More Conroes Coming . . .

The Inquirer has an article which says, based on Intel roadmaps, that Conroe will be ramped up a bit faster than earlier indicated.

Up to now, the expected percentage of Conroe chips in the mix of mainstream desktop CPUs has been:

3Q: 10%
4Q: 25%
1Q: 35-40%

The new Intel roadmaps indicate that crossover (more new chips start being made than old chips) will occur sometime in the fourth quarter.

This will probably mean somewhat more Conroes will be made in 4Q, maybe 30-35%, and Conroes should exceed 50% of Intel’s production in 1Q.

Price Cuts?

The Inquirer article also says that Intel won’t consider a price cut until November. That’s not too bad, they aren’t all that expensive to begin with.

What we’ll probably see in the course of the next six-nine months is that Intel will introduce 3.2, then 3.46GHz EEs. That will mean a 2.93, then a 3.2 will become the top-end “regular” Conroe, and that’s more-or-less when price cuts further down the food chain will happen.

Intel will probably try to skew the price cuts a bit upward if they can next year, so the cuts in current models won’t be that big, but it’s likely that by next April or so, the current E6600 will cost something like $220, and the E6400 will be in the $160 range.

This all assumes Intel will be able to do what they like in the price arena.

However, if there’s ever going to be a time when Intel will be under pressure to cut prices more than they would like, it’s going to be the near future. While it’s pretty safe to say that Intel won’t cut Conroe prices until November (after all, they have to get rid of the old stuff), what happens after that will be largely based on what AMD does, and how successful they are doing it.

Ed


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