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A previously unannounced Intel CPU, the Core Ultra 7 260K, has turned up in two ABS prebuilt gaming PCs sold on Newegg, despite no mention from Intel on its official specs pages. The chip mirrors the Core Ultra 7 265K with 20 cores, 30MB L3 cache, 125W TDP and DDR5-6400 support, but clocks slightly lower at 5.4GHz versus 5.5GHz. It belongs to the original Arrow Lake lineup rather than the newer Arrow Lake Refresh family.
Amid an ongoing chip shortage dubbed 'RAMageddon,' memory, processors and graphics cards have seen steep price increases, while hard disk drives and solid-state drives have so far been comparatively insulated. Storage prices are still climbing, but industry signals suggest the worst pressure on HDDs and SSDs may ease over time rather than persist indefinitely.
Reports and rumors indicate Nvidia's RTX 5090 flagship GPU is being phased out, with no replacement expected until at least 2028. Retail prices have climbed from a $1,999 MSRP to over $7,500, and Micro Center is said to be ending its stock of the standalone card, leaving prebuilt PCs as one of the remaining purchase routes.
A tech advisory piece compares building a gaming PC yourself versus buying prebuilt, noting that self-builds offer full component control but require troubleshooting skills and patience. Prebuilt systems, by contrast, work out of the box, come with a single warranty covering all parts, and benefit from manufacturers' bulk-purchasing discounts, though they can be harder to upgrade later.