Intel’s Spring Price Cuts
AMD holds on just fine thanks to its strategic product pricing. Their desktop quad-cores revolve around the $250 spot and things are about to get cheaper as Deneb approaches the launch. We can fairly say that AMD managed to somehow recover after a disappointing financial year in 2007. Intel, however, prepares a new price cut for its CPUs, aiming to keep the archenemy in check for the next several months.
Intel’s new price cuts will be effective as of Sunday April 20th. They will significantly affect the prices of the older 65nm CPUs, while the 45nm parts will see a minimal price drop. I mean minimal like $2 cheaper.
In this respect, the high-end 45nm model that will get cheaper is the Core 2 Quad Q9550 at 2.83GHz with 12MB L2 cache. It drops from $527 to $525. Keep in mind that these are only the wholesale prices. The cheaper Core 2 Quad Q9450 clocked at 2.66GHz with 12MB cache will drop from $319 to $317, whereas the Core 2 Quad Q9300 clocked at 2.5GHz with 6MB cache will drop from $270 to $268.
Older models such as the Q6700 with a 2.66GHz clock speed and 8MB cache and a 1066MHz FSB speed will drop from the current $527 to $268. Now that’s what I call drastic! Sticking to the ultra popular CPUs, we see the 65nm Kentsfield Q6600 with its 2.4GHz clock and 8MB cache dropping from $250 to $227.
All dual-core 45nm E8x0 series Penryn based models will also see the $2 drop. The older 65nm dual-core E6850 at 3GHz and 4MB cache drops to $266, the E6750 at 2.66GHz and 4MB cache drops to $187 and the E6550 at 2.33GHz and 4MB cache drops to $167.
But that’s not all. Intel really wants to put some more pressure on AMD by dropping prices for the 4-series Core 2 Duo processors. Starting with the E4700 with 2.60GHz clock, 800MHz FSB speed and 2MB cache drops $2 to $137, the E4600 with 2.40GHz clock, 800MHz FSB speed and 2MB cache drops from $139 to $117 while the E4500 with 2.20GHz clock 800MHz FSB speed and 2MB cache drops $2 to $117.
Things are looking good for Intel and we should expect some more price cuts when Nehalem enters the scene, later this year.
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