Item One: AMD to Cut Prices For Christmas: That’s what Planet3DNow.com is reporting.
This “temporary, unofficial” price reduction is supposed to be in effect from November 8 to December 26.
No word on how much of a reduction this is supposed to be, but we would guess cuts ranging from perhaps perhaps $10-15 for the 3000+ to perhaps $25-30 for the 3500+.
You can find official AMD pricing here. Right now, doesn’t look like U.S. Pricewatch pricing reflects any real reductions yet.
Well, this gives us all something to look at next week. Maybe we’re wrong and these cuts are a lot bigger than what we think.
We would like to point out, though, no matter what the size of the cuts, if desktop Hammers are doing so well, why are prices on the low end being cut? It’s perhaps possible that Intel is feeding retailers rebates and we haven’t heard about them yet, but if that’s not the case, why the cuts?
A Bargain Or Not?
At least according to what the Taiwanese mobo makers are saying, the next revision of 90nm Hammers, Revision E, is supposed to be out early next year.
It will include SSE3 support, which you’d rather have than not, and will feature tweaks to the Hammer’s memory controller for integrated graphics use (which won’t help most reading this one bit).
A new stepping always has the potential of increased performance, but let’s note a couple things from the abovementioned link.
First, this is revision E of the chip. That means it’s the fifth stepping of this chip. That’s a lot, and just as much as Prescott is due to have. AMD didn’t even let any get out the door until the fourth generation, so they’re obviously struggling with this.
Second, it doesn’t look like AMD will put out a chip that will go at more than 2.8GHz in 2005. This is not terribly good news for those who want at least 3GHz out of one of these eventually.
If it’s going to take AMD five shots to be able to make at least a decent amount of chips capable of 2.6GHz, I’m sorry, but there’s not a whole lot of headroom left in these chips. No knock on AMD, after all that would be better than what Intel ended up with, and they haven’t been promising a major ramp, but I think a lot of people still have unrealistic expectations.
The sad reality in our world is that a late model Northwood system bought six-nine months ago and overclocked to 3.5-3.6GHz will still look awfully good against anything vaguely affordable you’ll be able to buy at the end of 2005. The rate of improvement has collapsed.
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