Three South Korean authorized distributors of Intel chips just launched a new ‘Value Pack’ option called the Intel Core i5-14600K/KF Value Pack (genuine). According to the South Korean online shopping and price comparison site Danawa (machine translated) (h/t harukaze5719), these products are currently available only in this East Asian country, and the packaging change is designed to make the processors more affordable to consumers.
The retail website explains that “…this value pack (genuine) product provides the same quality and warranty service as the existing genuine box product, but it is supplied at a more competitive price. This will give not only give individual users, but also gamers, creators, design and video editing companies, and a wide range of customers the opportunity to purchase Intel processors at a more affordable price.” An authorized distributor also told Danawa, “This is a very meaningful moment in that it is the first time in Korea that an official Intel Value Pack has been released. We are happy to maintain the same warranty period and standard as our original products, but at a more reasonable price.”
The only difference between the boxed processor and the Value Pack (genuine) option is its packaging. Instead of coming in a specially printed box, the latter uses a generic blue box, and its contents are only differentiated by a sticker. This is somewhat reminiscent of the new EU packaging regulations which aim to simplify packaging and avoid excess — something that both AMD and Intel have already been doing in recent years.
The Intel Core i5-14600KF Value Pack (genuine) is currently listed on Danawa for KRW 284,540, which translates to around $200 at the current exchange rate; by comparison, the boxed version of this chip costs KRW 295,700 or $207. Although $7 might not seem like a lot of money, it’s still quite a substantial amount if you’re penny-pinching or if you’re buying in bulk. On the other hand, the most affordable 14600KF chips go for about KRW 261,200 or about $183 — this might be more affordable, but you would have to go through the retailer where you bought your processor if you ever run into trouble with it.
We checked the Batch # and Serial # on the sample image of the Danawa listing for the Intel Core i5-14600KF Value Pack (genuine) on Intel’s warranty information page, and the page said that the ATPO (Batch #) we listed indicated that it was a tray processor. However, Danawa says that it would have the “Same genuine warranty period and warranty standards apply.” So, we’d like to believe the numbers on the image were just placeholders that belong to a tray processor, or that Intel RMAs in South Korea are all handled by its distributors.