Ebay listing shows Intel’s Core Ultra 7 265K offered a day before launch – but it’s not exactly a bargain

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Intel has already distributed samples of its upcoming Arrow Lake 200S series of processors to independent reviewers. But with just a day to go until the official launch, it looks like a Core Ultra 7 265K has arrived on eBay in the UK – although the seller isn’t exactly offering a bargain.

The Core Ultra 7 265K was listed for £450 or $580, but we’ll remind readers that this is the expected price of Intel’s flagship Core Ultra 9 285K – so consider the increase as a tax on early adopters. The details mention that this CPU is boxed, unused and comes with an official 3-year warranty from Intel.

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We discourage anyone from using unofficial channels to purchase CPUs, there is typically no recourse or support once the purchase is made – that and the extra 20% on top of what is believed to be the official list price. At least it would make sense if an LGA 1851 motherboard was part of the equation.

Suppose, hypothetically, you lost half a grand, trusted the seller and stole the CPU – now what? Without an LGA 1851 motherboard, that CPU is a paperweight or literally a pile of useless sand, especially if you were hoping to use the CPU a day before everyone else.

Anyway, ahead of launch tomorrow, the Core Ultra 7 265K offers 20 cores divided into eight Lion Cove-based performance cores and twelve Skymont-based efficiency cores. The CPU offers a respective boost clock of 5.5 GHz along with 70 MB of total cache. We expect Intel to price the Core Ultra 7 265K at around $400, but we’ll wait for official numbers.