Intel is preparing a price increase for its processors and chips. Nikkei reports that the chipmaker will raise prices for its flagship CPUs as well as a wide range of other chips later this year, including Wi-Fi and other connectivity chips. Intel has already informed its customers of the price increases.
The Nikkei reports that prices have not yet been finalized, but some chips could see a 20% increase. Intel had already warned earlier this year that it was looking into possible price increases for certain chips, due to ongoing inflation and rising material and labor costs.
“In the first quarter earnings call, Intel indicated that it would raise prices in certain segments of its business due to inflationary pressures,” an Intel spokesperson said in a statement to Nikkei. “The company has already started informing customers about these changes.”
The price increases come at a time when PC shipments have experienced a major decline and inflation is already affecting average PC sales prices. Gartner revealed this week that worldwide PC shipments dropped nearly 13% this quarter. “This is the sharpest decline in nine years for the global PC market, driven by geopolitical, economic and supply chain challenges affecting all regional markets,” says Gartner in a press release.
The PC market in Europe, the Middle East and Africa saw an even greater decline (18%), according to Gartner. “This is a major setback in total volume after two years of very strong growth spurred by COVID-19 as well,” says Mikako Kitagawa, research director at Gartner. “The abandonment or complete abandonment of operations in Russia due to the war in Ukraine has had an even greater impact on the PC market, as Russian PC shipments to major PC vendors used to contribute 5-10% of the total PC volume of the EMEA.”
While the PC market is teetering and Intel prepares to raise CPU prices, the opposite is happening on the GPU side. The massive GPU shortage ended last month, thanks in part to the ongoing cryptographic crash. Crypto miners are flooding the market with cards that are no longer profitable, and that means new GPUs are available on the shelves. Nvidia started bundling free games with some RTX 3080, 3080 Ti, 3090 and 3090 Ti cards.
Building a gaming PC or buying a pre-built one now seems like the ideal time during GPU price drops and before CPU price increases. We’re about to enter another era of CPU and GPU upgrades, particularly with Nvidia’s new Series 40 GPUs reportedly slated to arrive in the coming months.
Source: Nikkei
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