Intel's Core i9-12900KS Special Edition CPU Pricing Revealed In Brief Newegg Appearance
For a brief while, it seemed as though Intel had unexpectedly released its binned 12th Gen Core i9-12900KS processor this morning, because Newegg went live with a product listing and was accepting orders for the part. Instead, it looks like the retailer may have jumped the gun. Newegg pulled the listing a couple hours after it went live, but barring a pricing mistake (or gouging), we now know how much this chip will command.
It was listed for $799.99, plus a few extra bucks for shipping. And yes, this was a "shipped by Newegg" listing rather than a marketplace seller. While the product page has since been removed, it didn't go dark before the Wayback Machine could snap and store a cached copy. Here's a look...
Let's compare the pricing with what Intel's other Alder Lake CPUs are selling for right now...
- Core i9-12900KS: $799.99
- Core i9-12900K: $610.99
- Core i9-12900KF: $579.49
- Core i7-12700K: $384.99
- Core i7-12700KF: $373.42
- Core i5-12600K: $278.98
- Core i5-12600KF: $269.88
There are all street prices. Intel's recommend customer price (RCP) for the Core i9-12900K is $589-$599, for bulks orders of 1,000 units. Retail pricing is often a little higher, as is the case here. That said, Newegg's list price for the Core i9-12900KS represents a nearly 31 percent premium over the Core i9-12900K.
What that gets you are faster clocks at a higher base TDP. Intel is cherry-picking the best silicon for the Special Edition SKU, which sports a 150W base TDP. That's 25W higher than the regular variant. The Turbo TDP is the same on both CPUs (241W).
The core configuration is the same as well—both are 16-core/24-thread CPUs with eight performance cores and eight efficiency cores. Likewise, the base clocks are the same on both chips, with the E-cores running at 2.4GHz and the P-cores clocked at 3.2GHz. However, the Core i9-12900KS cranks the E-core turbo clock to 4GHZ (up from 3.9GHz) and the P-core turbo clock to 5.5GHz (up from 5.2GHz).
So those are gains of 100MHz and 300MHz on the E-cores and P-cores, respectively. You might be able to overclock a Core i9-12900K to achieve the same clocks, but with the Core i9-12900KS, those are stock settings.
Whether that's worth paying $799.99 for, well, we'll find out when the chip releases for real. it will also be interesting to see how it fares against AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which releases on April 20 for $449. That has half as many cores and threads as AMD's flagship Ryzen 9 5950X, but the company claims the stacked 3D V-cache will translate to a 15 percent performance gain in games.
