Intel announced “price cuts” for the next quarter.
I say “price cuts” because they’re really not cutting pricing on the low end items; with one exception, they’re getting rid of the low man on the totem pole, adding a high man and pushing everything in the middle down a notch.
For instance, instead of getting a 2.5GHz half-cached Q9300 for around $266, you’ll get a 2.66GHz, apparently half-cached chip for around $266. For around $316, you’ll get a 2.83 rather than a 2.66GHz full-cached quad.
The real price cut won’t come from Intel official pricing, but rather an end to the premium pricing due to scarcity as another 45nm fab comes on line and produces.
AMD catches a break from this “price cut.” Intel isn’t going to be price-aggressive and push Phenom prices down further by lowballing the low-end models. They’ll keep the Q6600 at around $200 to keep the current pressure on, but won’t add to it.
Perhaps not more significantly but more personally, the low price on a fully-cached quad Penryn is going to be around $316. That’s not a price cut, that’s a price increase for overclockers.
All indications are this will also be the low-end price for Bloomfield Nehalems when they show up, and they’ll probably for quite a while. Lower-cost Nehalems will eventually show up sometime, but they’ll be the cut-down versions.
One could complain, but it’s like complaining about a trained pitbull biting. So long as AMD doesn’t compete, this is what we’re going to get.
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