Rocket Lake-S desktop CPU's have actually decreased in price over their 10th gen brothers and sisters from the Comet Lake-s series. The socket is the same, IPC has been increased by as much as 19%, and the integrated graphics are up 50%. And then, Intel finally will support PCIe 4.0 as seen on the many motherboard releases from earlier this month - but we already new that.
However, it is vital to notice that Intel has given up on matching AMD's core count, and will now only offer 8 cores / 16 threads, and no 10 Core / 20 Thread version exists any longer.
It is all expected to be available from end of March, but thanks to an unintended leak from the retailer 2Compute We know the prices for all models, and TechPowerUp was kind enough to write up all models and price changes as well:
Core i9-11900K | €500 (~$604) | 8.9% Price Decrease
Core i9-11900KF | €476 (~$574) | 6.1% Price Decrease
Core i9-11900 | €408 (~$493) | 7.6% Price Decrease
Core i9-11900F | €384 (~$464) | 3.9% Price Decrease
Core i7-11700K | €377 (~$456) | 14.6% Price Increase
Core i7-11700KF | €353 (~$427) | 11.7% Price Increase
Core i7-11700 | €306 (~$370) | 4.1% Price Increase
Core i7-11700F | €282 (~$341) | 4.1% Price Increase
Core i5-11600K | €243 (~$294) | 4.3% Price Increase
Core i5-11600KF | €219 (~$265) | 4.3% Price Increase
Core i5-11600 | €207 (~$250) | 6.7% Price Increase
Core i5-11500 | €188 (~$227) | 6.8% Price Increase
Core i5-11400 | €169 (~$204) | 6.3% Price Increase
Core i5-11400F | €146 (~$176) | 2.1% Price Increase
There are three problems though, as mentioned the fewer cores, most likely not a problem for gaming as IPC has increased, but it will give AMD an advantage. Speaking of AMD, they are expected to be able to bring more CPU's to market as Intel launch, with no one being sure of how many CPU's Intel can offer customers. At the same time, only the most expensive models has had a price reduction, while the 11700K and KF models, whose 10th gen brothers are the main frontline soldiers against AMD have had a noticeable price increase. Not sure it is the right strategy in a time where AMD is gaining market shares.