Good news, fellow PC enthusiasts; things are heating up in the desktop CPU space. Intel today unleashed its best CPU in years in the form of Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, and the knock-on effect is likely to be price cuts on competing parts.
At £299, the Intel newcomer holds serious potential for productivity builds, but AMD is keen to ensure it maintains the gaming crown established through its hugely popular X3D range of processors. To that end, the venerable Ryzen 7 9800X3D is raining on Core Ultra’s parade by dropping to an all-time-low price at Amazon, both in the UK and across the pond.
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
“There’s little doubt that Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the best gaming processor on the market. Back in 2022 we questioned whether gamers would be willing to sacrifice everyday performance in favour of gaming excellence; now they don’t have to.” Read our review.
Right now, the go-to gaming CPU is available for £382.99 / $419.95, marking a 12% reduction over the official MSRP. Price trackers confirm that this is the lowest price to date at either Amazon UK or Amazon US.
While gamers have been inclined to lean toward X3D hardware in recent years, the decision is no longer clear cut. Intel’s Arrow Lake Refresh has delivered meaningful improvements in 3D workloads, and while cache-laden AMD Ryzen parts will continue to hold sway, Core Ultra’s sizeable core-and-thread count gives pause for thought.
As the price gap closes, users may be faced with that exact quandary. Is it better to go with an eight-core, 16-thread AMD part that specialises in gaming, or a 24-core Intel chip that rules the roost in most other workloads? That’s going to depend on the user, but having the choice is absolutely a good thing, and one has to wonder if Intel’s aggressively-priced launch will cause other chips to see similar dips. The likes of 9700X and 9600X, in particular, may need a jostle for mid-range position.
At the very least, it’s good to see genuine competition in the CPU space, and the stage is set for next generation Nova Lake vs. Medusa. Here’s hoping memory prices return to normality sometime prior to that.
