Intel hasn't sold a single Arrow Lake CPU at Germany's largest retailer — Core Ultra 200S sales stagnate after just one week

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Arrow Lake's disappointing sales match its underwhelming performance.

Press image of Intel Core Series 200S processor on a dramatic blue and black background
(Image credit: Intel)

Almost a week after the October 24 release of Intel's Core Ultra 200S (Arrow Lake) desktop processors, Germany's largest PC components online retailer still hasn't sold a single unit. While some Arrow Lake chips have sold out of stock on American sites like Newegg and Amazon, all Intel CPU sales make up just 5% of CPU share at Mindfactory, with AMD raking in 95% of CPU sales on the site.

The Tweet below displays Mindfactory's CPU sales numbers for the past week. None of the five Arrow Lake desktop SKUs—Core Ultra 9 285K, Core Ultra 7 265K/KF, or Core Ultra 5 245K/KF—appear on the chart. In fact, Intel's highest-performing CPU, the Core i5-13400, takes 21st place behind a wall of Ryzen chips. A trio of 14th Gen Core i7s and Core i9s take up the rear, with all of Intel's processors selling around ten units each.

Intel's approximately 40 sales at an average sale price of €388 each represents 5.19% of Mindfactory's CPU sales. Compare this with just AMD's first- and second-place chips, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D and Ryzen 7 5700X3D, sitting at 190 and 80 units sold, respectively. AMD's motherboard sales share went from 88.65% to 93.75%, knocking Intel steadily out of the water.

As we found in our 3-star review, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is an alright release but represents a generational regression in gaming performance. Its productivity increases are not enough to save it from being considered a disappointing launch, and Germany's sales represent this. Curiously, the 285K is out of stock at most American retailers. The next-best chip, the Core Ultra 7 265K, is in stock on Amazon and Newegg but has only six combined reviews across both sites, also pointing to disappointing sales.

Arrow Lake's disappointing launch, which is almost forgettable less than a week after its release, is not good news for the struggling Intel. The company has been in one of its worst financial states in years, with its August earnings call revealing a loss of $1.6 billion in one financial quarter. The company's sacrifices include a 15% reduction in staff and a scaling-back of ongoing fab construction efforts.

According to financial analysts, Intel's yet-unfinished Magdeburg, Germany, plant has reportedly stopped construction and may be abandoned. Germans with a $30 billion unfinished Intel fab in their backyard are likely not thrilled about buying more Intel processors, perhaps contributing to Arrow Lake's feeble sales in the country.

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Dallin Grimm
Dallin Grimm
Contributing Writer

Dallin Grimm is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. He has been building and breaking computers since 2017, serving as the resident youngster at Tom's. From APUs to RGB, Dallin has a handle on all the latest tech news. 

70 Comments Comment from the forums
  • jkhoward
    Shocker, they’ve been on a horrible streak lately. At least the CPUs before Zen 1 weren’t self imploding. They ran hot, and sucked up a ton of power, but they’re still alive and kicking it today. This is Intel’s Zen 1 moment, they’ll have a Zen 2 moment, and hopefully by Zen 3 they’ll sort it out. Using glue to hold chips together is a lot harder than Intel must have thought.
    Reply
  • Gururu
    Just two months ago it was reported that Mindfactory only sold a few dozen of AMD's latest. I guess it is better than zero or there is some weird metrics here...
    https://www.techpowerup.com/325533/mindfactory-only-sold-a-few-dozen-amd-ryzen-7-9700x-and-ryzen-5-9600x
    Reply
  • logainofhades
    Zen 5 at least was a minor improvement over Zen 4. Arrow lake is more of a regression, in some ways. It's almost akin to Phenom II vs Faildozer.
    Reply
  • YSCCC
    Gururu said:
    Just two months ago it was reported that Mindfactory only sold a few dozen of AMD's latest. I guess it is better than zero or there is some weird metrics here...
    https://www.techpowerup.com/325533/mindfactory-only-sold-a-few-dozen-amd-ryzen-7-9700x-and-ryzen-5-9600x
    Likely since Zen 5 isn't showing massive improvement over Zen 4, and Arrow Lake have promised massive efficiency gain and not far from X3D in gaming, so consumers are waiting for the reviews of ARL before making final decision, now the reviews are out and ppl just go for the Zen 4 X3D or Zen 5 instead...
    Reply
  • Conor Stewart
    Gururu said:
    Just two months ago it was reported that Mindfactory only sold a few dozen of AMD's latest. I guess it is better than zero or there is some weird metrics here...
    https://www.techpowerup.com/325533/mindfactory-only-sold-a-few-dozen-amd-ryzen-7-9700x-and-ryzen-5-9600x
    Ryzen 9000 series isn't selling all that well either but that is because it isn't enough of an increase over 7000 series and people will be waiting for 9000x3d.

    In the article here it said that 7800x3d and 5700x3d are their best selling CPUs.

    9000 series is an improvement over 7000 series but not enough to stop people from just buying the cheaper 7000 series chips. For anyone wanting the best gaming performance the 7800x3d is still the best just now until 9000x3d releases so it doesn't make sense for people with any of the x3d CPUs to upgrade right now.

    I think the main point here is that at a time when Arrow Lake should see it's best sales it is barely selling and that Intel only makes up 5% of its CPU sales meaning that Intel CPUs despite the new launch really aren't selling many at all.
    Reply
  • Ogotai
    or, maybe with the issues with 13th and 14th gens, there is little trust in intel, and some dont want to risk buying an intel cpu, only to have issues in 6 months...
    Reply
  • Jame5
    Honestly, I think the Arrow Lake series is a good win. Slight regression/even/or even slight gains while consuming MUCH less power is a significant amount of progress from Intel. Peaking at 450w+ to <240w is a huge gain in efficiency.
    Reply
  • helper800
    This does not bode well for Intel in Europe. The Intel Ultra 200s and AMD's 9000 series are a good example of the old adage; There are no bad products, only bad prices. The new Intel CPUs are, for the most part, much more power efficient 13k/14k series Intel CPUs with no hyper threading, and slightly worse gaming performance. If the release prices were 240 for the 245k, 360 for the 265k, and 480 for the 285k I would presume they'd be selling like hotcakes.
    Reply
  • philipemaciel
    jkhoward said:
    Shocker, they’ve been on a horrible streak lately. At least the CPUs before Zen 1 weren’t self imploding. They ran hot, and sucked up a ton of power, but they’re still alive and kicking it today. This is Intel’s Zen 1 moment, they’ll have a Zen 2 moment, and hopefully by Zen 3 they’ll sort it out. Using glue to hold chips together is a lot harder than Intel must have thought.
    I would say that this is more like a Bulldozer moment: releasing a much waited CPU family that isn't that bad, but is still bad, and more importantly, very disappointing.
    Reply
  • DS426
    As Jay Leno like to say, "that's hilarious!"

    Intel must be a really bad word over there. Yeah, it's not glamorous, but aren't there more folks trying to get off of suicidal Raptor Lake like I assume what's going on here in the U.S? Or just upgrades from much older models like Kaby Lake or thereabouts?
    Reply