Intel reduces Core 2 Quad and other Processor Prices

It’s not all gloom and doom in this tough economic times. Good things still can happen, relatively.

Among them, and this would bring joy to gamers and other geeks, is Intel’s price reduction in almost all of its processors and eWeek.com has a good rundown of the good news.

Intel reduced the price of its Core 2 Quad Q9650 processors (3GHz) by 40 percent, which reduces the price from $530 to $316. In addition, the company cut the price of the Core 2 Quad Q9550 (2.83GHz) 16 percent from $316 to $266; the Q9440 (2.66GHz) 20 percent from $266 to $213; the Q8300 (2.24GHz) 18 percent from $224 to $183; and the Q8200 (2.33GHz) 16 percent from $193 to $163. Intel also added several processors to the lineup, including the Core 2 Quad Q9550s (2.83GHz) for $369, the Q9440s (2.66GHz) for $320 and the Q8200s (2.83GHz) for $245.

Other desktop price cuts included the Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 (2.8GHz), which Intel reduced 15 percent from $133 to $113. Intel also added a Core 2 Duo E7500 processor (2.93GHz) to the lineup for a price of $133.

In addition, Intel cut the prices on some of its older processors for desktops. Intel cut the prices on both its dual-core Pentium E5300 (2.6GHz) and E2200 (2.4GHz) by 14 percent. The E5300 now costs $74, and the E2200 costs $64. The company also cut the Pentium E5200 (2.5GHz) processor 24 percent from $84 to $64 and added a dual-core Pentium E5400 processor (2.8GHz) at a cost of $84.

The price of the dual-core Intel Celeron E1400 processor (2GHz) was slashed 19 percent from $53 to $43.

This is Intel’s response to their not-so-stellar fourth-quarter financial reports in which the company has felt the impact of the US economic crisis which resulted in reduced demand for desktop PCs and servers.

The good news is, those who have been wanting to upgrade their processors would most probably do so now that Intel has made price cuts to its processors.

I myself have been planning to upgrade my desktop to a Core 2 Duo chip for months now. Unfortunately though, other priorities are at my focus at the moment and I really don’t need a processor upgrade at this time.

Those who could spare the cash would probably go the opposite route and get their choice of processor as soon as local dealers follow suit and adjust their Intel processor prices to reflect this new price cut by Intel.

So, who would take this opportunity to get a new Intel chip?

eWeek’s note: All the prices included in the Jan. 18 price cuts are based on shipments of 1,000 processor units.

Tagged as: Celeron, Core 2 Quad, Intel, Pentium, Xeon