says "We guaranty that we will buy a minimum of that number of your wafers in 2025-2026", then Intel has two options. Keep prices up and then have to pay a fine to TSMC for underutilized TSMC's nodes, or lower prices, hope people to start buying and manage to use all of TSMC's agreed capacity, before their next 18A CPUs becomes their main product.

 

[dgianstefani]

a 5700x3d is £200 ? a decent am5 motherboard is £150 and ddr5 is another £80? thats before you even buy a CPU.

Ok... and a 9600X that is faster than the 5700X3D is £178, while not putting good money into an outdated platform. DDR5 is pretty competitive price wise with DDR4 these days, and you don't need an expensive fancy mobo to run a six core AM5 chip.

 

[dyonoctis]

I'm not in the USA! Dude can you read?

I said for $240 it is a great deal, but garbage deal for $400+, which is what they've been all this time. In my country they are still between $400 and $420 depending on retailer.

Learn to read and reply to what people write, not what you imagine.

At $400 they are still garbage which i suspect is the price on most of the world, including Poland, Belgius, Spain, Vietnam, Japan, Brazil, Australia, etc...

Leave spain out of this (And maybe some of the other countries that you cited, but didn't bother to actually check)

 

[Nostras]

8c/16t 7800X3D is $360 with more expensive motherboards, 20c/20t 265KF is $230. Could you explain to us how that is similarly priced?

Sorry, EU pricing.
I'm not sure why you would think AM5 has more expensive motherboards?

 

[JustBenching]

a 5700x3d is £200 ? a decent am5 motherboard is £150 and ddr5 is another £80? thats before you even buy a CPU.

The 5700x 3d came in 2024, 2 years after the 5800x 3d. Sure that one is decent in price but its a slower 5800x 3d - and the 5800x 3d is a slower 5800x, and the 5800x is slow as is. I mean sure for gaming the 5700x 3d is still fine but in that case I'd rather sell my cpu + mobo and grab a 14600k for 160$ and spend an extra 100$ for a mobo. It doesn't even need ddr5