Intel’s Core i9-10850K is on sale right now on Amazon

It seems like the holiday (and post-holiday) season is the best time to upgrade your PC as the sales keep coming in. Today, the Intel Core i9-10850K is on sale over on Amazon for $400 USD, which is one of the lowest prices the CPU has been listed at since its release in July 2020.

With 10 cores, 20 threads, and a base speed at 3.6 GHz and an overclock speed of 5.2GHz, there aren’t many viable upgrade options for you from here if you aren’t planning on shifting your entire build over to AMD. With the performance you get for the price point here, the only real upgrade you can make is the i9-10900K. The 10900K is the best Intel CPU on the market, but that also has the price point to go with it: $500 USD. I haven’t been able to find proof it’s ever gone on sale, but given how relatively new it is, I wouldn’t be too surprised if Intel is keeping it full-price since demand is still so high.

The 10850K goes for a bit less than its older brother, retailing on Intel’s website for $430 USD, but the sale over at Amazon drops the price to a respectable $400 USD. Going for a straight comparison, I’ll agree it isn’t much of a sale. $30 USD off the Intel price isn’t much, but compared to the usual list price on Amazon of $540 USD? Yeah, that’s a sale that’s well worth taking advantage of.

There are entire conversations to be had about the fact that CPUs and GPUs are being bought up in massive numbers thanks to scalpers and scammers, only to be resold at huge markups, but that ultimately doesn’t do much. While it’s unfortunate that PC components are as rare and expensive as gold or diamonds at this point, they are still available if you can get to the sale quickly enough and have more than a little luck.

When it comes to performance, you’re getting exactly what you pay for. 10 cores, 20 threads, and a 3.6 base clock speed is some of the fastest Intel has to offer, and that translates to your gameplay and moment-to-moment use. You won’t have issues playing the newest titles smoothly (as long as you were able to get your hands on a dedicated GPU) or watching YouTube on one screen and working on the other.

Getting your hands on this CPU will be the most difficult part about upgrading, but if you were in the market for one and have the cash laying around (or know you’ll be getting one of the $600 USD stimulus checks from the American government and don’t have anything else to spend it on) then this is likely your best chance to upgrade your CPU. The 10900K is still more or less sold out; you can get your hands on one, but not without paying $100 USD more than its normal list price. The 10850K offers nearly similar performance but for a lower price point that’s on sale, bringing its price even lower. There’s very little you’ll miss out on by buying this now as opposed to waiting.