If you’ve been holding off for better prices before upgrading to a quad core processor, you’ll be happy to learn Intel has just refreshed its processor line with a combination of new chips and price cuts – including 50 percent cuts on select quad core processors. Among the new chips are the 2.0GHz dual-core Celeron E1400, priced at $53, and the 2.66GHz Celeron 570 at $134.

As a result, prices for their older counterparts, the 1.6GHz dual-core Celeron E1200 and the 1.8 GHz Celeron 430, have dropped from $53 to $43 and from $44 to $34 respectively. The chipmaker also introduced new Core 2 Duo chips for the mainstream desktop, the 2.53GHz E7200 ($133) and 2.83GHz E8300 ($163), both based on Intel’s 45nm architecture and sporting a 1.33GHz system bus. Last but not least, the price of the Core 2 Quad Q6700 (2.66GHz) fell 50 percent from $530 to $266, while the quad-core Xeon X3230 (2.66GHz) price dropped from $530 to $266.