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Intel’s latest 8th generation processors hit shelves yesterday and as expected, those same shelves were promptly empty as retailers are experiencing a shortage of the flagship i7-8700K. Some places have begun listing fulfilment dates as sometime in November, however it is likely that retail propagation will not return to normal until next year.
This scarceness has resulted in third party retailers hiking up the price on what short supply they have. Overclockers UK dipped into its binned processors to satisfy demand, with its 5GHz, 5.1GHz and 5.2GHz models selling for £500, £600 and £800 respectively, over the standard SKU out of stock at a price of £360.
The Core i5-8600K is also seemingly experiencing a shortage with many retailers following the trend of “out of stock” or listing the CPU as a pre-order. Those not bothered about the K-variant can get a hold of the Core i7-8700 for roughly £30 less than its counterpart at £330. The lower end Core i5-8400 is also unaffected by the shortage, and while it’s lower 2.8GHz and lack of hyperthreading might turn some away, it can be boosted to 4GHz relatively smoothly, making its £180 price tag a bargain.
As per usual, many still flock to the K variants of processors, and it’s no wonder when the line up scored a whopping 9/10 and our Must Have badge. Unfortunately, those after the i5-8600K and i7-8700K will be having to plea with their local retailers and perhaps break their F5 key to get a hold of one if any are to appear in November.
KitGuru Says: While this is unfortunate, this seems to be a trend in new tech in recent years. It’s disheartening for the early adopters and those ahead of the curve, and could prompt people to wait a bit longer for Cannon Lake to make an appearance, although that might still be a way off yet. Are you after a Coffee Lake processor?
I give you Overclockers UK. Turning their entire first batch of 8700k’s into pre-bins for a quick profit, making any sense of first come first serve completely pointless
https://i.gyazo.com/c7be118e61018e4531465b20b0f2f38f.png
I feel like it’s shady as shit to dedicate your entire first batch to pre-bins in the face of a stock shortage. Kind of defeats the whole point of first come first serve and completely ruins the launch for anyone who’s not a complete idiot (£450 extra for a barely noticeable increase in CPU performance). If I’m not getting my 8700K by the end of this month from Overclockers, I’ll probably just buy a Ryzen from Scan instead
The shortage doesn’t come from Overclockers at all. The guys and girls over there are making do with what they can to satisfy the needs of customers. Intel is the one to point the finger at, unfortunately, as we expected before the release of the 8th-gen.
With fulfilment dates being around November 1st, you might need to wait a little beyond this month if you’re up for it. That being said, even then most places are speculating that Intel is holding off to launch a harder release to combat Ryzen 2 next February. As for the increase in performance, it depends which processor you’re sporting at the moment, but our review along with others across the net shows that the increase is more than people were expecting. Best of luck on whichever you choose, though!
There’s no other way to say it: Coffee Lake was a paper launch. Intel obviously didn’t have enough stock to go around, but they wanted to put something out there to appease their fanbase and deter customers from buying Ryzen. As the article said, I wouldn’t expect sufficient supply until next year (this was when CL was originally scheduled for). In the meantime, retailers are going to have a field day, making tons of money from eager customers.
The fact that brand new motherboards are needed, and that these happen to be pricier than B350 boards, will make a lot of people make a similar decision.
Ive been moaning and moaning about this, i cannot believe i feel like i’m the only one seriously unhappy with overclockers on the matter. I don’t think Intel will be best pleased either.
They’ve basically opened every retail boxed 8700k that was sold to them by Intel distributors with the intention of them retailing them at RRP, theyve then tested the life out of them all to see if they’re good enough overclockers to shift for 800 quid and if poor overclockers they’re either classing as binned cpus at 5ghz for £500 (which is essentially the worst of the batch, a poor/average overclocker with no potential of a silicon win) or theyre chucking the poorer ones inside custom built, overpriced, pre built gaming pcs ahead of supplying the demand of intels customers.
They’ve seen the shortage info prior to NDA lift, so they’ve decided to put as ‘pre-order’ instead, sold the worst ones for £500 and the better ones for £800 (about 125% overcharge).
Its not like they binned SOME, they binned ALL!
I was hitting F5 at 2pm NDA lift after ocuk personally told me to keep an eye on 2pm stock and the retail stock never even existed. Sure they had stock, just none for RRP.
They essentially priced me out whilst keeping me away from another retailer that could have potentially had one, completely wasted my time unless of course i wanted to make a mug of myself and pay over double the retail value.
Its a complete and utter insult and a kick in the face to any loyal customer with a brain cell. Sure, you can accept if they bin some and can also accept if they had only 20 available at RRP and they all sold out before you could complete transaction then fair play, but to not offer a single one at RRP and blatantly attempt to milk loyal customers because of a negative situation is disgusting.
Ocuk forgets that most average income customers don’t just have a wait from the 5th, a lot have waited weeks already. People have had to sell their old rigs in good time to maximise return before price drops occur from the 8th gen releasing. People will have saved up and struggled to even be in a position to afford the upgrade, even at at RRP!
To return the loyalty of customers with on an average wage, they’ve made them go without a pc for further weeks/months because they didn’t have the luxury of filling their greed with an unlimited supply of cash….basically, unless money is no object to you, or you were foolish enough to pay £500-£800 for one, you go without!
I know i’m rambling and i know this is one hell of an essay, but i think there should be some kind of sanctioning from Intel or some kind of trade law on this type of thing. I’m genuinely gutted to have been refreshing the f5 at 2pm with my card at the ready, just to be let down by utterly selfish, inconsiderate greed. I feel very strongly about overclockers tactics (hence the essay). I now no doubt have what appears to be potential months of waiting and staring at a z370 board i cannot use or even test.
I pre ordered my 8700k in haste whilst on ocuk and this may not have been a wise decision as Intel honestly can’t chuffed at ocuk’s antics, i wouldn’t be surprised if they are last on the distributors list for restocking (further adding to our wait). Ocuk have essentially made people moan to Intel about pricing on day one, theyve opened all distributed retail packets intended to be sold at RRP, both taking the mickey out of intels cost pricing by selling at over double the RRP and pricing those out on lower budgets. The lower budget people need a PC so may have to jump to the nearest and most reasonably priced option = Ryzen (Intels main competitor). I know there is low stocks regardless of the above but Ocuk certainly havent helped the situation, it wont effect the money people as they’ll buy them at silly prices and would never likely buy a budget AMD option anyway, but those on budgets will be effected and what could have been a few more customers on Intel (having been able to buy on day one at RRP) may very well now be unhappy ex intel customers impatiently jumping on the Ryzen bandwagon.
Cheers Overclockers!
Put off my new build for this “launch”. Looks like Ryzen for me since I can actually get one.
I am trying to build an i7 8700k build but the processor is completely out of stock every where not to mention I want a mATX build and you can only find ATX motherboards for sale as well, this release feels as rushed as it gets.
I am not getting Ryzen but if I get to the black friday and no signal of mATX z370 boards or the i7 8700k I might as well wait for Ice Lake.
If my motherboard hadnt exploded 2 weeks ago I wouldnt give one crap. The hell if Im going to throw money away on another now ancient z97 mobo as a temporary measure.
Obviously the vast majority of cpus went to reviewers and “lucky shop” employees. As it stands, this bullshit launch is just that, bullshit. Classic dick.
Oh well, going on holiday for 3 weeks anyway, so in the meantime Intel can lick my nuts, and furthermore AMD can lick even more than just my nuts for simply never getting their sheit together to make buying their trash worth while.
Thanks for nothing all around. 😉