Intel has increased the prices of its two Arrow Lake Refresh processors: the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus. These CPUs were released just a few months ago as a more aggressive offering from Intel to compete with AMD by improving their price-to-core count and performance ratio. Now, the company itself is hindering these CPUs, potentially allowing AMD to maintain its prominent leadership in the desktop market.
This price increase was not announced through a public statement but was reflected directly on Intel’s official specification pages. While this doesn’t necessarily mean all retailers will immediately raise their prices, it does change the official recommended retail price. This opens the door for stores to implement price hikes once existing stock is depleted.
Building a System with Intel Arrow Lake Refresh Processors Will Now Be More Expensive
The most significant change affects the more appealing processor, the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus. This processor was announced in March with a recommended price of $299. However, Intel’s official page now lists it with a recommended price between $339 and $349. In practice, this represents an increase of $40 to $50 compared to the initially announced starting price. Considering taxes, the actual price will be even higher. For instance, in Spain, it currently hovers around 335 euros, and with this increase, it could end up costing approximately 380 euros.
The more budget-friendly option for building a PC, the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, is also becoming more expensive. At its launch, Intel presented it with a recommended price of $199. Currently, it appears with a recommended price ranging from $219 to $229. This translates to an approximate increase of 10% to 15%, depending on the reference point within the new range. As a future reference, this processor currently costs around 240 euros in Spain, a very attractive price for a CPU that is more than sufficient for gaming rigs targeting 2K and 4K resolutions.
Intel itself clarifies that this recommended or suggested price is not a formal price offer but rather an “orientative guide for its products, subject to changes and conditioned by factors such as taxes, duties, availability, promotions, or distributor margins.”
In the US, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is Cheaper Than This New Price, but the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus Reflects the Change
According to VideoCardz, prices on Amazon in the United States have not fully aligned yet. The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is still seen at a price lower than Intel’s maximum stated price. Meanwhile, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus was already around $219.99, suggesting that this recommended price update primarily reflects a reality where it’s already selling at a higher price than initially announced.
As a reminder, the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is a 24-core processor (8 P-Cores and 16 E-Cores) with a Turbo frequency of up to 5.50 GHz, 36 MB of Intel Smart Cache, and DDR5-7200 RAM support. The Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus offers 18 cores (6 P-Cores and 12 E-Cores), reaches 5.30 GHz, integrates 30 MB of cache, and has a power consumption of up to 159W compared to the 250W of its larger sibling.
This price adjustment dilutes the perceived value of Arrow Lake on desktops, which Intel had presented these processors to enhance. A Core Ultra 5 250K Plus at $199 and a Core Ultra 7 270K Plus for $299 made much more sense as a response to AMD Ryzen mid-range and mid-to-high-end CPUs. With this official price hike, they remain interesting models for productivity and multi-core workloads, but the platform has a much shorter lifespan compared to what AM5 will offer. At the previous official prices, these CPUs were positioned to compete with the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and AMD Ryzen 7 9700X, processors that cost the same as their Intel counterparts.
