Alongside the announcement of their new x86 anniversary-themed hex-core processor, the Core i7-8086K, Intel also announced that they would be giving a significant portion of their inventory away as part of a massive, globe-crossing giveaway. In total, Intel is producing just 50,000 units of the specially binned Coffee Lake CPU. And of those, 8,086 – or about 16% – are slated to be given away starting tonight.

Intel 8th Generation 'Coffee Lake' Core i7 Desktop Processors
  i7-8086K i7-8700K i7-8700 i7-8700T
Cores 6C / 12T
Base Frequency 4.0 GHz 3.7 GHz 3.2 GHz 2.4 GHz
Turbo Boost 2.0
(Single Core)
5.0 GHz 4.7 GHz 4.6 GHz 4.0 GHz
L3 Cache 12 MB
DRAM Support DDR4-2666
Integrated Graphics GT2: 24 EUs
IGP Turbo 1.20 GHz
PCIe Lanes (CPU) 16
TDP 95 W 95 W 65 W 35 W
Price (tray) $425? $359 $303 $303

At 8pm Eastern (midnight UTC), Intel will be running a series of national 24 hour sweepstakes for the processors. Besides being notable for the sheer number of processors being given away – I simply cannot recall the last time any single event gave away 4-digits' worth of CPUs – an interesting quirk of Intel’s giveaway is that they are allocating a fixed number of CPUs in each sweepstakes nation. For the US this means 2,086 processors, another 2,000 for China, etc. Canada, South Korea, Taiwan, and other countries are also part of the giveaways. So while the giveaway crosses parts of the globe, the odds in any given nation are still decent, especially for places like Canada and Taiwan.

Intel Core i7-8086K Giveaway Regions
Country/Region Number of Winners and Prizes Awarded
United States 2,086
Mainland China 2,000
Germany 1,000
Canada 500
France 500
The United Kingdom 500
South Korea 500
Taiwan 500
Japan 500

Note that this is a 24 hour giveaway; Intel is moving fast here and will be drawing winners next Monday. So for a shot at winning a CPU that, while lacking an official price, Intel is valuing at $425, there’s a relatively short window to enter. Otherwise this leaves 41,914 processors to be split between retail and OEMs, and while the $400+ price tag makes it decidedly un-cheap, I don’t imagine that Intel is going to have much trouble selling all of them.

Source: Intel

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  • tyger11 - Thursday, June 7, 2018 - link

    There are more people in the state of California than in the entire country of Canada. C'mon.
  • CajunArson - Thursday, June 7, 2018 - link

    On a per-capita basis Canada is massively over-represented.

    If Intel treated Canada the same way it treats the U.S. there would only be 233 parts given away.
  • CajunArson - Thursday, June 7, 2018 - link

    And that's not even the full story because Quebec is excluded (it's own fault for basically outlawing contests) so the non-Quebec population actually gets an even bigger advantage.

    Intel loves Canada apparently.
  • FunBunny2 - Thursday, June 7, 2018 - link

    "On a per-capita basis Canada is massively over-represented."

    good reason for a Trade War, eh?
  • eastcoast_pete - Thursday, June 7, 2018 - link

    On the other hand, it would be even worse if it's done on a per square-mile basis. I think it should be done based on the population of grizzly bears.
  • Hxx - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    isn't Canada just French for Chicago? lol
    "Steve Harvey"
  • lurker22 - Thursday, June 7, 2018 - link

    Not sure worth my time. Frankly my I5 still runs everything I need. If i get one of these I will have to upgrade mothertboard and ram which is a pain and costs me.
  • Makaveli - Thursday, June 7, 2018 - link

    So you posted to that to say its not worth your time?
  • kmmatney - Thursday, June 7, 2018 - link

    My i7 3770 (non-K) still runs everything OK, but would still love to have this.
  • Ken_g6 - Thursday, June 7, 2018 - link

    If you don't manage to snag a specially branded 8086K, you can still get a "guaranteed" 5GHz i7-8700K here: https://siliconlottery.com/collections/coffeelake/...

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