TECH NEWS – It’s amazing that we’ve come to this, especially since the Arrow Lake Refresh processors are a good value (even though the 9-series hasn’t been released).
Intel is reportedly preparing for another CPU price hike, which would follow the increases implemented in February and March. According to the latest research and distributor survey by the Chinese market research firm Minutes Logic Society, Intel is planning an additional price hike. In February, Intel implemented the first wave of price hikes, ranging from 10% to 15%, depending on the segment and SKU. Barely a month later, the company introduced another increase of approximately 15%. Earlier reports had indicated a 10% increase in the consumer CPU sector for CPUs such as the Core Ultra family. We expect another price hike across the entire CPU portfolio in May. This means Intel will raise prices by a few percentage points, depending on the CPU segment — whether Core Ultra CPUs or Xeon server processors.
The overall cumulative goal of the price increases is to raise prices by approximately 30% compared to 2025 prices. Interestingly, Intel faces a significant CPU supply problem that it cannot immediately resolve. While most CPU manufacturing is in-house and the majority of orders are handled by Intel Foundry, certain CPUs require TSMC silicon for Intel to ship them. This is particularly true for multi-chip packaging, where some components are manufactured by Intel and others by TSMC; shipment is impossible until all components arrive and Intel assembles them using its advanced packaging technology.
Demand from AI data centers is primarily driving these CPU orders. These data centers are currently purchasing CPUs in such large quantities that there are hardly any left. During the initial wave of AI data center deployment, most server infrastructure spending went toward GPUs, averaging more than 12 times the number of CPUs per GPU. However, due to increased computational demands and modern AI usage patterns, this figure has risen significantly, bringing the CPU-to-GPU ratio to 1:8. Some estimates suggest that this ratio could rise as high as 1:4, or four GPUs per CPU socket. This represents a multifold increase in CPU demand that AMD, Intel, and other ARM-based companies cannot keep up with.
Intel is addressing this issue by raising prices as CPUs become increasingly difficult to obtain, even as production slowly increases.
Source: TechPowerUp, Weixin
