The price of Intel's high-end model, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, has dropped below the $200 mark for the first time. This means the entry barrier for this quasi-flagship processor with 24 cores has fallen below 1,500 yuan.
According to the latest quotes from North American retailer Micro Center, the current single-unit price for the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is just $199.99 (approximately 1,418 yuan).
The processor was initially released at $299 (approximately 2,009 yuan), and its official MSRP was later raised to $349 (approximately 2,345 yuan). Based on this, the actual discount in this promotion amounts to $150 (approximately 1,008 yuan), representing a price drop of nearly 43%.
In addition to the 270K Plus, the same-series Core Ultra 5 250K Plus has also dropped below $140 (approximately 993 yuan), and even the entry-level 10-core model, the Ultra 5 225F, has fallen below the $100 (approximately 672 yuan) mark for the first time.
As for the domestic market, the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus price remains stable at around 2,249 yuan, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is stable at 1,539 yuan, and the Ultra 5 225F is priced at 819 yuan.
In terms of hardware specifications, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus uses Intel's LGA 1851 socket, integrating 8 Performance cores and 16 Efficient cores for a total of 24 cores and 24 threads, along with 40MB of L2 cache and 36MB of L3 cache.
Currently, in the sub-$200 price range, the 270K Plus is the only product on the market offering 24 physical cores. Moreover, although it is positioned lower than the Core Ultra 9 285K, which has the exact same core and thread configuration, the 270K Plus actually delivers better frame rate performance in actual game tests.
More importantly, the Core Ultra 9 285K is still priced around $500 (approximately 3,546 yuan), while AMD's popular AM5 platform gaming processor, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, generally maintains a retail price above $300 (approximately 2,016 yuan).
For gamers, spending less than half the price to obtain equivalent computing power or even better gaming performance makes the cost-effectiveness self-evident.