Intel's rumored round of price cuts arrived yesterday, as expected, slashing the prices its Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processor lineup. This latest move will put further pressure on AMD's current desktop line, which already went through a round of price cuts earlier this month.
The chipmaker has knocked down the price of the QZ6800 2.93GHz Core 2 Quad with a 1066MHz FSB to $999. The new Q6700 2.66GHz Core 2 Quad takes over the $530 price point, while the Q6600 Core 2 Quad model for high-end and gaming PCs received a massive 50 percent price drop to $266, making it the only sub-$300 quad-core processor on the market. Additionally, some of the existing Core 2 Duo processors were also affected by the price cuts. The E4500 2.20GHz Core 2 Duo will go on sale for $133 while the E4400 will sell for $113.
On the server side, the new Xeon X3230 quad-core debuts at $530. The Xeon X3220 dropped nearly 50 percent from $530 to $266 per 1,000 units shipped, while the X3210 fell 47 percent, from $423 to $224.
The price cuts are expected to provide a boost to hardware sales which have been lagging lately from people waiting for the cuts to take place. Meanwhile AMD, with not a single quad-core part on the market compared to Intel, desperately needs its next-generation Barcelona and Phenom CPUs to be breakout performers.