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The Core i9-10850K Could Cost $450, But We Don't Know If You Can Buy It
Digital Storm (via @momomo_us) has started to offer the Intel Core i9-10850K as an option for the company's custom built PCs. However, the question still remains whether the deca-core processor is an OEM-exclusive chip or not.
As you can tell, the Core i9-10850K wasn't part of Intel's 10th Generation Comet Lake-S launch, and we only know about the processor's existence from previously leaked Geekbench 5 submissions. It now appears that Digital Storm has expelled all doubts of the Core i9-10850K's existence, though.
Like other Comet Lake-S processors before it, the Core i9-10850K is product of Intel's 14nm process node. The 10-core, 20-thread processor first surfaced with a 3.6 GHz base clock and 5.2 GHz boost clock. Digital Storm has the processor up with the same clock speeds. The company's specifications seemingly confirm our suspicion that the Core i9-10850K is nothing more than a Core i9-10900K with a 100 MHz slower base clock and without the Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB) feature.
Despite the lower base clock and lack of TVB, the Core i9-10850K's performance appear to be right up the same alley as the Core i9-10900K in Geekbench 5. The majority of the Core i9-10850K's specifications are already out of the bag, except for the chip's TDP (thermal design power).
The current speculation is that the Core i9-10850K's entire conception is to bring a processor that's comparable to the Core i9-10900K's performance, but with lower cooling and power requirements. The Core i9-10900K is rated for 125W, but the Core i9-10850K's value is still unknown.
Digital Storm doesn't explicitly expose the pricing for the Core i9-10850K. However, the company states that it costs $42 to upgrade to the Core i9-10900K. Here's where we'll need to speculate a little bit. We're unsure if Intel's pre-built partners get processors at a special price. For the sake of discussion, we'll just the Core i9-10900K's MSRP as a reference.
According to Intel, the Core i9-10900K's MSRP is between $488 and $499. Therefore, the Core i9-10850K could sell for $446 or $457, depending on which limit you're using for the calculation. Assuming that the Core i9-10850K isn't just aimed at OEMs, it's fair to say that the processor can retail for around $450. As it happens, this would also indicate that Intel's TVB feature costs $50.
