Why is the e6850 still for sale?

[OfficeLinebacker]

They're both 3.0GHz, but one has 50% more cache, uses way less power, and can OC way higher.

At newegg, the e6850 is 275, while the e8400 is 240 (OOS, but you can find it elsewhere for cheaper anyway).

Source: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...ay/intel-wolfdale.html

It seems like the cheapest C2D Conroe can be had for around $160 if you shop around (1.86 or 2.33). The cheapest Wolfdale is $200 or so, at 3.0GHz.

I don't get why people would now ever pay more than $200 for a Conroe C2D. There are Mobos that will take the Wolfies that are under $60.


what am I missing?

 

[hclarkjr]

probably trying to get rid of whatever stock they have for sale

 

[PCTC2]

If you notice, there are even still E6400's around still in stock at the same prices as newer C2D's waiting to be sold. It's just stock and they're trying to get rid of it. For a long time there were 600-series P4's and 800-series Pentium D's around long after the C2D's came out for stock reasons.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: PCTC2
If you notice, there are even still E6400's around still in stock at the same prices as newer C2D's waiting to be sold. It's just stock and they're trying to get rid of it. For a long time there were 600-series P4's and 800-series Pentium D's around long after the C2D's came out for stock reasons.

That is certainly true, but I don't understand how they sell. The longer you sit on hardware, the less you can actually get for it. I have never understood why a company doesn't try and liquidate old stock. For instance, the E6400. There is no way anyone is going to pay ~200 for that chip, save for perhaps that one misinformed person out there. But instead they will sit on stock until the chips are worthless and now they lost more than than if they simply marked them down and took the loss early.

 

[OfficeLinebacker]

Ok, so I am not crazy.

Depending on who you believe, either PT Barnum or HL Mencken famously said "You won't go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

Plus la change, plus la meme chose.

For some reason I continue to be surprised! The folks who run Intel, Newegg, etc obviously have embraced this notion. And profit thereby.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

I happen to own a motherboard that supports the E6850 but not the E8400, and will most likely never see an update to support any of the Penryns...

 

[DSF]

Not everyone is as well informed as those who frequent this site. People still post builds for critique in the General Hardware section with E6600s now then.

 

[OfficeLinebacker]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
I happen to own a motherboard that supports the E6850 but not the E8400, and will most likely never see an update to support any of the Penryns...

If you bought that mobo more than a few weeks ago, then one of us is missing the point of your post.

 

[hokiealumnus]

It's probably the simple fact that the retailers would rather keep them in stock than lose money on them. AFAIK the E8400s cost less / 1000 chips than the E6850s. I guess they figure enough less-than-intelligent people will spend the money and refuse to sell them at less than cost.

 

[VivienM]

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777

Originally posted by: PCTC2
If you notice, there are even still E6400's around still in stock at the same prices as newer C2D's waiting to be sold. It's just stock and they're trying to get rid of it. For a long time there were 600-series P4's and 800-series Pentium D's around long after the C2D's came out for stock reasons.

That is certainly true, but I don't understand how they sell. The longer you sit on hardware, the less you can actually get for it. I have never understood why a company doesn't try and liquidate old stock. For instance, the E6400. There is no way anyone is going to pay ~200 for that chip, save for perhaps that one misinformed person out there. But instead they will sit on stock until the chips are worthless and now they lost more than than if they simply marked them down and took the loss early.

They're just trying to make money off people who have boards that can't take the E8xxx and who need a replacement CPU for whatever reason.

I had the same thing happen with socket 478 vs LGA775. I have a box with a Deleron in socket 478 and looked into getting a socket 478 P4 for it. At the time I looked, plenty of socket 478 P4s were available... but they were substantially more expensive than the same P4 for LGA775. And if I looked today... it wouldn't surprise me if a new socket 478 P4 on eBay cost at least the same as an E2xxx/E4xxx, which is clearly a far superior processor (but which would also require replacing the AGP video card, the motherboard, and the DDR1 RAM).

 

[Mondoman]

I think bf and vm are onto something. You can still buy Pentium D 9xx CPUs for those with LGA775 boards that don't have C2D support.

 

[bryanW1995]

yeah, it's just a matter of having cpus available for older mobos that don't support penryn. You can still buy skt 939 athlons today. Is it a better investment to upgrade to a cheaper p35 mobo with a pentium E? probably, but most people don't like to mess with their entire system unless absolutely necessary. An e6850 for a 975x mobo could make a lot of sense for someone who has a 2160 or e4300.

 

[PolymerTim]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
yeah, it's just a matter of having cpus available for older mobos that don't support penryn. You can still buy skt 939 athlons today. Is it a better investment to upgrade to a cheaper p35 mobo with a pentium E? probably, but most people don't like to mess with their entire system unless absolutely necessary. An e6850 for a 975x mobo could make a lot of sense for someone who has a 2160 or e4300.

Good point too. Not only do you have incompatible motherboards, but a MB upgrade often means an OS reinstall; which some people will avoid like the plague.

 

[The-Noid]

intel still sets a map (minimum advertisable price) for a few months after newer chips come out. This is common in the retail industry, otherwise you will get a company that does gigantic volume and tries to put others put of business. They will lift the map at some point.

The same can be said for tv's where in most circumstances you have to do "see price in cart" to see what they are selling at for EOL items.

 

[PCTC2]

Hell, around other forums, I still see 680i Striker builds, E6750 builds, and even a few 8800GTS 640MB builds because it has more RAM.

 

[OfficeLinebacker]

Originally posted by: PolymerTim
Good point too. Not only do you have incompatible motherboards, but a MB upgrade often means an OS reinstall; which some people will avoid like the plague.

(I am pretty sure in your statement OS==Windows!)

I think you have a point there with the existing system upgrade path. And I can't blame people for wanting to avoid reinstalling Windows!

Who knows, in 18-22 months, there will be some new stuff that won't fit in the Mobo my e8400 is in, but there will be much better procs that are 6+ months old that will still be a considerable upgrade to the e8400.

 

[PolymerTim]

Originally posted by: OfficeLinebacker

Originally posted by: PolymerTim
Good point too. Not only do you have incompatible motherboards, but a MB upgrade often means an OS reinstall; which some people will avoid like the plague.

(I am pretty sure in your statement OS==Windows!)

I think you have a point there with the existing system upgrade path. And I can't blame people for wanting to avoid reinstalling Windows!

Who knows, in 18-22 months, there will be some new stuff that won't fit in the Mobo my e8400 is in, but there will be much better procs that are 6+ months old that will still be a considerable upgrade to the e8400.

Yes, I was referring to Windows. I keep forgetting this is not a problem with most other OSs. Ironically, I bet that most of the people not running Windows (or Mac) are in the group that is most comfortable with reinstalling an OS.

I'm a lifelong Windows user and the last time I upgraded my MB, I found some guides for changing a MB w/o reinstalling Windows and they pretty much scared me out of the idea. If I remember right you have to do a lot of tinkering with some system files, something with your hardware abstraction layer (HAL) and even then, there's a pretty good chance you doom yourself to a lifetime of strange glitches. I decided I would rather reinstall.

Maybe one of these days I should just take the time to learn linux and try it out.

 

[j0j081]

this is nothing out of the ordinary. you can get far more than what cpus are currently worth for when selling on ebay. people actually buy the outdated stuff regardless.

 

[v8envy]

Bah. The windows reinstall thing is a MYTH.

I threw the hard drive which lived in a Venice powered AMD chipset machine into an X3210 xeon with a P35 chipset board. XP chugged a few minutes on startup, but came up with 4 graphs in the task manager. Later the same hard drive went into a E2180 powered machine. All I had to do was re-activate and it's running like a champ.

I've previously replaced a motherboard in a win2k system. That took a repair install to change the HAL, but also not the end of the world.

My guess is in addition to reasons already given repair shops need these exact parts for a like/like repair. Customers may get antsy about an upgrade they didn't request. And why deal with possible support calls for issues the customer blames on a different processor than they had before?

 

[Cheex]

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777

Originally posted by: PCTC2
If you notice, there are even still E6400's around still in stock at the same prices as newer C2D's waiting to be sold. It's just stock and they're trying to get rid of it. For a long time there were 600-series P4's and 800-series Pentium D's around long after the C2D's came out for stock reasons.

That is certainly true, but I don't understand how they sell. The longer you sit on hardware, the less you can actually get for it. I have never understood why a company doesn't try and liquidate old stock. For instance, the E6400. There is no way anyone is going to pay ~200 for that chip, save for perhaps that one misinformed person out there. But instead they will sit on stock until the chips are worthless and now they lost more than than if they simply marked them down and took the loss early.

This is exactly my point also...:thumbsup:

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
I happen to own a motherboard that supports the E6850 but not the E8400, and will most likely never see an update to support any of the Penryns...

which board?

 

[FormulaRedline]

Mostly because people in general don't bother to inform themselves before buying things they don't understand. If somebody wants to spend $300 to help Newegg clear out their obsolete inventory, who are they to complain? I still hear IT guys around the office talking about the sweet E6850 they are going to get in their next desktop.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: FormulaRedline
Mostly because people in general don't bother to inform themselves before buying things they don't understand. If somebody wants to spend $300 to help Newegg clear out their obsolete inventory, who are they to complain? I still hear IT guys around the office talking about the sweet E6850 they are going to get in their next desktop.

ahaha dude, great posts!

"sweet e6850" - heheh. It's good they don't know about the "sweet e8400" yet, otherwise it would be even harder to find.

thanks for the laughs.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: OfficeLinebacker
They're both 3.0GHz, but one has 50% more cache, uses way less power, and can OC way higher.

At newegg, the e6850 is 275, while the e8400 is 240 (OOS, but you can find it elsewhere for cheaper anyway).

Source: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...ay/intel-wolfdale.html

It seems like the cheapest C2D Conroe can be had for around $160 if you shop around (1.86 or 2.33). The cheapest Wolfdale is $200 or so, at 3.0GHz.

I don't get why people would now ever pay more than $200 for a Conroe C2D. There are Mobos that will take the Wolfies that are under $60.


what am I missing?

You know, when the 8800GT came out and whooped the 8800GTS 320MB and 640MB not only were the latter still for sale, but for a whole month they still cost more!

It is a simple case of leftover stock foisted on unaware customers at inflated prices...

Would you personally tell someone "that thing I have here is older and less good, buy something else instead"?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: jaredpace

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
I happen to own a motherboard that supports the E6850 but not the E8400, and will most likely never see an update to support any of the Penryns...

which board?

I'll give you a hint, it has an ATI chipset