Intel isn’t a fan of selling CPUs at a discount, but the market situation has left it with no other option. According to a report by DIGITIMES, the chip giant will be cutting the prices of its processors in the second half of 2020. This is due in large part to the incredible success of AMD’s Ryzen CPUs, which provide a price/performance ratio that few of Intel’s current products can match.
PC makers believe that this plan will roll out in several phases. System integrators, OEMs, and other Intel partners will be the first to get discounts, which means that consumers may not see any MSRP changes at retailers until later in the year (assuming Intel even goes that far with its price cutting).
Intel hasn’t confirmed these plans, but the decision makes a lot of sense due to its crumbling market position and everlasting node-shrink problems, which have prevented the multi-billion dollar company from delivering CPUs that are both powerful and efficient enough to stand with AMD’s Ryzen SKUs.
As a sign of things to come, Intel did slash the pricing of its Cascade Lake-X CPUs in October. These processors were given a generous 50% price cut at launch to save face against AMD’s $750 16C/32T Ryzen 9 3950X. Prices of Skylake-X also began falling shortly after.