BestBuy has listed Intel's more modest 65W CPUs for its 12th generation, giving us an idea of what the chips will cost when they go on sale. They run the gamut from the high-end Intel Core i9-12900, right through to the diminutive Pentiums. The real exciting addition, however, is the Core i5-12400F, which is priced at just $180. Considering that CPU is going to offer credible competition to AMD's 5600X, a $300 chip, that shows mid-range Intel gaming rigs are going to be king in the coming months.
The full price list of the new CPUs is as follows:
Core i9 12900 - $529.99
Core i9 12900F - $509.99
Core i7 12700 - $359.99
Core i7 12700F - $329.99
Core i5 12600 - $239.99
Core i5 12500 - $219.99
Core i5 12400 - $209.99
Core i5 12400F - $179.99
Core i3 12100 - $139.99
Core i3 12100F - $109.99
Pentium G7400 - $79.99
Pentium G6900 - $59.99
All of these chips have a base 65W TDP, making the top chips kind of exciting too. Although they'll get a lot more power hungry and hot when pushed, they won't hit the extreme multiple hundreds of watts demands of the K variants, which could lead to excellent all round performance without being quite so demanding on the rest of your system.
All of this puts added pressure on AMD, which really doesn't have much to compete with any of this outside of its top chips -- even with recent price reductions.
All eyes will be on CES 2022, where AMD's new 3D VCache Ryzen 5000 chips should make their first commercial appearance.