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.
On Monday, the Apple MacBook Air reached a new price low as a wave of sub-$1,000 ultrathin laptops get set to break onto the market.
MacBook Air prices as updated Monday on Apple's Web site
(Credit: Apple)The ultrathin, trend-setting 13-inch notebook made a steep descent from its rarefied, luxury-laptop pricing altitudes. The top-of-the-line Air with a 128GB solid-state drive fell $700 in price to $1,799 from $2,499 and gained a slightly faster 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo processor. The new prices are now posted on Apple's Web site.
The lower-end version with a 120GB hard disk drive fell to $1,499--the lowest price to date for a new (not refurbished) MacBook Air.
The price cut is happening just as PC makers, including Lenovo, Acer, Asus, and MSI, are debuting new ultrathin laptops at price points decidedly lower than the executive-jewelry genre of ultraportables that dominated the market for years.
Lenovo's 3.5-pound 13.3-inch IdeaPad U350, for example, will start at $649. At the other end of the pricing spectrum, the top-of-the-line, ultrasleek Dell Adamo is still listed at $2,699. The clock may be ticking on these lofty price levels, though.
On Monday, Apple also upgraded its comparably sized 13-inch MacBook to MacBook Pro status. The new 13-inch MacBook Pro has the same unibody design but now includes a seven-hour battery, a FireWire 800 port, an SD card slot, a backlit keyboard, and an improved LED-backlit display with a greater color range.
With Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics, a 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of memory, and a 160GB hard disk drive, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is priced at $1,199. A model with a 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB of memory, and a 250GB hard disk drive is priced at $1,499.
No, this isn't a price cut reflected on the Apple Web site. And it's not much. But if you're in the market for a high-end MacBook, every dollar counts. Besides, Apple will probably match the lower price.
At major resellers like Newegg, PC Connection (i.e., Mac Connection), and Buy.com the latest version of the high-end MacBook Air (1.86GHz, 128GB solid-state drive) is now selling for--hold your breath--$2,399 instead of the listed $2,499 on the Apple Web site. Not much. What is best described as a price snip rather than a price cut.
Listing for Apple MacBook Air (1.86GHz, 128GB SSD) on newegg.com
(Credit: newegg.com)But my question is, did Apple green-light this? Or is this simply resellers adjusting their pricing to market realities. (I would imagine that luxury laptops like the MacBook Air are not jumping off the shelves at resellers these days, considering the state of the economy.)
Whether Apple green-lighted it or not may be immaterial, however, because (some? most? all?) Apple stores have a policy that stipulates: if you find an Apple computer priced lower at a major reseller (like Mac Connection), they will price-match it up to 10 percent of the listed Apple price. (This is the policy at the Apple Store that I frequent.)
Maybe there's a trend here. Maybe Apple will even make an official price move. Makes sense, right? The economy is in a tailspin and consumers have less disposable income, so Apple caves and officially cuts prices before the scheduled introduction of new MBA models. But then again, this is Apple. It doesn't have to stoop to unscheduled price cuts--so much for that fond hope.
After a technology review site claimed Intel solid-state drives slow considerably after extended use, Intel said it has not been able to duplicate the results.
SSDs have been gaining in popularity because independent testing done to date has typically shown that SSDs--especially the newest generation of drives--outpeform hard disk drives.
A review, however, entitled "Long-term performance analysis of Intel Mainstream SSDs" on technology Web site PC Perspectives claimed, among other things, that the Intel X25-M solid-state drive may degrade in performance as a result of "internal fragmentation" and that "a 'used' X25-M will always perform worse than a 'new' one" and, in some cases, drives "would drop to significantly below manufacturer specs."
The reviewers claimed that they made an effort to reproduce real-world scenarios. "Dozens of different scenarios were played out on our drives. XP / Vista installs, repeated application / game installs, batch copying of files...were all liberally applied to the X25-M." The review concluded that "all three of our SSDs suffered a drop in performance regardless of the type of workload applied to them."
In response, Intel made a statement on Thursday. "Our labs currently have not been able to duplicate these results," Intel said. "In our estimation, the synthetic workloads they use to stress the drive are not reflective of real world use. Similarly, the benchmarks they used to evaluate performance do not represent what a PC user experiences."
Intel continued. "In general, when a PC's drive (SSD or HDD) is full, there will be some reduction in system performance, however the performance reduction reported by PC Perspective is higher than we generally expect, which is why we are looking into the methodology."
Intel has slashed solid-state drive prices, but probably not enough to sway many consumers.
Intel's mainstream, and currently most widely available, 80GB X18-M was cut to $390 from $595--about a 34 percent drop in price. But paying almost $400 for an 80GB drive may still be too much to ask of consumers when, for example, a 160GB, 7,200-rpm laptop hard-disk drive from Toshiba can be had for less than $100 on Amazon.
Solid-state drives, particularly the newest generation of SSDs, typically offer much better performance than hard-disk drives.
Hewlett-Packard, one of the largest users of Intel solid-state drives in both consumer and business laptop lines, provides an even more stark contrast. Adding an 80GB Intel SSD option on the 13-inch HP Pavilion dv3z laptop increases the price by $480 over a 250GB, 5,400-rpm hard drive.
On the desktop it's not much better. Because Intel SSDs benchmark so well, they compete with the fastest hard-disk drives. But they fall short on price per gigabyte.
A 300GB Seagate Cheetah very-high-performance 15,000-rpm hard-disk drive, for instance, is priced at $466.99 at CDW, a major online reseller. (Other resellers sell the drive for less.) The Seagate drive is virtually the same price as the Intel 80GB SSD yet offers vastly more capacity.
Intel also said it is selling its newest laptop-use 160GB X18-M/X-25-M solid-state drive for $765. Its high-performance 32GB X25-E and 64GB X25-E for servers are priced at $415 and $795, respectively.
Updated on January 19 at 8:15 a.m. PST with additional information throughout.
On Sunday, Intel instituted broad price cuts on processors, spanning the Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium dual-core, Celeron, and Xeon product lines.
Some of the cuts are in response to Advanced Micro Devices' recently-introduced Phenom II "Dragon" desktop platform. AMD's Phenom II X4 940 (3.0GHz), for instance, is priced at $275.
Intel cuts were concentrated on quad-core chips like the Q9650 (3.00GHz), reduced 40 percent, to $316 from $530, to counter AMD's Phenom II. But Celeron processors received some of the largest reductions. The mobile Celeron 570 (2.00GHz), was slashed 48 percent, to $70 from $134, for example.
Some Xeon processors also received hefty cuts. The price on the X3370 (3.00GHz), for instance, was cut 40 percent to $316 from $530.
The Pentium dual-core E5200 was reduced 24 percent to $64 from $84.
The mobile Core 2 Duo P8600 was shaved 13 percent, to $209 from $241. The P series of mobile Core 2 Duo processors have a thermal envelope (Thermal Design Power or TDP) of 25 watts versus 35 watts for mainstream mobile chips.
Intel also introduced new processor models such as the desktop Core 2 Duo E7500 (2.93GHz), priced at $133 and the Core 2 Quad Q9550s (2.83GHz), which is a low-power variant--with a thermal envelope of 65 watts--of the 95-watt Q9550.
Intel is planning price cuts to its lower-end mainstream quad-core processors on January 18.
Barron's Tech Trader Daily first reported the news, citing Pacific Crest analyst Michael McConnell.
These cuts are happening because of the recent introduction of Advanced Micro Devices' 45-nanometer Phenom II and "Shanghai" Opteron processors.
AMD's quad-core Phenom II "Dragon" processor platform has been garnering solid reviews and its Shanghai server chip has been adopted by top-tier server suppliers including Hewlett-Packard, Sun, Dell, IBM, and Fujitsu.
Cuts are expected mainly on quad-core processors, though other processors may also receive cuts.
Intel has cut processor prices up to 31 percent, though overall cuts are limited in number and degree.
The quad-core Q6600 was cut from $224 to $193.
The desktop Core 2 Duo E8500 (3.16GHz) got the largest cut, from $266 to $183 (31 percent) on the new pricing list, dated July 20.
The next biggest price reduction was the desktop Core 2 Duo E7200 (2.53GHz), reduced 15 percent, from $133 to $113.
Other price cuts include the popular quad-core Q6600 (2.4GHz). It drops 14 percent, from $224 to $193. The desktop Core 2 Duo E8400 (3GHz) falls 11 percent, from $183 to $163.
Xeon server processors also saw price cuts. The X3220 (2.40GHz) was cut 12 percent, from $224 to $198. The X3210 (2.13GHz) saw an identical cut, while the E3110 (3GHz) was reduced 11 percent, from $188 to $167.
The pricing for QX "Extreme" processors, such as the QX9775 (3.2GHz, $1,499), remains unchanged from the pricing list published on July 15, when the Centrino 2 mobile processors were introduced.
Nvidia has slashed the price of products with its newest GTX 260 and 280 graphics processors only a few weeks after it launched the chips, in response to stiffer competition from Advanced Micro Devices' ATI unit.
Nvidia said Sunday night that the GeForce GTX 280 is now available for $499 and the GTX 260 for $299. The high-end GTX 280 was originally $649, while the 260 was priced previously at $399. Both products were rolled out less than a month ago.
Nvidia's graphics boards are now more in line with ATI's newest offerings. At $299, the GTX 260 price now matches that of ATI's comparable HD 4870.
There's more to come from ATI too. Later this quarter, ATI is expected to launch the 4870 X2, which combines two chips on one board. This will be ATI's high-end offering for the enthusiast gaming market. The lower $499 price for Nvidia's high-end GTX 280 should bring it close to 4870 X2 pricing.
ATI appears to be faring well in this round of graphics chip competition, putting more pricing pressure than usual on Nvidia. Not only are its individual chips more competitive than previous generations, but its strategy of building smaller, lower-cost chips is paying off. Instead of building one large, expensive graphics processor as Nvidia does, ATI is building less power-hungry chips for the mid-range market, then ganging them together to boost performance for the high-end enthusiast market.
Advanced Micro Devices officially announced on Wednesday an updated Phenom chip line amid severe price pressure from Intel.
As expected, AMD has updated its triple-core Phenom X3 processors with the "50" series. The 8450, 8650, and 8750 models will replace and supplement the current 8400 and 8600. The newer models contain a fix for an extremely rare "TLB" bug.
The Phenom X3 8750 (2.4GHz) processor is priced at $195, the 8650 (2.3GHz) at $165, and the 8450 (2.1GHz) at $145.
AMD also announced a low-power quad-core Phenom X4 9100e processor that has a Thermal Design Power (TDP) or thermal envelope of 65 watts, compared with the 95 watts of standard X4 processors.
AMD Phenom processors with the new X3 models in bold.
(Credit: AMD)
AMD is looking to bundle the Phenom X3 chips with its 780 graphics silicon in low-cost gaming PCs. Hewlett-Packard and Gateway are currently using Nvidia graphics in their consumer boxes that use Phenom X3 chips.
According to AMD, the X3 platform offers the best balance of processor and graphics: "On one side, we have Nvidia saying that the only thing that matters is graphics. On the other side, Intel is saying that the only thing that matters is the processor. (AMD offers) a balanced platform that doesn't overemphasize one really expensive component over another really expensive component," said Brent Berry, product marketing manager for AMD.
But things may have just gotten a lot tougher for the No. 2 processor maker in the higher-end quad-core segment. Intel on Sunday cut prices on quad-core processors by up to 50 percent, undermining--or in some cases eliminating--AMD's price advantage.
"This product cycle is already discounted," said Ashok Kumar, an analyst at CRT Capital Group. "This puts additional pressure on AMD."
Intel's price cuts brought its quad-core Q6700 (2.66GHz) down from $530 to $266 and its Q6600 (2.4GHz) from $266 to $224. The latter is now priced below AMD's top-line quad-core Phenom 9850 (2.5GHz), which is listed at $235.
"With a 16 percent price cut, the Q6600 is now undoubtedly the processor of preference for a budget quad-core system," review site Hexus said.
