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Core 2 Quad Q6700 price cut by a massive 50 per cent, and other CPUs get a slight price cut too
In what could be seen as a response to the release of AMD’s cheaper Phenom X3 CPUs to retailers, Intel has just slashed the price of some of its cheaper CPUs by up to 50 per cent.
The biggest drop in price can be seen on the Core 2 Quad Q6700, which previously cost well over £300. However, after the price cut, the 2.66GHz chip can now be yours for just £175.65 inc VAT. As well as this, the price of the ludicrously cheap Q6600 has also dropped slightly, and can now be picked up for just £135 inc VAT.
Considering that the Q6700’s clock speed and cache setup are identical to those of the original Core 2 Extreme QX6700, this is an absolute bargain for a chip that would have set you back around £600 not too long ago. In fact, Scan is still selling the QX6700 for £540.49 inc VAT.
The price cuts have been officially implemented on orders of 1,000 processors, with Intel cutting the price of Q6600s by 16 per cent from $266 US to $224, while the Q6700 went from $530 US to $266 – a huge cut of 50 per cent. As well as this, the Core 2 Duo E6850 has also had its price cut by 31 per cent, and the cheaper E2180 and E2200 Pentium Dual-Core chips have also had a small drop in price of 12 and 14 per cent respectively.
In an interview with ComputerWorld, an Intel spokesperson, Patrick Ward, said that the price cuts were because Intel wanted to flush out its 65nm Kentsfield cores in favour of the new 45nm Penryn chips. ‘We're transitioning from 65nm to 45nm,’ said Ward. ‘We're in the process of refreshing our line. If you see a 65nm [chip], it's older technology and we're moving on from it.’
Older technology or not, the new prices are extremely good for Core 2 Quad CPUs, particularly when you consider how far you can overclock the G0-stepping Q6600. The Q6700 also features the G0 stepping, so it’s likely to be extremely overclockable too.
Are these price cuts going to make it harder for AMD to sell its X3 Phenom CPUs? Would having a 65nm CPU bother you because it’s not the latest technology? Let us know your thoughts.
iNTEL must need tooo shift this stuff . iNTELs next gen chipsets and CPUs r coming soon . Will they be a lot better or just SH;T .
I am about to build a new system and was going to use the Q6600 well it will certainly be the Q6700 now as it falls in my price range, lets hope the trend continues. AMD/ATI don't produce anything like they used to so R.I.P. My friend has 2 ATI cards in crossfire mode and they wont even touch my single Nvidia 8800GT. Goodbye AMD/ATI come back if you can I'm sure we're all waiting with not so baited breaths !!!!!!!
you know the recession that's going on now? y'know the one everyone is saying will happen with house prices falling through the floor, the whole of Birmingham losing thir jobs in a day and people forced to sell their children for loaves of bread? most of the time things like this happen partly because things to take a turn for the worse, but mostly because as soon as things take a dip, people get hysterical and do silly things which far from help the situation. It happened in 1929 with the Wall St crash that lead to WW2 - people panicked, worked themselves up into a lather and acted ridiculously instead of being rational and sensible. All this talk of AMD is doomed, AMD will be bought out within the year (which has been rumoured for..the last year or so). For the people who think that a company should quit or sell-out just because acompetitor is making better products and selling them cheaper - I'd love to do business against you, it'd be a doddle, Western Digital have been faced with bigger cheaper and faster hard drives than their raptors..so did they sell-out? no. Did they quit? no. They developed their technology and produced something better than the competition which is the nature of business, unless you're a wimpy company/person with no backbone and so much yellow on your belly people lick it to see if it tastes like mustard. AMD are less than brilliant at the moment, but their R&D people still have jobs, just as Intel's did when the K6 & Athlons were top dogs.
I bought an X2 5000 black edition, which I can run at 3.2GHz very easily and stably...I think a low-heat-emitting 3.2GHz dual core CPU for £50 is far from a rip off.
my friend just bought the Q6600 chip for £135 and is over the moon with it, and considering he had his old AMD 4600X2 and the motherboard died forcing him to either replace an aging 939 socket board or buy a intel chip there and then (new mobo and ram too) he has greatly benefited from this price drop and so it does help many many customers buy a bargain. For those that have recently bought the Q6700 for the high old price you cant really blame anyone but yourself as this reduction was announced and rumoured about for ages with most customer recommendations suggesting to only get the Q6600 and overclock it or wait until the AMD phenoms create a price war. I have been wanting a new mobo RAM and CPU set for ages now but im being patient, I have waited with my GPU card too and now own a lovely sub £200 BFG 9800GTX card(I know i should have got a 8800GTX!! lol) but again im to blame if two months from now those 4000 series ATI's beat it for value. People, we need to NOT complain when companies REDUCE PRICES :) sure it can seem a bitterly unfair thing when you mistakenly buy something unaware that its due to be slashed in half for costs, but if you had took the time to trawl the forums and take advice from those in say the modding and overclocking forums in custompc you wouldnt have had to make this error in judgement.You cant blame intel for this really. I applaud any cost savings passed on to the end user, I dont care how they do it as long as Im able to find out its due or with a little work gain knowledge of the likelyhood in the near future(like knowing the new GF9900 is due in a few months)
This is not to kick the X3 whilst it is down, and is not a sudden move to piss off anyone who just bought an Intel chip. These price cuts have been known about and planned for months.
Well Intel announced these price cuts were going to happen over two months ago and gave the dates and the new prices - so it's not like they've been underhand about it. I've been using a 2160 because I was waiting to see what the new quads were like or get a q6700 when the prices dropped. I expected they'd retail for around £150 as they're now at the same price point as the q6600. The price of the q6600 has been dropping gently over the past few weeks to make way for this. This is no sudden shock announcement and has been public domain since early this year.
Well I'm glad you wrote it, because I was thinking it too. **** happens. I bought a 7900GTX 3-4 weeks before Nvidia released the 7950 ... I was gutted, but not bitter (well not much lol). And yes I did think of breaking the 7900 and sending it back.
@ Yougotkicked... you write way too much to comment, and i would love to see all factual evidence rather than theoretical positions you place AMD from reading various articles on the web........ For most people commenting.... they are now turning against intel and saying they ripped off intel purchasers... I bought an E6600 back in November 2006 for a whopping £211.xx... Hardly a rip off compared to now, considering how fast the computer industry is flying along in terms of newer and better products in the last 3~5 years. You never got ripped off if you bought an Intel Cpu in the last 2 years... If you bought an AMD chip in the past 2 years... You Did!
You make a very good point and I suspect you're correct, which is a good thing because competition breeds innovation. I was just attempting to say that AMD/ATI are used to being in the underdog position so know how to deal with it, something which a lot of people dont seam to realise, so writing them off is is daft.
but i reckon, about august time AMD will do something which will be an aggressive move, maybe something to do with their GPU's to restrict intel of using them on their mobos, but i reckon they will release an actual competitor in the CPU market, instead of the current phenom series, which dont seem to even interest any intel fans. Now i get this idea because if you look at the current series number... it is near the end of the 4 digit numbers, so maybe, just maybe, they will be releasing something very big with the new name, and the 8xxx and 9xxx series were just to get used to the new layout of the CPU architecture. I am just hoping that this will force intel to lower their prices even more, after all look at how much they ripped you off before
need to get hold of a brain. Price cut of 50% did not happen in last two weeks!! It fell 50% since coming on the market. Optimusprime, you bought and inferior product with worse value for money ratio and you still feel good about it? I am puzzled by ability of some people to advertise their (what is the polite word for stupidity?) so openly...
Apart from over the last couple of years AMD has always been playing 2nd place to Intel which is something a lot of people seem to be forgetting and as such they know how to get them selvs out of the situation. 2 or 3 years down the line the this whole situation will be reversed and AMD will no1 not Intel.
Yougotkicked is right to point the cyclical nature of computing, especially when it comes to CPUs - it takes a very long time to design a CPU architecture and once you've ploughed the cash and time into it, you are committed to it for a long time. While AMD is under enormous pressure at the moment, perhaps its aquisition of ATi will prove to be a smart move - in terms of CPU+GPU work, its ahead of Intel, and many of the indications are that in the next five to ten years, this could prove crucial - after all, current CPUs are 'fast enough' for the vast majority of normal users. Intel's problem is that for most people, if you've got a Core 2, why would you want to upgrade? There just isn't the software to use the power...
juat glad i went with AMD as u got to be a little pissed if you perchased an Intel CPU in the last couple of weeks,
it wouldn't be good for the Intel FanBoys because they would be getting laughed at by the people that hate being fanboys lol
For us that is, as i think that competition is good for the consumer. I own a intel chip and it works really well overclocked and all, but would love to see AMD come back and kick intel where it hurts, as this will only drive the market and push prices down, which is good for us ;)
I reckon you were one of the Take That fans who said the band splitting would never happen. And then interviewed on a news program post-split to say you had been on the phone to the samaritans because you hadn't seen it coming. Seriously though ... to fuel your (very optimistic) argument, how many times has AMD had a comeback fight against Intel? Exactly, so I hardly think you can say the ups and downs are the nature of the beast! When AMD are not selling chips ... no money for future tech R&D ... no new chips ... goodbye AMD! rip
people, i know that amd is getting beat down pretty bad atm, but people need to realize that intel's domination is not big enough to take out amd, no company in the market can. everyone looks at the situation as if it is something new and unusual, it is the nature of the entire tech industry to alternate between extream lows and highs, R/D cost's are the usual culprit, but in the cpu market there are only two companies in the mainstream. so in these times when there is a genuine difference between the processors, one company will have a clearly better product, that product will inevitably be bought more than it's competitors, so the 'winning' company will go up in value while the other goes down (theoretically), then the other company develops their supperior product, the situation reverses, and then it happens again. think back two/3 years ago; amd was beating intel down just as hard as intel is beating amd now, intel did not go down as much because of their presence in other markets and product agreements with the likes of dell. (mostly the latter) so as amd improves on phenom (i have yet to see a comparison of the two that i consider fair btw) they will probably hit a major design innovation and phenom will launch past intel, now that intel does not have the dell agreement they will take it a bit harder than last time, then they will come back, and it will keep happening exactly like this until another company enters the equation or one of them falls from some external factor. this move is probably 50% agression, 30% marketing, and 20% B@lls. there is no way they are still making a profit off the quad cores they cut prices on. so they are just trying to take amd down as much as possible while they are on top, and amd still has one big trick up it's sleeve if things get bad enough, or if they want to return the favour to intel later on; they could destroy ati graphics card performance with intel chipset's, i'm sure there are some reguations that keep them from completely making the two incompatable, but they can cut cross fire compatability and inhibit performance, this won't gain amd much money as their graphics cards and chipset's are not on the top of the market, but most low range systems rely on amd gpu's, so intel would really get hurt here, they would either be forced to divert funds to the development of larrabee (if it actually will come out) make a deal with amd to return things to normal, or suffer. either way it will buy amd some time to power-up it's cpu's and fight back against intel.
Just shows how much you all had been ripped off by intel recently, after all, a price drop this big must meen there was a lot of leg room for price drops.
I miss the days when cheap AMD chips pounded Intel chips. Lets hope that AMD can stand the pace. We're all too aware of how lack of competition can stagnate the market...
Yet the only reason why Intel have done this is that they know the Phemon X3's and X4's are a big competitor to their chips, just lets hope AMD slash their prices and undercut Intel.
This is fantastic news. I don't think too many people would be entertaining an AMD system at the moment anyway. This just makes the arguement against an AMD system so much stronger. AMD/ATI will end up being bought at a knock down price within the year. Competing against one leading company is difficult but when all of your products are playing second fiddle to far superior products and now cheaper then it's time to shut up shop or sell up now and see how much you can get. I bet we hear the Nvidia to buy AMD rumours sprouting up again. Welldone and thank you Intel, my CPU will be ordered tomorrow.
that it was the Q6600 getting another proper price drop... quad core for £65 naoplz!
Bring on Via multi core processors, and I hope someone buys out ATi...
I suggested that AMD should adopt this plan weeks ago, nice one Intel now if AMD want a new marketing manager?
I happen to need a new CPU to go in my incompleted computer
I was planning holding out on the Q9450 to drop to sub-£200 but £135 for the Q6600 makes it very tempting...
but this is why i hate intel.
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