Intel Price Cuts Be a Comin' Q3

[Quiksilver]

Quad Cores
Q9650 will be $530
Q9550 will be $316.
Q9450 will be phased out and replaced with Q9400 at $266
Q9300 and Q6700 will phased out
Q6600 will be $203

Dual Cores
E8300 will be phased out
E8600 will launch priced at $266
E8500 will be $183
E8400 will be $163
E7300 will launch priced at $133
E7200 will be $113

 

[Denithor]

So they're going to do away with the low end 45nm quad within six months or so of launching it? I guess it offers too much performance at its price point or something...

Eh, I'll just stick with my e6400 & e8400 chips, thanks very much.

 

[PascalT]

Bah, they're trying to get me to upgrade later. The itch is now. I was waiting for the P45 to buy a Q9450 but I have a feeling those boards will be hard, and expensive, to get.

 

[AmberClad]

I think part of your chart is wrong. The chip that will be at the $530 price point is the to-be-released Q9650, the locked version of the current QX9650.

 

[Winterpool]

Jah, I was under the impression the $530 quadcore was not 'extreme'.

I almost feel Intel should get rid of the E8200 and E8500 as well as the E8300, but I suppose OEMs need the segmentation.

Is the difference between the Q9400 and Q9450 the cache size? What exactly is the problem with Intel's lower-end Yorkfields? Does the continuing strength of the Q6600 make them less appealing?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Quiksilver
Quad Cores
QX9650 will be $530
Q9550 will be $316.
Q9450 will be phased out and replaced with Q9400 at $266
Q9300 and Q6700 will phased out
Q6600 will be $203

Thaqt doesn't make much sense that they are phasing out the Q6700 and the Q9450 instead of price-reducing them, but that they are keeping around the Q6600? Wouldn't it make more sense to phase out the Q6600, and set the Q6700 for $266 or $233?

And what multi is the Q9400 going to be?

I wonder if they could introduce a Q6500 SKU, with reduced cache sizes for each of the cores, and sell it cheap enough to undercut AMD's quad-core or even tri-core offerings.

 

[Kromis]

I got me a hard on

 

[Gillbot]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: Quiksilver
Quad Cores
QX9650 will be $530
Q9550 will be $316.
Q9450 will be phased out and replaced with Q9400 at $266
Q9300 and Q6700 will phased out
Q6600 will be $203

Thaqt doesn't make much sense that they are phasing out the Q6700 and the Q9450 instead of price-reducing them, but that they are keeping around the Q6600? Wouldn't it make more sense to phase out the Q6600, and set the Q6700 for $266 or $233?

And what multi is the Q9400 going to be?

I wonder if they could introduce a Q6500 SKU, with reduced cache sizes for each of the cores, and sell it cheap enough to undercut AMD's quad-core or even tri-core offerings.

With the Q6600 sales recently, why wouldn't they keep it going. It's got "buzz" and everyone wants a G0, why tempt losing uninformed buyers by changing?

E7200 will be $113

I might have to grab one to mess with.

 

[Idontcare]

What happened to the rumored Q9100?

 

[Shortass]

Who cares to the Q9100, I'm pumped about a Q9550 that's cheaper than a Q9450 right now. 8.5 multi, tasty!

 

[aka1nas]

They probably still have enough .65nm inventory left that they need to keep the Q6600 around. Is the Q9400 just a cache-reduced Q9450?

 

[narreth]

^^

it's 65nm not .65nm

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Shortass
Who cares to the Q9100, I'm pumped about a Q9550 that's cheaper than a Q9450 right now. 8.5 multi, tasty!

You should care, whatever defines the "bottom" of the pricing sku's also determine where your beloved Q9550 is going to fall in the future price matrix. I won't ever buy a Q9100 but I sure will be happy if its absence from the list means it won't be coming to market as then all the SKU's won't get bumped "up" one tier in the prices.

 

[brencat]

Originally posted by: Gillbot

E7200 will be $113

I might have to grab one to mess with.

Agreed. I'll be in for one as well at that price. Originally planned for the 10x multi of the E7300 but the $20 price differential vs the E7200 doesn't make sense for the extra 0.5 multi.

 

[Drsignguy]

That Q9550 is looking sweet right now. I have been looking to get the Q9450 but I think I'll wait to see what happens by July.

 

[Syzygies]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Wouldn't it make more sense to phase out the Q6600, and set the Q6700 for $266 or $233?

If they keep making the Q6600/Q6700, it's existing technology, their yields will be what they are now, or better. There will always be chips that would bin now as a Q6600, and chips that would bin now as a Q6700. So dropping the Q6700 is a marketing simplification, they'll just bin everything as a Q6600, and lock 'em at 9x. That means there will be even luckier Q6600's in the pipeline. I'd call that great news.

The Q6600 is a legendary processor, we'll remember it like "Route 54". But who remembers "Route 55", and who will remember the Q6700?

 

[bryanW1995]

yeah, the Q6600 is the mac daddy of cpus.

the Q9400 will be an 8x333 cpu with 6mb of ram, basically a Q9300 with an extra .5 multi. Not that this is any big secret, but my guess is that they'll keep building the same mix of 45nm and 65nm cpus, they'll just bump up the multi by .5 on all the 45's and lock the multi at 9 on the 65's. so Q9300 goes from 7.5 multi and becomes Q9400 with 8.0 multi. Q9450 with 8.0 becomes the new Q9550 with 8.5 multi, etc. Someone over at intel must have had an "AHA" moment and realized that they needed to do something to keep demand robust as they ramped up 45nm production in Q3. Also, I don't think that ANYBODY has seen a Q9300 that wouldn't do an extra 166 mhz, ditto Q9450 and Q9550, so intel isn't hurting themselves with this scheme, either. maybe this bodes well for amd clocks.

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: AmberClad
I think part of your chart is wrong. The chip that will be at the $530 price point is the to-be-released Q9650, the locked version of the current QX9650.

Meh. I'll fix that but re-using numbers is annoying.

 

[VulcanX]

Which of those CPUs coming out will be the best cost/performance taking into account the heat generated etc, and what simple cpu cooler would be suffice for that CPU

 

[tallman45]

Good move getting rid of the Q9450, they are so hard to find they likely only made a few thousand to begin with

Must have had millions of Q6600's made up, for them to still be around at the $200 price point

 

[dv8silencer]

I like

 

[Dadofamunky]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: Shortass
Who cares to the Q9100, I'm pumped about a Q9550 that's cheaper than a Q9450 right now. 8.5 multi, tasty!

You should care, whatever defines the "bottom" of the pricing sku's also determine where your beloved Q9550 is going to fall in the future price matrix. I won't ever buy a Q9100 but I sure will be happy if its absence from the list means it won't be coming to market as then all the SKU's won't get bumped "up" one tier in the prices.

I'm probably going to get a Q6700 while I can. That 10X multiplier is too good to pass up.

 

[JackPack]

In Q3, the Q6600 will still be doing the majority of the grunt work for Intel. That's why they're keeping it.

It'll continue to beat AMD in the numbers game: 2.4 GHz and 8 MB cache. Not to mention real-world performance.

Finally, it squeezes AMD even tighter by forcing X3 Cripple-Core down to sub-$150. (How many 285mm2 monsters can AMD afford to sell at that price?)

The Q6700 is overkill for this assignment.

 

[demiurge3141]

wow. i foresee some golden q6600's coming

 

[BadRobot]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I have yet to see a processor that beats the price/performance ratio of a 2140 overclocked to 3.2....

Right?