If you recently bought an Intel Core i7 950 processor and shelled out the full ~$600 asking price prepare to regret not paying more attention to this post last month – or getting the faster i7 960 for the same amount which should have been your choice in the first place. It turns out the chatter was true and now the high-end chip is selling for 48% less at $294. The move essentially renders both the Core i7 920 and 930 obsolete as well, since those chips are selling for roughly the same.
The move reportedly comes in response to AMD's recent price cuts for its quad-core Athlon II X4 640 processor from $122 to $100. In addition to the price cut, Intel also released its fastest Core i3 processor to date, the 3.33GHz Core i3 560, and priced it at the same $138 as the slower i3 550, which seems a little strange but it's certainly not the first time Intel has two chips in the same family selling for the same price. Rounding out the quiet rollout are a couple of new sub-$100 Pentiums, the 3.33GHz E6800 and 3.0GHz E5700, and a new flagship Celeron E3500 chip running two cores at 2.7GHz for $52.