From the Inquirer:
“Customers of Intel have been tipped the wink on proposed pricing of Smithfield dual core 840 (3.2GHz), 830 (3GHz), and 820 (2.8GHz) processors. . . . These chips are curently scheduled for release in the second quarter, have 2 sets of 1MB cache, a front side bus of 800MHz, and use the LGA775 socket. At launch they will be $528, $314, and $240 respectively.
The keywords there are “second quarter” and the price tags attached.
“Second quarter” means Intel will get these chips out at or before any dual-core Opterons will show up. The price tags for the latter two CPUs, especially for the 2.8GHz, is pretty shocking. $240 for a dual-core CPU is almost Celeron pricing.
Right now, AMD officially charges $418 for two dual-capable 1.6GHz Opterons and $632 for two dual-capable 1.8GHz Opterons. Intel charges the same for 2.8/3Ghz Xeons Ds.
Can you say “price war”?
This is not to say you ought to go running out to buy these (please note that these Smithfields will not apparently work in current 915/925 mobos).
But even if you’re as AMD green as Kermit the Frog, and you have a real current reason to want duals sooner rather than later, there may be some bargains out there come June or so.
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