Hardware Revolution

After Intel yesterday, AMD is striking back with price buts, as it took advantage of the Phenom X4 9950 introduction to the market, to cut prices on some of their cpus. Talk about a lovely week for any computers builder. Intel and AMD price cuts, back to back.

Phenom X3/X4 prices dropped by 10 to 14%, while Athlon 64 X2 prices are cut by 16 to 27%. Those reductions don’t seem to be enough compared to the Intel price cuts, as the Q6600 is now less expensive than the Phenom X4 9850 and also, for the price of A64 6400+, you can now afford an E8400 instead of an E8300. Even though the price of the A64 6000+ dropped by quite a lot, you’ll notice that actually, AMD re-positioned it agaisnt the E7200 which is at the same price.

Model/Price before/Price after/Variation
Phenom X4 9950 New Model: $235
Phenom X4 9850 From $235 to $205 -13%
Phenom X4 9550 From $195 to $175 -10%
Phenom X3 8750 From $195 to $175 -10%
Phenom X3 8650 From $165 to $145 -12%
Phenom X3 8450 From $145 to $125 -14%
Athlon 64 X2 6000+ From $153 to $112 -27%
Athlon 64 X2 5600+ From $122 to $102 -16%
Athlon 64 X2 5400+ From $112 to $87 -22%
Athlon 64 X2 5200+ From $102 to $76 -25%
Athlon 64 X2 5000+ From $87 to $66 -24%

The rest of the A64 X2 line-up, the 5400+, 5200+ et 5000+(2.9, 2.7 and 2.5 Ghz) are now facing the Pentium Dual Core E2220, E2200 and E2180, at 2.4, 2.2 and 2Ghz and could be the only AMD cpus that are well positionned agaisnt Intel, at least, from a performance point of view.

I think that this is great news, as this will help those of you who are building low-end/mainstream computers, as you’ll have more choices to choose from and it will be less expensive as well. I took a look at NewEgg and as you’ll see yourself if you check out the cpus, the price has already been lowered, which are great news for people who want to acquire those cpus at their new lowered prices.

Did I already tell you how much I love competition? =)