Intel’s Core i9-13900KF is on sale as part of an early Prime Day deal with 35% off at Amazon.
Just be aware of the instability problems with Raptor Lake and ensure you patch up (Image Credit: Intel)
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The processor has a list price of $599, and is now at $389, so you’re saving a good chunk of cash here, as Wccftech flagged up.
This is, of course, the slightly cheaper version of the Raptor Lake flagship which doesn’t have integrated graphics (something those with a discrete GPU will hopefully never need – save for if that graphics card misfires badly).
If you want the integrated GPU then you can plump for the Core i9-13900K which is also on sale, and currently reduced to $416 (which is 34% off), so it’s very nearly as good a deal.
These prices are correct at the time of writing, but may change later on, as ever – there’s no guarantee stock will last either.
There’s one notable fly in the thermal paste here which we must mention – although you’re already likely to be well aware of the problems Intel’s Raptor Lake CPUs have had with instability issues and PC gaming in particular.
The Core i9-13900K / KF are most definitely affected models here, but Intel has now fully patched up all the core (pun not intended) problems causing the crashing and erratic behavior of its mid-to-higher-end 13th and 14th-gen processors (not to mention issues around degradation, which are even more worrying).
So, if you get a shiny new Core i9-13900KF, all you need to do is ensure that your motherboard BIOS is fully patched up with all the microcode updates Intel has issued to cure this bugbear – and that you take the other advice Team Blue has given on this matter.
Then you should be fine, in theory, although the paranoid could still be wary about buying an affected 13th and 14th-gen model. Intel has assured us that these instability gremlins have not been carried over to Arrow Lake desktop CPUs, which are about to emerge if the rumors are right (later this month).