ALTHOUGH IT‘S ABOUT a month since we reported Intel’s price drop and new processor launch, it has finally happened. We’ve got a few new processors in the market and Intel has dropped the price on some of its models by as much as 47.6 percent. So if you’re looking for a bargain deal on a new CPU, then there might be something that’ll fit your needs.
The new processors consist of the Core i7 970, the Core i7 870s and the Core i5 760. The first of the three is the Extreme Edition consumer focused Gulftown based processor from Intel, although at $899.99 in retail, it’s only $100 less than the Core i7 980X which makes it hard to see it becoming a popular choice. It’s in a similar situation to the Core i5-760, although the 760 is only a mere $15 more expensive than the Core i5 750 and with such a small cost difference, one has to wonder if Intel isn’t getting ready to drop the price of the 750, or is contemplating taking it out of the market entirely.
The Core i7 870s is an entirely different kettle of fish, as this is one of Intel’s so called low power CPUs, although at 82W compared to 95W of the normal quad cores, we can’t really see what all the fuss is about. Especially as Intel’s pricing for the 870s in quantities of 1000 units is a rather expensive $351. You better have a really good reason to buy this 2.67GHz processor, as it’s not only more expensive, but it’s also slower than Intel’s Core i7 870 which is the model that had the most chopped off of its price tag. The Core i7 870 is now an affordable $294 compare to its old price of $562.
The Core i3 540 got a 12 percent price cut and is now listed at $117 in quantities of 1000 units. Moving down to socket 775 Intel dropped the price for the Pentium E6600 to $75, a 10.7 percent drop, and the Pentium E5500 to $64, a 14.6 percent drop. Finally, Intel reduced the price of the Xeon X3470 by 44.3 percent from $589 to $328 which makes a lot of sense as this is pretty much the same CPU as the Core i7 870.
Intel is set to launch a replacement for the 980X towards the end of this year called the 990X and it should cost the same $999.99 as the 980X. It will be slightly faster at 3.47GHz, but apart from that it doesn’t look like the new model will receive any big overhauls in terms of feature changes. The Core i7 950 should also get a price cut towards the end of August and should end up at the same $294 price point as the Core i7 870. Apart from that the only thing we have to look forward to from Intel, before a potential Sandy Bridge launch near year end, is the Core i3 560 which is a 3.33GHz part which has an expect launch price of $133.S|A
Lars-Göran Nilsson
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