Intel isn't in the habit of making a mess of its launch schedules, but we must note the Sandy Bridge launch was anything but smooth.

Two days after the official launch the new CPUs are extremely hard to come by and only four SKUs are currently listed as available on our price search engine. The choice of motherboards is quite a bit better, but at the moment only a handful of 2000-series parts are available, but in most markets they are still nowhere to be found. Even the few shops that currently list them as available don't have many in stock.

The Core i5-2300 and 2400 are clocked at 2.8GHz and 3.1GHz respectively, but they both sell for €179. Of course, the prices will be different once they become available in greater volumes. The 3.3GHz Core i5 2500 sells for €209, while the Core i7 2600 goes for €292. Bear in mind that the 2600 is a Core i7 part, so it has 8MB of cache and few more features.

In contrast, more than 30 Socket 1155 motherboards are currently available in the EU with prices ranging from as little as €79 for basic H67 boards to a sobering €277 for Gigabyte's top notch P67 motherboard.