Rumor points to Intel Cutting Skylake-X prices in Half

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    Just as we heard about the Cascade Lake price cuts, it appears that Intel is going to do the same for its older Skylake X parts. A report by Computerbase indicates that Intel may be planning a price cut for Skylake-X, across the board, meaning not only HEDT parts but also the higher end consumer models.

    There is a valid justification for this. In the face of worrying competition from AMD’s Ryzen, Intel has been forced to cut prices on the upcoming Cascade Lake series, with the 10th gen parts arriving at as much as a 50 percent lower price per core. The problem here is that retailers still have a large volume of unsold Skylake X parts from the 9th gen that they haven’t yet moved. It would be impossible to shift them at current prices: Cascade Lake arrives soon and no one in their right mind would pay double for worse performance.

    Even if Intel wasn’t planning on doing this themselves, retailers almost certainly would have–there would be no other way of getting rid of old Skylake-X stock. As it stands, an Intel subsidy will likely quell retail irritation at the new move.

    The new pricing will likely see Skylake-X parts selling for slightly less than the equivalent Cascade Lake-X parts. For instance, the Core i9-9980XE, which launched at $1,979 will likely sell for less than the $979 that the equivalent Cascade Lake Core i9-10980XE will retail for.

    While this is probably going to hit Intel retailers hard, it is inevitable considering the price points that AMD’s Threadrippers and 3rd Gen Ryzen 9 arrives at. It’s hard to see the long-term implications, but we think it very likely that Intel’s overall price structure will gradually become more competitive.

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