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Hardware Intel Readies Price Cuts For Quad-core Desktop, Server Processors
Gabriel Ikram (Blog) - May 15, 2007 6:52 PM

95 comment(s) - last by CSSaddict.. on May 21 at 1:04 PM

Intel set to cut prices ahead of AMD's "Barcelona" launch

Last week, AMD talked about its desktop plans for the upcoming year in Sunnyvale, California. Although AMD showed its upcoming desktop processor running in single and dual-socket configurations, the company chose not to announce an official launch date for its next-generation desktop processors. According to Robert Rivet, AMD executive vice president and CFO, however, AMD's next-generation processors will be ready by Christmas.

Despite how distant the possible December launch date of AMD's native quad-core desktop processors may seem, Intel is already stepping up the competition and will be instituting a series of aggressive price cuts in July. We originally reported these major price cuts, which will be targeting Intel's quad-core desktop and server processors, in March. At the time, we didn't know the official date of when the price cuts would take place. We can confirm today that the price cuts will take place on July 22.

Intel Core 2 Quad
Model	Core Frequency	L2 Cache	FSB	July 22 Pricing
QX6800	2.93 GHz	8MB	1066 MHz	$999
Q6700	2.66 GHz	8MB	1066 MHz	$530
Q6600	2.40 GHz	8MB	1066 MHz	$266

The first part of the price cuts will center on Intel's quad-core desktop processors. The Q6600, which Intel launched in February, currently sells for $530 in quantities of 1000. When the product was originally launched, it was priced at $851 in quantities of 1000. The next round of price cuts will effectively lower the price to $266. The selling price of the Intel QX6700 will also be lowered, coming in at $530 by the end of July.

Intel Quad Core Xeon DP
Model	Core Frequency	L2 Cache	FSB	July 22 Pricing
X5365	3.00 GHz	8MB	1333 MHz	$1172
X5355	2.66 GHz	8MB	1333 MHz	$744
E5345	2.33 GHz	8MB	1333 MHz	$455
E5335	2.00 GHz	8MB	1333 MHz	$316
E5320	1.86 GHz	8MB	1066 MHz	$256
E5310	1.60 GHz	8MB	1066 MHz	$209
L5320	1.86 GHz	8MB	1066 MHz	$320
L5310	1.60 GHz	8MB	1066 MHz	$273

Intel is also slashing the prices of its quad core Xeon DP processors. The flagship Xeon DP X5355 will see its introductory $1172 price drop to a more manageable $744. Likewise, Intel's slowest 1333MHz FSB Xeon DP processor will drop to $316 while the Intel's two low-voltage Xeon DP L5320 and L5310 processors will fall to $320 and $273 respectively.

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Christ

By gigahertz20 on 5/15/2007 7:20:55 PM , Rating: 2

If they are going to cut the price of a 2.4GHz Quad Core Q6600 to $266 imagine what the price of the 2.4GHz E6600 Core 2 Duo would be...half of that at least, $133 would be awesome.

I'm surprised they can sell a quad core for $266, I thought they were expensive to make, if they truly drop down to $266 count me to buy one of these in September for my new computer build.

I wonder if these price cuts are also a response to maybe their new 45nm Penryn processors coming out July/August as well as trying to hurt AMD.

RE: Christ

By Amiga500 on 5/16/2007 7:06:02 AM , Rating: 2

To clear the inventory before introducing Penryn?

Possible I suppose, but with Penryn being a reasonably straight upgrade of Conroe to 45nm with SSE4 instructions and a couple of other optimisations, would they not keep Conroe on the low end and place Penryn on the high end?

Unless they feel this is the most efficient way to do that...

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RE: Christ

By Black69ta on 5/17/2007 12:12:18 AM , Rating: 2

I agree Y would Intel care about what might happen over in the AMD camp? They know about Penryn and have provided "offical" benchmarks for Penryn so they know that in order to compete with their competitor AMD it will still have to be priced competitively which the Conroe already is, So they will drop the Conroe price to flush out the retail channel since it does not appear that they will have any problem refilling it with 1333MHz FSB, >3GHz Penryn Goodness when Intel sees the Phenom hurting its sales then it can respond accordingly but I can't see this move as having anything to do with AMD.

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"Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment -- same piece of hardware -- paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be." -- Steve Ballmer