It’s never pleasant reaching that fork in the road that forces you to choose between an affordable upgrade and a powerful one. Thankfully, the path is one and the same this time around, as Intel has slashed the price of its top-tier 13th Gen i9 CPUs, bringing them to their cheapest yet.
Intel Core i9-13900KF boasts the biggest deal, as our sleuthing shows you can save up to 35%. On Amazon US, the graphics-less chip has fallen to $387.65, which is close to Core i7-13700KF’s $384 launch price. Meanwhile, folks in the UK can grab the same model for £388.97. Discounts vary across the continent but range anywhere from €459 to 496.55 from Germany to France. To check your region, click the big pink button below.
Intel Core i9-13900KF
“Stream, create, and compete at the highest levels with industry-leading features using Intel’s renowned hybrid architecture.”
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
Just remember: the ‘F’ suffix denotes that it doesn’t have an iGPU. All your visuals must come from a discrete graphics card, which isn’t a problem for gaming PCs that rely on raw horsepower but will render that HDMI port on your motherboard useless.
If you need built-in graphics, whether it’s a fallback or for troubleshooting, then Intel Core i9-13900K is more your speed. This is a no-brainer for those of you in the British Isles, as the beefier model undercuts its GPU-less alternative at £386.56. Conversely, it’ll cost a premium in the US despite its luxurious 34% discount at $413.33 in the US.
Intel Core Ultra 200 is on the horizon, and Core i9-14900K still rules the roost when it comes to early gaming benchmarks, but these massive reductions position i9-13900K as one of the best CPUs right now. Not only is it a muscular workhorse, packing 24 cores (eight performance cores and 16 efficient cores) and 32 threads, it runs untethered with up to 5.8GHz frequencies.
Horror stories of crashes are a thing of the past, as Intel has fixed instabilities once and for all. A simple BIOS update can ensure your processor lasts for years to come, even if it can’t fix those that have already degraded. Besides, if anything does go wrong with your processor, you could end up with a 14900K replacement anyway.
As usual, Amazon covers its products with a 30-day return window if you’re unhappy or fancy something different. This gives you all your money back, no questions asked. Everyone loves a safety net.