A while ago you have been able to read here that Global Foundries canceled 7nm to fully focus on 14nm, as that is the most profitable for them. That’s was the first serious industry hint. The 14nm process sees massive productions delays and shortages, as a result, Coffee Lake at 14nm procs have risen in price significantly, some even 40% or 60%.
TSMC reported they cannot keep up with 14nm demand. Intel delays 10nm due to issues and later mentioned that instead of baking some series 300 chipsets chips at 14nm, they now order them as 22nm chip. My Dutch colleagues from the HWI noticed this as well and compiled a list of what is going on with prices of coffee lake processors, and the results are pretty shocking really, this is what has been happening in just three weeks time:
| Lowest price with stock | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st of September | September 22 | Difference | |
| Core i7 8086K | € 419 | € 459 | 10% |
| Core i7 8700K | € 349 | € 420 | 20% |
| Core i7 8700 | € 319 | € 425 | 33% |
| Core i5 8600K | € 249 | € 299 | 20% |
| Core i5 8600 | € 225 | € 298 | 32% |
| Core i5 8500 | € 205 | € 256 | 25% |
| Core i5 8400 | € 199 | € 279 | 40% |
| Core i3 8350K | € 174 | € 200 | 15% |
| Core i3 8300 | € 139 | € 169 | 22% |
| Core i3 8100 | € 109 | € 175 | 61% |
| Pentium G5600 | € 89 | € 100 | 12% |
| Pentium G5500 | € 81 | € 97 | 20% |
| Pentium G5400 | € 60 | N/A | N/A |
| Celeron G4920 | € 51 | € 52 | 2% |
| Celeron G4900 | € 38 | € 42 | 11% |
For example, if you are eying a Core i5 8400, then you should know it became 40% more expensive ever since the beginning of this month. The Core i3 8100 is now 61% more expensive compared to really September.
When you average the processors out, you will see an overall price increase of 23 percent, that’s for the entire range with lots of fluctuations per CPU. It seems the shortages are substantial on the 14nm production lines, which makes me wonder what is to happen with the pending Core 9000 series launch, which also is based on 14nm coffee lake.
Distributors mention that there will be severely limited stock available for Core 9000 (8-core Core i9 9900K), even less than with the Series 9000 launch, and these processors suffered from shortages in availability for months after their release.
