Friday, 25 July 2008

Intel Chips Go Through a Pleasant Price Cut

Past week, Intel cut some processor prices from 12 percent up to 31 percent, specifically focusing in on its Core 2 and quad core CPUs.

There were three price cuts in Intel's Core 2 Duo chip family. The 3.16-GHz Core 2 Duo E8500 was reduced from USD 266 to USD 183 as of July 20. That 31 percent drop greatly outpaced all the other cuts, which ranged from 11 percent to 15 percent, according to an Intel price list. The slightly slower E8400 also received a cut, an 11 percent drop from USD 183 to USD 163. And at the lower end of the Core 2 Duo line, Intel lopped 15 percent from the price of the E7200, a 2.53GHz chip with a 3M L2 cache and a 1066MHz front side bus.

Along with its desktop CPUs, Intel also dropped prices of several processors in its Xeon server line. The Xeon X3220, operating at 2.40 GHz, saw a price decrease from USD 224 to USD 198. The Xeon X3210, operating at 2.13GHz, also received a 12 percent price cut from USD 224 to USD 198. The E3110, operating at 3 GHz, saw a 11 percent price decrease, and went from USD 188 down to USD 167.

The pricing for QX Extreme processors such as the QX9775 remains unchanged.