Intel slashes processor price by almost half

Intel on Monday cut the prices of many of its mainstream processors, with some of the cuts lopping off as much as 48 per cent.

The prices of five different versions of the Intel Core 2 Quad processor were cut by as much as 40 per cent, with the 3GHz Q9850 dropping from $530 to $316. Meanwhile the 2.33GHz Q8200 dropped in price by 16 per cent, from $193 to $163.

The Pentium Dual Core processor line also saw price cuts, with the 2.5GHz E5200 chipset having a cut of 24 per cent from $84 to $64.

Mobile Celeron processors saw the biggest single fall, with the 2.26GHz Celeron 570 dropping by 48 per cent from $134 to $70. Four other chips in the range had smaller but still substantial cuts, ranging from 19 per cent to 35 per cent.

Other ranges saw more limited cuts. Only one out of the eight Core 2 Duo chipsets, for example, saw a price cut.

Intel's price cuts had been expected because of last year's introduction of AMD's Phenom II and Shanghai processors, which have been gaining ground against Intel's processors in the gaming market and the mainstream systems market. The Shanghai processor has been adopted by large companies such as Dell, Fujitsu, HP, IBM and Sun.

Original article: Intel cuts prices by up to 48 percent from ZDNet UK