Intel and AMD: Aggressive CPU bargains?
It looks like the fight between the two company giants will enter another phase next month.
According to MSI and Gigabyte, which are among the largest Taiwanese manufacturers, price reductions at Intel are expected to begin on July 23. In the last quarter, AMD achieved more than 35% share of the $ 20 billion CPU market, which has not been the case for 4 years now.
"Intel has decided to take aggressive steps to regain lost market share," said Max Tsai, one of Gigabyte's product managers. "An Intel employee in Taipei said that price reductions are expected. It really surprised us.”
Alex Lin, one of MSI’s marketers, says the world’s largest processor maker could discount its dual-core CPUs by 15%, while Pentium 4 relatives by as much as 60%. This doesn’t seem incredible either, as the new Conroe-core processors could be unveiled on servers this month, on home PCs in July, while we can expect mobile versions to be available in August.
According to several sources close to the company, AMD is not yet officially prepared for the price war, but if Intel actually pursues such an aggressive policy, they will not be able to sit on their laurels. According to the Inquirer, the reduced prices for Athlon 64 processors could be as follows: $ 3000+ 90, $ 3200+ 100, $ 3500+110 and $ 3800+ $ 140. These prices represent a minimum reduction of 40% compared to today.
We are curious to see how the prices of desktop processors will actually change in the middle of summer. Hopefully, now (too) users will come out of the fight as the victoriously laughing third.
