Intel has slashed prices on CPUs by almost 50 percent on its high-end offerings, barely more than a month after its previous price cuts. The retail price of the 2.4GHz P4 fell 30 percent from AU$1,365 to AU$948, while the 2.26 GHz chip fell 48 percent to retail at AU$584.
The high-end P4-M chips also experienced significant price reductions. Robert Lee, manager at Gosford-based Adecs Computers, told ZDNet Australia that the increasingly small price differentiation at the lower end of the market would lead to the 1.7GHz becoming the base entry level CPU, with only a AU$10 price difference between that and the 1.6GHz.
Pentium 4 notebook chips have not sold as well as expected, according to analysts, especially in the corporate market. The chip is primarily used in the thicker "desktop replacement" notebooks rather than the "thin and light" versions, more popular with corporate America. The price cuts have been expected.
According to Lee, AMD will shortly follow suit. -They are never far behind with price cuts, and you can expect those prices to go straight through the channel to the consumer," he said.
The price cuts will lead to cheaper PCs. Earlier this year, some PC makers raised prices and changed configurations of some consumer models because of rising prices on flat-panel LCD monitors and memory. That emerging trend has largely reversed itself. Although flat-panel monitors remain in tight supply, memory prices have been dropping.
Michael Kanellos contributed to this story
