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July 20, 2009 9:35 AM PDT

Intel cuts desktop chip prices

by Brooke Crothers
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Updated at 10:30 a.m. PDT: adding processor retail price discussion.

Intel reduced prices on desktop processors late Sunday, with a many of the cuts coming on quad-core processors. The price moves come just before Advanced Micro Devices' planned earnings announcement on Tuesday.

Intel's Core 2 Quad processors saw a heavy concentration of cuts. The 2.66GHz Q9400 was cut 14 percent to $183 from $213, while the 2.5GHz Q8300 fell 11 percent to $163 from $183, among other standard-power Core 2 Quad price moves.

The Core 2 Quad "low power" chips also saw cuts. The Q9400S, for example, was cut 12 percent to $245 from $277.

A Core 2 Duo desktop processor (two cores), the 2.93GHz E7500, fell 15 percent to $113 from $133.

Pentium desktop chips got cuts ranging up to 14 percent, while the 2.2GHz Celeron E1500 was reduced 19 percent to $43 from $53.

A Xeon server processor, the 2.66GHz X3330, was cut 14 percent to $188 from $219.

Update: These price cuts, however, do not necessarily reflect retail prices of Intel chips. Newegg, for example, lists the Q9400 at prices lower than Intel list prices, as one reader points out. That said, Intel's Sunday list-price cuts may affect retail prices in the future.

Brooke Crothers has been an editor at large at CNET News, an analyst at IDC Japan, and an editor at The Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, among other endeavors, including co-manager of an after-school math-and-reading center. He writes for the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET. Disclosure.
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by MijnWraak July 20, 2009 10:19 AM PDT
The q9400 is only $200 on newegg. and the q9550 is 220. I don't understand how the price drops effect anything at all.
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by mbrookec July 20, 2009 10:39 AM PDT
Thanks for pointing this out. --Brooke Crothers
by ddesy July 20, 2009 10:39 AM PDT
Give it some time to have an effect on end user pricing.
by carrige July 20, 2009 1:47 PM PDT
Too bad they didn't slash the i7 prices...
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by pcrepairdude July 20, 2009 11:48 PM PDT
As a PC builder and repair man, while it is always nice to see prices going down, I'm gonna have to stick with AMD for the moment. Not only is the bang for the buck quite good with AMD, but there are quite a few Black AMD "dual cores" that with the right board (like certain Gigabyte boards) you can easily unlock the two disabled cores and get a quad for the uber cheap.

That said IMHO the current CPUs passed 'good enough" awhile back. Most of my customers are lucky to hit 15% on even the bottom of the line dual cores. They all have just so much horsepower that for everyday usage even the cheapest one will be "super fast" to the customer. And when I can put together a fully loaded AMD 7550 for $350-$400 for the whole thing? You just gotta love that.
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by Tomofumi July 22, 2009 8:11 PM PDT
looks like they are clearing the old stock for Core i5 launch?
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by AppleSuxLeo July 26, 2009 9:54 AM PDT
They didn`t drop prices on the more desirable quads though...the 9550/9650 :(
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About Nanotech - The Circuits Blog

Brooke Crothers was formerly editor-at-large at CNET News.com, an analyst at IDC (International Data Corp.) Japan, and an editor at The Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly (The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones), among other endeavors, including a recent hiatus from the tech industry when he co-managed an after-school math and reading center. Nanotech covers computer chip technology and how it defines the computing experience. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.

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