Something to look forward to: For the better part of two years, the price of making any significant upgrades to aging PCs has been prohibitive for many consumers. However, manufacturers are now forced by market forces to lower the price of various components, especially GPUs, motherboards, and bleeding-edge DDR5 memory.
Intel’s Alder Lake platform is a solid choice for people looking to upgrade their aging PCs. That said, Team Blue’s 12th-gen processors aren’t exactly cheap, and you do need to buy a new motherboard. That, too, can get expensive depending on whether you want to use DDR5 memory, which is still priced way above decent DDR4 kits.
Also read: Rob’s Alder Lake Windows 11 Rig Build Log
According to a DigiTimes report (via Tom’s Hardware), several supply chain insiders have been told that Intel will cut Alder Lake CPU prices for OEMs by five percent in the coming months, and that includes mainstream Core i5 and Core i7 models.
This would be the second reduction this year, as Intel supposedly cut prices by as much as ten percent over the past few months. The publication notes this is an unprecedented move, as Intel normally applies this policy with older generation CPUs or SKUs that target a specific niche.
For consumers, this is great news as it will eventually translate into better retail prices for pre-built systems and laptops as well as boxed CPUs. For the industry, however, this is a telltale sign that sales are slowing down amid uncertainty related to the overall economy.
DigiTimes says one of the top PC makers saw “far weaker than expected” demand in the second quarter and is ready to cut its July order pull-ins by as much as 80 percent.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that companies like Asus and Gigabyte are now predicting that motherboard sales will fall by almost 25 percent when compared to last year. Graphics card manufacturers also expect a downturn in shipments, but it’s possible upcoming product launches will help towards the end of the year — provided availability will have improved compared to what we’ve seen over the past two years.
Gamers who have been postponing their upgrade plans have a lot to be excited about — GPU prices are slowly deflating, and DDR5 memory is becoming significantly more accessible with each passing month. Even SSD prices are set to drop up to eight percent due to a NAND supply glut.