Good News! - AMD/Intel dip processor prices (Hot Deal!)

[apoppin]

Good News! - Chipmakers dip processor prices

Feb. 24 ? PC chipmakers Intel and Advanced Micro Devices this week enacted their first sweeping desktop processor price cuts of the year. Intel reduced the prices on all its desktop Pentium 4 processors by as much as 21 percent Sunday. Meanwhile, AMD cut prices on select Athlon XP desktop chips by as much as 32 percent Monday.COMPANIES REGULARLY cut prices on their PC processors to make way for new chips and encourage customers to buy new PCs. The companies also use price cuts as a way to stay competitive. The companies employed all three tactics in 2002, bringing down prices quickly through the middle part of last year. But it?s been several months since either company made a widespread price cut on desktop chips. Intel, which reduced notebook Pentium 4 prices in January, dropped desktop prices the last time in November. AMD hasn?t done any price-cutting since last August, when it reduced desktop prices and September, when it lowered prices on its mobile processors.

But analysts say that, despite the pause, the two companies? price cuts are arriving on schedule.
?Ordinarily, they look at cutting prices about once per quarter and this is about that,? said Dean McCarron, an analyst with Mercury Research.

Intel kicked off its latest round of cuts by nipping the price of its flagship 3.06GHz Pentium 4. It lowered the chip?s list price by 8 percent, from $637 to $589. Intel also sliced 6 percent off the list price of its 2.8GHz Pentium 4 chip?from $401 to $375.

Intel also dropped the list prices of its 2.4GHz, 2.5GHz, 2.53GHz, 2.6GHz and 2.66GHz chips by 21 percent each.
The 2.6GHz and 2.66GHz chips were reduced from $305 to $241, while the 2.5GHz and 2.53GHz chips went from $243 to $193 and the 2.4GHz from $193 to $163.
The price cut moves the 2.4GHz Pentium 4 down to the low end of Intel?s pricing range for the Pentium 4. There, it can take over as the entry-level Pentium 4 chip for manufacturers, because, even though Intel still sells 2.2GHz and 2.26GHz chips, the list price for the 2.4GHz chip is the same as that of the slower chips. Intel lopped the prices of all three chips by 16 percent, lowering each of them from $193 to $163. Intel?s 2.53GHz Pentium 4 is a small increase in price from there.

(Intel has several pairs of Pentium 4s, such as the 2.5GHz and 2.53GHz and the 2.6GHz and 2.66GHz, which are similar in clock speed and priced the same, but different in bus frequency. The 2.5GHz offers a 400MHz bus?a pipeline that transmits data between it and the rest of the PC?while the 2.53GHz has a higher-performance 533MHz bus.)
Meanwhile, Intel is making room for a new flagship processor by trimming the price of its midrange chips. It?s expected to launch a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 next quarter and follow with a second round of price cuts. The combination of the two price cuts should push down prices for all of Intel?s current desktop Pentium 4s, sources familiar with Intel?s plans said.
For its part, AMD?s kept prices on its new Athlon XP 3000+ and 2800+ chips the same at $588 and $375, respectively. The chipmaker dropped list prices on several desktop Athlon XP processors with the aim of making them attractive to customers, a representative said.
The Athlon XP 2700+ moved from $349 to $267, a 23 percent drop. AMD dropped its Athlon XP 2600+ processor from $297 to $241, a 19 percent reduction. Its Athlon XP 2400+ saw a 27 percent decrease, from $193 to $141. AMD?s 2200+ chip dropped the most, 32 percent, from $157 to $107.
Prices on its 2100+ and 2000+ processors stayed nearly the same, dropping only a dollar, to $92, and two dollars to $81, respectively.

Prices on AMD desktop chips aren?t likely to move until it brings out an Athlon XP 3200+ chip, which is expected at midyear.
Though the prices set by Intel and AMD apply to chips purchased in lots of 1,000, the chips often appear at retail distributors for different prices. These street prices can be higher or lower than the list prices, depending on supply and demand.

Hope this isn't a repost . . . I did look.

 

[oldfart]

With the drop in CPU prices, and DDR going down, now is a good time for an upgrade.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: oldfart
With the drop in CPU prices, and DDR going down, now is a good time for an upgrade.

Don't forget, hi-perf video cards have some awesome bargains. I am getting interested in upgrading even though my old rig is still chuggin along (smoothly) on Unreal II.

For O/C'ers, which is the BEST Intel CPU ($163-193 price range) - 2.4GHz, 2.5GHz, or 2.53GHz?

 

[oldfart]

In theory, if they are both c1 steppings, they should both hit around the same speed. The 2.4 just needs more FSB to do it. With the extra FSB, ram quality requirments go up if you are running SC DDR. It depends on what you have for memory, and what mem ratios you have on your mobo. With DC DDR, not really a concern.

EDIT: Just noticed the 2.5. 25X multiplier. This would be a good one for an RDRAM rig since you wnt to keep the FSB lower than a DDR rig. 2.4B or 2.53 are better for DDR rigs.

 

[codehack2]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: oldfart
With the drop in CPU prices, and DDR going down, now is a good time for an upgrade.

Don't forget, hi-perf video cards have some awesome bargains. I am getting interested in upgrading even though my old rig is still chuggin along (smoothly) on Unreal II.

For O/C'ers, which is the BEST Intel CPU ($163-193 price range) - 2.4GHz, 2.5GHz, or 2.53GHz?

For me, the 18x multiplier on the 2.4b was the sweet spot. 18 x 166mhz = 3ghz.

CH2

 

[microAmp]

Good to see AMD didn't drop the price on the top end CPU's, for finacial reasons. They need every dollar to get back into the black. But those Intel prices look temping 😀

 

[Wingznut]

Looking over at Pricewatch, it becomes very interesting...

If we can assume that one would spend ~$20 for a hs/fan for the OEM Athlon...

The retail P4's are cheaper than OEM Athlons (with a similar "PR rating") from 2.4ghz and up. Not to mention that the retail P4 has a 3-yr warranty.

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: Wingznut
Looking over at Pricewatch, it becomes very interesting...

If we can assume that one would spend ~$20 for a hs/fan for the OEM Athlon...

The retail P4's are cheaper than OEM Athlons (with a similar "PR rating") from 2.4ghz and up. Not to mention that the retail P4 has a 3-yr warranty.

Also interesting is that $79 will net me an Athlon XP 2100+ while that amount won't even get me a 2GHz Celeron on the Intel side.

 

[jhites]

These prices really started showing up over the weekend at most etailers.

I picked up a combo deal for $159 at Fry's yesterday for a 2.4b with ECS Motherboard.
The Motherboard is ok if you are not going to OC. Will probably be more deals this week.

Now I have two of these 2.4b's. One retail @ 3.1Ghz (see sig) and one
OEM @ ???? yet to be determined. Will know later this week when the
new case and PS show up. 🙂

 

[Wingznut]

Originally posted by: Pariah

Originally posted by: Wingznut
Looking over at Pricewatch, it becomes very interesting...

If we can assume that one would spend ~$20 for a hs/fan for the OEM Athlon...

The retail P4's are cheaper than OEM Athlons (with a similar "PR rating") from 2.4ghz and up. Not to mention that the retail P4 has a 3-yr warranty.

Also interesting is that $79 will net me an Athlon XP 2100+ while that amount won't even get me a 2GHz Celeron on the Intel side.

Well, yeah... But that's not really that interesting, since it is nothing new. Jerry Sanders promised for years (usually in the middle of a "die size is of ultimate importance" rant) that AMD would always be priced lower than Intel.

 

[First]

Originally posted by: Wingznut
Looking over at Pricewatch, it becomes very interesting...

If we can assume that one would spend ~$20 for a hs/fan for the OEM Athlon...

The retail P4's are cheaper than OEM Athlons (with a similar "PR rating") from 2.4ghz and up. Not to mention that the retail P4 has a 3-yr warranty.

As far as I can tell, every major vendor has OEM and retail 2400+, 2500+ and 2600+ processors that are all cheaper than OEM/retail 2.4GHz, 2.53GHz and 2.66GHz P4 processors. However, OEM/retail 2.8GHz and 3.06GHz processors undercut the the 2800+ and 3000+. All in all I'd say very evenly matched. For low-end and midrange it's no contest though.

 

[dullard]

The real hot deal comes when the 3.2 GHz P4 is released in March. At that time Intel will have a second price cut. The 3.06 GHz P4 should sell right around $400, the 2.88 GHz should sell for $305, etc. This is just a small cut to tempt people into buying chips at an intermediate price before they fully drop them.

edit: Oops, just read your link, it did mention the second cut. Oh well. Still it isn't that hot of a deal when there is another cut just around the corner. I will wait, thank you.

 

[BoberFett]

The fact that you still can't get an Intel CPU < $100 means they're out for me. I'm no longer willing to pay top dollar for equipment that's outdated within 6 months. AMD it is!

EDIT: I kan spel!

 

[Adul]

sweet 😀

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
The fact that you still can't get an Intel CPU < $100 means they're out for me. I'm no longer willing to pay top dollar for equipment that's outdated within 6 months. AMD it is!

EDIT: I kan spel!

I don't think Intel has plans to sell any non-cripled chips in the sub $100 range. At least not any time soon when computers are still in the same form as they are now. I think even AMD is getting away from the sub $80 processors with their recent higher priced releases.

 

[Wingznut]

Originally posted by: dullard

Originally posted by: BoberFett
The fact that you still can't get an Intel CPU < $100 means they're out for me. I'm no longer willing to pay top dollar for equipment that's outdated within 6 months. AMD it is!

EDIT: I kan spel!

I don't think Intel has plans to sell any non-cripled chips in the sub $100 range. At least not any time soon when computers are still in the same form as they are now. I think even AMD is getting away from the sub $80 processors with their recent higher priced releases.

Of course not. I'm sure that AMD isn't exactly thrilled about selling their cpu's so low. They'd probably rather make a profit.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: Wingznut

Originally posted by: dullard

Originally posted by: BoberFett
The fact that you still can't get an Intel CPU < $100 means they're out for me. I'm no longer willing to pay top dollar for equipment that's outdated within 6 months. AMD it is!

EDIT: I kan spel!

I don't think Intel has plans to sell any non-cripled chips in the sub $100 range. At least not any time soon when computers are still in the same form as they are now. I think even AMD is getting away from the sub $80 processors with their recent higher priced releases.

Of course not. I'm sure that AMD isn't exactly thrilled about selling their cpu's so low. They'd probably rather make a profit.

Though there is something to be said for marketshare. As long as AMD is not losing money, they'd rather I buy one of their low end chips than anything from Intel. Every machine I've built recently has been AMD based, which while not making AMD the profit they might like, at least I'm not putting money into their competitors pocket.

 

[LED]

Appreciate the post but let's put this in the right perspective...The price drop can already pretty much be had today and it will not effect us nor our suppliers till their stock is gone and rebought., o we (the consumer) may not touch or feel it for months to come...I may be on painkillers @ the moment but I can still think straight 😉

 

[Wingznut]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
Though there is something to be said for marketshare. As long as AMD is not losing money, they'd rather I buy one of their low end chips than anything from Intel. Every machine I've built recently has been AMD based, which while not making AMD the profit they might like, at least I'm not putting money into their competitors pocket.

The problem for them is that they have lost marketshare over the last few quarters, and posted financial losses over the last several quarters. But that's pretty much off topic for this thread.

But really, you should buy which ever product fits your needs and budget, irregardless of who makes it (or who doesn't make it). Whether it's AMD, Intel, Via, Motorola, etc...

 

[oldfart]

Appreciate the post but let's put this in the right perspective...The price drop can already pretty much be had today and it will not effect us nor our suppliers till their stock is gone and rebought., o we (the consumer) may not touch or feel it for months to come...I may be on painkillers @ the moment but I can still think straight 😉

The P4 price drops are in effect. You can buy a P4 2.4B for $163 from NewEgg, Googlegear, etc right now. Same with the 2.53 @ $193, etc

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: Wingznut

Originally posted by: BoberFett
Though there is something to be said for marketshare. As long as AMD is not losing money, they'd rather I buy one of their low end chips than anything from Intel. Every machine I've built recently has been AMD based, which while not making AMD the profit they might like, at least I'm not putting money into their competitors pocket.

The problem for them is that they have lost marketshare over the last few quarters, and posted financial losses over the last several quarters. But that's pretty much off topic for this thread.

But really, you should buy which ever product fits your needs and budget, irregardless of who makes it (or who doesn't make it). Whether it's AMD, Intel, Via, Motorola, etc...

I agree. Which is why I plan to pick up a couple XP 1700+ for $50 each. 🙂

 

[LED]

Originally posted by: oldfart

Appreciate the post but let's put this in the right perspective...The price drop can already pretty much be had today and it will not effect us nor our suppliers till their stock is gone and rebought., o we (the consumer) may not touch or feel it for months to come...I may be on painkillers @ the moment but I can still think straight 😉

The P4 price drops are in effect. You can buy a P4 2.4B for $163 from NewEgg, Googlegear, etc right now. Same with the 2.53 @ $193, etc

And that was pretty much my price last week as well as the AMD squares...so your point is?
😕

 

[oldfart]

Maybe I missed your point?

Appreciate the post but let's put this in the right perspective...The price drop can already pretty much be had today and it will not effect us nor our suppliers till their stock is gone and rebought., o we (the consumer) may not touch or feel it for months to come...I may be on painkillers @ the moment but I can still think straight 😉

Didn't you say the consumer wont get the price reduction for months? I was saying the prices are available already.

 

[LED]

LOL no oldie but goodie 😉... I stated or meant we are already seeing the reduced price and the new dropped price wont reflect on us until suppliers replenish (in thousands) then pass it on to us in a few months. The current market usually sells to us techies and OEMers way below the official price so I suspect that when these price drops won't effect us will be when the Bartons and HT become readily available below the current asking price...Make sense???...dunno cause I feel no pain so the meds must be working 😀:|:Q