It appears that Intel has finally managed to fix the limited supply of its high-end unlocked Skylake Core i7-6700K and Core i5-6600K CPUs which also dropped the price of these SKUs to a more reasonable levels.

For quite a while both the Core i7-6700K and the Core i5-6600K were quite hard to find both in the US as well European retail and even if you could find them available the price were way above the suggested retail price. According to Intel's ARK, the Core i7-6700K should retail at US $350 but it was easily selling for as high as US $420 in some stores.

According to a research done by Anton Shilove over at Anandtech.com, the Core i7-6700K has been spotted at Amazon for US $365 and although it was not available, the price-tracker engine shows that it was steadily available during last week. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for other retailers as Newegg.com still sell it for US $412.

The situation is quite similar in Europe as well since it earlier could be found for as high as €359 but today you can find it selling for around €310, depending on the region and it was even selling below €300 in December last year. Alternate.de has it in stock but still wants a price premium and sells it for €374. Caseking.de currently has it in stock and wants €359,90, which is actually a deal as it was discounted from €399,90.

The situation with Intel's Core i5-6600K is pretty much similar since while Intel's suggested retail price is set at US $243 for the boxed version, it was selling for as high as US $290 in December. Currently both Amazon and Newegg in the US have it for US $249, which is not far away from the suggested price.

The supply in Europe for the Core i5-6600K is also good as plenty of retailers have it in stock for around €250. The situation was similar in Europe during December last year as the Core i5-6600K was selling for as high as €269. Caseking.de has the Core i5-6600K in stock with a price set at €244,90.

This does not come as a surprise considering that Intel has announced that it managed to ramp up it 14nm manufacturing process as of November and announced that 14nm products currently made up more than 50 percent of the client computing volume. Intel also said that the demand for high-end Core i7 and unlocked processors has been quite high and has set a record in FY 2015.

Strong demand, in combination with delays in mass production of its 14nm CPUs can easily explain the shortage of high-end chips but now it appears that things are looking much better. In case you have been looking to grab one of those unlocked Skylake CPUs, this might be the time to do it as these are at least close to Intel's suggested retail price and widely available.




Source: Anandtech.com.