Intel

Non K is this because of power consumption or another factor?

There a bit cursed but erying on AliExpress sells laptop chips solderd onto desktop motherboards some of their 11th generation engineering sample chips are of good value and have modern single core performance.

Alternatively you can get very high core count xeons which offer great multithread performance at low price although lack in single core. There is a 2690 v4 14 cores 28 threads on a motherboard with 16 GB of ram for 94 USD+ tax and shipping.

Although depending on the benchmark the 2690 v4 doesn't even look good in multi core

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/4355vs2780vs4629/Intel-i9-11980HK-vs-Intel-Xeon-E5-2690-v4-vs-Intel-i7-11600H

Used 10/11 gen i7s would provide good value for the price on the used market, but as everything when buying used, it depends on what the seller is asking, if everybody was selling their old rig for what it is actually worth, it would be really easy to say.

Hmmmm I find that Intel CPUs going back at least 6 generations hold their value when compared to AMD. I don't know if that's due to iGPU or consumer sentiment. Best price to performance in the last few cycles has always been 2 generation old CPUs on sale on Black Friday. For example i5-12600K is now $153 and 12700K is $211. i3s and i5s in the past 6 gens, K and non-K, all hover around the $100+ price point used and not uncommon to see them go $130+. So your best price to performance is actually a K chip, at least for the next 3-4 days. If you're sorride about power draw, you can always manipulate power limits in BIOS, as well as turn Turbo Boost off.

The ~$90 12100 beats most of them, that is probably why. There is really not much to consider any more. Even if you are looking for high core count cpus for a server or something. You may want to look at first gen threadripper or similar.

The 219.99 at microcenter by me for i7 13700f seems like a steal

12100 is really cheap. 12400 isn't bad today.

12700 or 13500

Without a budget and your requirements this is kind of a nonsensical question...

The 12th gen is pretty cheap. Something like 12600. Then you can still get ddr5 and have room to upgrade later.

Kind of hard to make a recommendation without knowing what you want to do. Heck, a 2500k can still keep up depending on usage.