Rebadged Alder Lake CPU is priced higher than the new Arrow Lake chip in retailer listing — Core 5 120 and Core 5 120F listed for $246 and $216

Prices for Intel's upcoming Core 5 120 and Core 5 120F have cropped up, and they look very underwhelming. Discovered by momomo_us on X, Bottom Line Telecommunications, Inc. has listed the Core 5 120 and 120F on its website for $246.01 and $216.66, respectively. These could be placeholders, though, so treat the pricing with caution.

If you're familiar with these CPUs, you'll know that those prices are very high considering the performance they offer. The Core 5 120 series is based on Intel's three-generation-old Alder Lake architecture, with specs barely any better than Intel's cheapest Alder Lake Core i5 desktop chip, the Core i5-12400.

The Core i5-1200 features six P-cores (no E-cores), a 65W power rating, 18MB of L3 cache, a 2.5 GHz base clock, and a 4.5 GHz boost clock. The F-model differentiates itself by lacking integrated graphics, requiring users to pair the CPU with a dedicated graphics card.

At a price approaching $250, the vanilla Core 5 120 is significantly more expensive than most of Intel's newer Core i5 counterparts, including K-series variants. The Core i5-14600K is priced at $195 on Newegg, while the Core i5-14400 is available for $176 on the same platform.

The cherry on top is that the Core 5 120's price exceeds that of Intel's cheapest Arrow Lake-S CPU to date, the Core Ultra 5 225, priced at $211 on Newegg. The aforementioned pricing was recorded at the time of writing.

The Core 5 120F doesn't fare any better, even with its $30 discount. Its original twin, the Core i5-12400F, is still on sale for just $108.99 on Newegg.

Sky-high pricing for newly released refreshed CPUs is nothing new; we've seen AMD do similar things with its Ryzen 3000XT and Ryzen 5000XT refreshes. We can expect the Core 5 120 series to drop in price over time, assuming nobody buys these chips.

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