RSSIntel slashes quad-core CPU prices across the board
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published January 19, 2009, 2:47 PM
This morning, an Intel spokesperson confirmed to Betanews that the company has made drastic cuts in its CPU prices for 1,000-unit shipments, effective immediately. They include a 40% slash on its top-of-the-line processor.
While the company's Extreme series quad-core at the top of the line -- which blends four cores with hyperthreading -- will remain at $1,499 in 1,000-unit quantities, Intel's highest-end business-class quad-core desktop processor, the 3.0 GHz Q9650, is getting its price cropped by 40.6% today, from $530 to $316. Standard-power quad-cores (as opposed to Intel's low-power line) from the 2.83 GHz Q9550 to the 2.33 GHz Q8200 are also all being slashed in price by 16 - 20%, with the Q8200 now selling for $163.
Intel's move comes in response to AMD's introduction two weeks ago of its quad-core Phenom II X4 series. Though AMD's new line CORRECTION: has just now introduced its 45 nm line, while Intel has had 45 nm for some time (I should read my own stories more often), the new "Black Edition" Phenom II X4 940 -- which at last takes AMD into the 3.0 GHz frequency range -- sells for $275 in 1,000-unit quantities.
While AMD will still appear to have a 15% price advantage in 3.00 GHz quad-core desktop CPUs even after Intel's price cut, Intel's move today will clearly inflict damage to AMD in the price/performance department. Reviews comparing the new Phenom IIs to the latest Intel 45 nm quad-cores are a mixed bag, with one scoring better than the other in various tests (Intels appear to lead in the video encoding categories typically, AMDs leading in the number-crunching categories), but only by about 5% on average. While the two series may be evenly matched in raw performance, Intel may have the edge once you factor in power consumption.
Most of the comparative reviews essentially concluded the match was a toss-up, but that was before Intel's price cut. "The bottom line is that unless Intel drops its price to win favour on the Q9550 and Q9450/Q9400, like it did with the Q6600 when the original Phenom X4s launched," wrote Bit-Tech.net during CES week, "AMD's CPUs will be good value." That might turn out to be a very prophetic statement indeed.
Another error-filled article by Scott...
i see the correction, i see him stating a Core2Quad as having Hyperthreading, and i also see no mention of the Core i7.
The Phenom II's can't compete performance-wise with the i7s at all, so it's understandable that the Core2Duos/Quads be the focus of AMD, but stating that Intel cut prices to compete with the new Phenom II is only half the story. Why would anyone buy a $500 Q9650 when a $270 i7 920 is faster and cheaper or at worst the same price even after the x58 and DDR3 price premiums.
"Intel's highest-end business-class quad-core desktop processor, the 3.0 GHz Q9650..." What? It's a Core2Quad, not a Xeon. Any CPU can be used for any purpose, but if you're gonna label any line of CPUs as "business" then it would obviously be the Xeons with the Core2's being the traditional consumer line. Intel already has CPUs priced to compete with the best AMD PII's but usually with better performance, most of these Q9000-series price cuts are due to slowing sales of these CPUs since they introduced the i7 because the prices for both lines overlap pretty heavily when looking only at CPU prices. again... $500 Q9650 or $300 i7 920...it's cut and dry even with $100-150 extra for mobo and $100 for DDR3 when youre getting better performance and SIGNIFICANTLY less video encoding times.
It's pretty obvious to me over the last few months that Scott doesnt live and breath technology like many of us do, or at least he's not paying attention half the time. i enjoy Betanews articles but the quality of the articles from a few different reporters has been diminishing....They need to do their homework before hitting SUBMIT
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|BTW, anyone paying $275 for the AMD Phenom II X4 940 is getting hosed! ;-)
...Let alone in 1000 unit lots!
It is currently available at NewEgg.com for $235. http://www.newegg.com/Pr...px?Item=N82E16819103471
Not a bad price at all.
Just be aware, until AMD licenses DDR3 support and MoBos become available, that you are going to to be seriously RAM constrained, and that 3600Mhz bus rating won't mean much. In which case the additional $75 for the Intel CPU; as well as a new MoBo (Check out Asus - as usual) will be well spent, as the i7s natively support DDR3 and can take advantage of the Hyperthreading.
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|"Check out Asus - as usual"
Seriously. Funny, I was just checking out what Asus had to offer in X58 boards and reading numerous reviews from other sites. Their P6T offerings are quite impressive, though pricey... but that's never stopped me before.
The P6T6 WS Revolution is a beast of a board. It's definitely on my short list.
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|Intel drops prices.
No surprises here.
The Value Pricing Model at work.
And what will really hurt AMD while benefitting Intel is that Intel, due to its strong Core2 series performance versus AMD, has been able to drop prices on its older Core2 line, for which the NRE costs have long ago been recouped and exert pressure on AMDs Phenom line without further reducing its i7 line.
Normally Intel would have to cut prices on its newest i7s, but with such a rich and robust product line, Intel is able to leverage its substantial arsenal using its second tier product line. Thus AMD's offerings are effectively bracketed by Intel.
A strategic advantage such as this is not often realized!
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|Phenom II is quite good. Almost as fast as new Core i7 CPUs. AMD strikes back :)
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|Phenom II X4 940 and 920 use 45nm not 65... the X3 9450 I'm using right now is 65 nm.
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|Nope.
Intel is currently at 45nm. The Phenoms are not there yet.
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|Googled it, the reviews made in the last couple weeks _all_ say the samples are 45 nm. Are they sending better samples than what will hit retail or something, trying to sway the initial uptake?
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/860/1/
http://www.bit-tech.net/...x4-940-and-920-review/1
http://www.anandtech.com...ets/showdoc.aspx?i=3492
etc
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|The Phenom II is 45 nm:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/16147
That is the entire point of giving it the "II" moniker.
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|Incorrect.
Phenom (one) isn't at 45nm.
Phenom II (two) is at 45nm.
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|Oops.
You're right!
I neglected to read the "II" component!
I was referring to the initial Phenoms which were at 65nm - with intentions to move to 45nm.
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|Not quite sure what the focus of the coverage is.
Dropping the price of the Core2s is non sequitur to the AMD phenoms or the i7s. The cheapest ~$220 - $300 Phenoms and i7s aready offer a dramatic improvement in performance over ANY of the Core2s, including the former king of the hill Q9770 Extreme, for an entry level price.
The lowest priced i7-920, priced at $284 per thousand and available at NewEgg for $307, retail, outperforms the highest performing Core2 QX9770 Extreme by from 17% to 60%!!!!
Why is amyone looking at buying a Core2 quad for anything, except that they want to save a few bucks on a new MoBo and DDR3 RAM. The relatively small difference in the motherboard and RAM retrofit would be more than offset by the dramatic improvement in performance - and one can replace both the MoBo and CPU for near or very little more then same price as the Core2 CPU, as they cost MUCH more for equivalent performance than the i7s or the AMD Phenoms.
So, if you are ONLY looking to drop a slightly faster CPU into an existing sytem for a small boost in performance, this is good news.
But if you want a system that dramatically outperforms your current system - even with the CPU upgrade - where the CPU and MoBo will cost you ~$600, you want the Phenom or i7 - and NOT an older Core2.
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|good timing. i have been debating about upgrading my system its only a few years old and my windows vista prob like everybody else's has got a lot of bog it no longer has that fast boot up. so i just ordered a nice fat 1T hard drive. and i think with this price cut i might as well go ahead and toss in a quad core CPU motherboard is ready to accept it:) anyway i think this is a very good thing and with all the job loss around here its going to be there only hope to sell in the US they know money is very tight right now..
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|If you are going to upgrade CPU and MoBo, you want the i7 and NOT the Core2!
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|At the cheaper pricing of Core2s, perhaps not.
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|Nope,
The cheapest/smallest i7-920 at ~$300 outperforms the former performance champion, the Core2 QX9770 Extreme!
And the Phenoms have similar performance for an even cheaper price!
And even at a 40% price reduction, the $999 QX9770 Extreme at $600 is still more than a new i7-920 and Mobo that out performs it!
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|http://cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html suggests that the i7s aren't as fast as the Core 2 Extreme X9775 yet.
But then benchmarks and real life performance are 2 entirely different things.
I had no idea of the costs, so that's interesting anyway.
Cheers.
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|I don't know what reviews you have been reading, but Phenom II 940 AT 3 GHz outperforms the Q6600 AT 2.4 GHz by a mere 10% in most, if not all, of the reviews. Let's not talk about the Core2Quad running at 3 GHz.
I guess you meant there is no reason to buy neither Core2 NOR Phenom II at the moment, only i7... Ahhh, now you make sense.
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|Where are the metrics?
Where have you been? They have been out since late November in MYRIAD places!
In fact, all of this is old news!
Bottomline, the lowest priced i7-920 (~$300) OUTPERFORMS the former performance champ, the Core2 QX9770 Extreme by from 17% on the Windows Medi Encoding test (the smallest margin), to a 62% increase in the MPEG-4 rendering test.
And performance varies depending upon the benchmark! But I love your monolithic set percentage delta! And as if all reviewers run the same tests! Primate Labs' Geekbench2 scored 7998 for the i7-965 Extreme - the highest ever recoded on Geekbench. (But I am sure that you or someone will want to b!tch about what specific metric is used!) That's why I cited the min/max ranges. And there are quite a few more. Do your due diligence and discover them for yourself.
I have a pile of metrics and writeups in a variety of sources, both readily available and some requiring subscription or membership!
Simple ones you can easily access (or should have already accessed several months ago...)
CRN, issue 1279, December 1, 2008, Nehalem VS Shanghai, p. 10
Or even:
Computer Shopper, January 2009, Vol 29, Number 1, Issue 346. p 76.
What amazes me is that folks are still not aware of this info.
And if the smallest cheapest i7 creams the fastest quad core Core2 Extreme for MUCH less money, why are we still talking about moving to anything Core2?
And if AMD has near equivalent performance for slightly less price, there is still more reason to look at a Phenom or i7 instead of a Core2! Especially any Core2 less than the QX9770 Extreme which has been trounced for substantially less money.
Next time, you can do your own research. ;-) But I realize that on this site it is easier to simply whine than to actually do something as kompleekated as a Google search for ones self. ;-)
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|"and with all the job loss around here its going to be there only hope to sell in the US they know money is very tight right now.."
...you can't possibly be serious. You're joking, right? An Intel x4 CPU price cut is going to "fix" the economy?
Pass it around, man, that must be some good smoke...
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|"Bottomline, the lowest priced i7-920 (~$300) OUTPERFORMS the former performance champ, the Core2 QX9770 Extreme by from 17% on the Windows Medi Encoding test (the smallest margin), to a 62% increase in the MPEG-4 rendering test."
I am calling BS on those numbers of yours. Put up the links to the reviewSSSSS where you got that from. I have read at least 10 reviews of the Phenom II, and nowhere have I found things like those you claim.
This is taken from one of those that put the Phenom in good light:
http://www.tomshardware....nom-ii-940,2114-10.html
There you go. You know what? After looking again at all the reviews I see that you have inverted the terms... You wrote Phenom 920/940 where you meant QX9770. The whooping the Phenoms get is tremendous.
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|The only BS is your specious claim based upon your emotions!
And I absolutely did not invert terms.
I cited the links to 2, or many, printed sources. You can reference their web cites and find them. I am not going to do ALL of your work for you as you sit and whine like a baby.
The only error wasa typo in the "Windows Medi" Encoding. where "Medi" should read "Media". That specific benchmoark is listed on p75 of the aforementioned reference.
And I never cited benchmarks for any AMD chip!
The comparisons were solely for the i7-920 and the Core2 QX9770 extreme.
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|"The cheapest/smallest i7-920 at ~$300 outperforms the former performance champion, the Core2 QX9770 Extreme!
And the Phenoms have similar performance for an even cheaper price!"
So, what were you talking about there?
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|You sure are slow.
Yup, I referred to the aforementioned i7 benchmarks relaive to the Core2 QX9770 Extreme.
Now you show me where I have cited any specific benchmark for the AMD.
I simply have repeated what not only has BetaNews mentioned about the AMD Phnom series relative to the i7, but the same performance characterisics cited in myriad other sources. Their performance is very close to one another.
Come up with something new. Or are you going to reframe youe same lame objection that the metrics were fabricated yet again? And go call someone else a liar. Especially as you start off with an emotional objection as you display your abject ignorance.
Or, should we say, after having cited the source of those particular metrics, your stupidoity.
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|"Their performance is very close to one another." The performance of the Phenom is nowhere near the i7's. It is near the Core2's. And you are calling me ignorant? :D
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|So what is your point?
I cited specific benchmarks for the smallest i7-920 versus the Core2 QX9770 Extreme and cited the specific sources.
But you can't even locate Computer Shopper or CRN (if you even know what CRN is, and why you aren't receiving it???)
You called me a liar. Yet you have yet to even find the sources, which were quoted.
I then repeated the comparison of the Phenoms with the i7s, which WERE made in the intro piece on the AMD Phenoms/Dragon posted in BetaNews in the last week or so, and now you argue with that too.
And to further confuse you, if such a thing is possible, here is a QUOTE from the article above, Nimrod:
" While the two series may be evenly matched in raw performance, Intel may have the edge once you factor in power consumption."
Duh. (Don't worry, we'll rest for a spell while you get help reading and having the quote explained to you...)
Aside from display your complete and utter ignorance of each topic thus far discussed, do you have a point? As my initial point was that the i7s were a very attractive package and that at ~$300 for the i7-920, they provided the greatest ROI in terms of an upgrade versus either the Phenoms or the Core2s - but especially when compared with the Core2s!
The benchmarks were simply gravy.
So now you come out claiming the i7s are MUCH better than the Phenoms which simply reinforces my original point that the i7s were the way to go with regards to ROI for upgrades.
With your superior(sic) aptitude, you might want to go help sjc001 with his TV monitor. You see, the poor victim is having trouble with (among a great many things) hum. As after all, you seem quite proficient in generating noise. Maybe you can help him reduce some of his.
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|Man, there is a world outside Betanews. Read it.
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|Score: -1
|The Core 2 Quad Extreme series do not have Hyper-Threading
Only the Core i7 sereies uses hyperthreading, and the price for the Core i7 965 is $999, in 1000 unit quantities.
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|oh this is going to up sales no doubt. =]
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