Intel To Slash Prices Up To 60% 227
Chuan-kai Lin writes "According to Bloomberg, Intel will slash product prices by up to 60% in order to regain market share captured by AMD." From the article: "Intel said it will reduce prices of faster dual-core chips by about 15 percent, according to Alex Lin, a product marketing manager at Micro-Star, Taiwan's third-largest maker of motherboards, which connect electronic parts in computers ... Shares of Intel have fallen 33 percent since Otellini succeeded Craig Barrett in May last year. Advanced Micro's stock has gained 77 percent during the same period. Intel fell 31 cents to $17.08 at 12:06 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. Advanced Micro dropped $1.55, or 5.5 percent, to $26.45 on concerns that Intel will lower prices."
My god (Score:4, Insightful)
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Re:My god (Score:5, Informative)
Re:My god (Score:2, Insightful)
<Wanders back to algorithms assignment
Re:My god (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My god (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My god (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My god (Score:2)
Re:My god (Score:3, Informative)
Um, no, actually it's virtually the definition of competitive. You know, competition leading to lower prices. If AMD can compete, they will, and consumers will win.
Re:My god (Score:3, Funny)
Bear (Score:2, Redundant)
So... Sould they keep that price up, the market would be completely exposed ?
Me thinks you mean "bear"
Re:My god (Score:3, Informative)
Re:My god (Score:2)
In order to believe in the value of labor theory, you have to deny the value of capital. As it says in the "Applicability of LTV" section, describing the value of land (just one example of capital) is problematic with this theory. Or if you believe in socialism, you believe that the government should own all capital and determine it's best use. The capitalist philosophy is that the government cannot make the best decisions about t
Re:My god (Score:2)
The capitalist philosophy is that the government cannot make the best decisions about the use of capital and that it should be left up to the free market.
Capitalism and free markets are not synonamyous. I didn't really want to get off topic, but read
Re:My god (Score:2)
If that's accurate, Marx was an idiot. Those $1 widgets are only worth $1 if you can get them to customers. Otherwise they're worth $0. I hope and pray there's more to it than that...
Re:My god (Score:3, Informative)
I own a factory that makes widgets. At the end of the day, my labor costs are $100. I also sold all the widgets made that day, (assume they are made to order) for $1000. My profit (neglecting other overhead) is $900. Marx believed that any profit made was essentially labor (read: money) that was stolen from the worker. By his definition, profit is theft.
The labor theory of value says that an item has an objective value. For Marx, the processor in yo
Re:My god (Score:2)
But like, that has never been true. People have been haggling since time began. Besides which, what's a labor cost? Typically it's how much you pay your help. You could pay them more, but you don't, because they'll work for n dollars.
Re:My god (Score:3, Insightful)
I actually wasn't baiting. I'm stating fact. From Wikipedia: "As an economic system, socialism is usually associated with state or collective ownership of the means of production.".
There are many existing socialist nations where no one goes so far as the abolition of private property.
If you define a socialist nation as one that has some social policies, then yes every nation is a socialist nation. In the US we have a welf
Re:My god (Score:4, Insightful)
Just accept that you amortized the higher price you paid with the additional CPU cycles you got by not waiting.
Cheaper Macs? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ira
Quite Possibly (Score:5, Insightful)
It will either mean cheaper Macs, or Macs with more features for the same price.
Remember that Apple is not a company that tries (too hard) to compete for the bottom end of the market. Even the Mac mini isn't designed to compete with a bargain-basement Dell. Apple might very well cut their prices with cheaper chips, or they might sweeten the deal with larger hard drives, making the low-end mini use a Core Duo rather than a Core Solo, etc.
However, as a Mac owner and someone who's looking to replace an iBook with a MacBook (Pro) in the near future, this is good news indeed.
Re:Quite Possibly (Score:2, Troll)
Or another yacht for Steve.
Re:Quite Possibly (Score:2)
Re:Quite Possibly (Score:2)
Re:Cheaper Macs? (Score:5, Informative)
No, but it does mean that Apple's margin's will grow slightly larger. I'm sure that as a loyal Apple-user that will warm your heart. It warms mine. Yay!
Re:Cheaper Macs? (Score:2)
Re:Cheaper Macs? (Score:2)
Historically, Apple has kept its price points pretty much static: the equipment available at a given time changes, but the prices generally don't decrease too much, unless
Re:Cheaper Macs? (Score:2)
Re:Cheaper Macs? (Score:2)
Macs don't use Pentiums. 1 faster Core Duo coming. (Score:5, Informative)
The big price cuts will supposedly start on July 23, which is also the day Conroe (LGA775 Core 2 Duo for desktops) will be introduced. Conroe will be replacing the current Pentium D and Pentium 4 processors, and eventually Celeron D (Apple will not use any of these CPUs). Compared to Conroe, the current high-end Pentium D will look like a mid range CPU. The mid-range Pentium 4 will look like a low-end CPU. The big price cuts will look appropriate. Note that Pentium D, Pentium 4, and Celeron D will work in Core 2 Duo desktop motherboards.
Apple so far has only used Yonah-based Core Duo and Core Solo, which don't use the same chipsets and sockets as Core 2 Duo for desktops. Core 2 Duo for notebooks will not be introduced until late August at the earliest, so I'm sure the big price cuts will not apply to Yonah CPUs. The smaller price cut mentioned in TFA (15 percent) makes sense because a 2.33GHz Core Duo will be introduced on June 25. This new fastest Core Duo should be priced about the same as the current fastest model (2.16GHz) and the second-fastest model is usually about 15 percent cheaper than the fastest.
Re:Cheaper Macs? (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh and plus I hate the Blue Man Group.
finally (Score:3, Insightful)
Fantastic! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Fantastic! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Fantastic! (Score:2)
capitalism! (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to wonder (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I have to wonder (Score:2)
That's not all there is to it. Intel practically invented end-user microchip marketing. With the old Intel Inside campaign, ordinary people went from wanting an "IBM" or a "PC" to wanting a "Pentium". People do purchase PCs on brand, but it might well be the brand of the CPU.
Re:I have to wonder (Score:5, Informative)
1.86GHz/2M for $183
2.13GHz/2M for $224
2.40GHz/4M for $316
Those were the prices posted before this anouncement, I hope they have dropped further. Even if they havn't I'm eyeing that 2.4 with the 4MB cahce HARD. I would gladly pay an extra $80-$90(CPU+Mobo) next month, than get an opty 165 this month that will suck more juice, and be significantly slower. I'm not loyal to any corperation, I'm going to put my money where it will give me the best return on investment...
Re:I have to wonder (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I have to wonder (Score:2)
When the cost goes down, unless AMD cuts costs (they started doing it now), majority of people will NOT choose AMD over intel.
People who are undecided would now go for INTEL.
What the heck, even AMD zealots might now sing a different tune.
Money rules the market.
Re:I have to wonder (Score:2)
If money rules the market, then we'd all be using Packard Bells with Cyrix Processors today.
Today's a good day to buy AMD stock, then! (Score:4, Insightful)
Jeez, a buck and a half off of shares. Buy!
(what do you think?)
Re:Today's a good day to buy AMD stock, then! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Today's a good day to buy AMD stock, then! (Score:2)
Re:Today's a good day to buy AMD stock, then! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Today's a good day to buy AMD stock, then! (Score:2)
Re:Today's a good day to buy AMD stock, then! (Score:2, Insightful)
AMD's cheapest dual core is the Athlon 64 3800+ for $297 at NewEgg right now.
Did you not know that Intel added 64-bit support to the Pentium lineup a while back?
Re:Today's a good day to buy AMD stock, then! (Score:3, Informative)
Did you not know that Core 2 Duo [wikipedia.org] is the first intel dual-core with AMD64... er, I'm sorry, EM64T?
Is it just me, or is EM64T a leet acronym for E4T M6? Just notice that for the first time.
Re:Today's a good day to buy AMD stock, then! (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you not notice the chip that he pointed out, which had EM64T?
Intel has been shipping EM64T-enabled chips for a while now.
Re:Today's a good day to buy AMD stock, then! (Score:2)
From what I've seen the only dual-core EM64T processors are Xeons, which tend to come with a big fat price tag. Also the P4 core is crap no matter what extensions it has. There's not a worthwhile 64 bit dual core until Core 2 Duo ships.
Of course, for most people, 64 bit isn't necessarily worthwhile anyway, and it certainly isn't worth running 64 bit windows, which is still a compatibility nightmare, so I'm not sure why this conversation got so heated up anyway.
I'd guess that 99% of the actual NEED fo
Re:Today's a good day to buy AMD stock, then! (Score:2, Informative)
$119 Pentium D 805 at NewEgg [newegg.com]
Description:
Intel Pentium D 805 Smithfield 533MHz FSB 2 x 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Dual Core,EM64T Processor - Retail
Intel has had EMT64 in their Pentium 4 and Pentium D lineup for ages. Where have you been?
Re:Today's a good day to buy AMD stock, then! (Score:2)
This should have hurt Intel's stock more than AMD (Score:4, Insightful)
The amount of profit they had built in could absorb a class issue in the past. Now, an expensive problem with their chips could hurt their company even more. No more soft landing.
They have to prove they're better than AMD. While there are some that will buy the big name with the new pricing, there are a lot more that will stick with AMD.
Re:This should have hurt Intel's stock more than A (Score:2)
Cutting down price was expected and is actually supposed to be a good move for intel: back in competition and on the war path to regain their market share.
AMD stock has been going down since the previews of Conroe and showing that intel will not only compete technically, but also on price lowers their results' expectations.
Intel certainly has been beaten down. (Score:2)
The new corporate servers and workstations based on AMD's latest rev chips haven't really been released yet. That will be a good sign of how good Intel's new chips are.
Intel was the gold standard. Now they're the old standard. They have some work to do to make the stock worth picking up based on potential gains.
"stick with AMD" (Score:2)
AMD is looking for switchers, not stickers. "sticking" is on the side of Intel with 80% of the market share.
Too late (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Too late (Score:2)
Please elaborate on what you mean by this.
Some Other Suggestions For Intel (Score:2, Interesting)
Some other things for you Intel guys to try:
1) Start leveraging your compiler to inflate SPEC scores - special case and hardcode as many parts of SPEC as you can
2) Keep adding more cache so more synthetic benchmarks fit completely in high speed memory to inflate those SPEC scores
3) Dump truckloads and truckloads of cash on x86 hardware sites
4) Leverage Steve Jobs - there is no limit to how much he will lie about performance - you saved his
Re:Some Other Suggestions For Intel (Score:2)
Re:Some Other Suggestions For Intel (Score:5, Informative)
LOL! Now we criticize Intel for their superior SRAM technology (Intel can fit twice as much cache capacity as AMD for the same chip area). Server workloads see much higher working sets than SPEC. Even assuming you have AMD's fast on-chip memory controller, every cache miss will result in the processor spending 50+ nanoseconds doing nothing (the instruction window will fill up in no time). With a 3-issue superscalar at 3GHz, this is ~ 450 lost opportunities to retire an instruction.
So yeah Intel, keep adding more cache "to inflate those SPEC scores".
Re:Some Other Suggestions For Intel (Score:2)
2) Done.
3) Done.
Hell, 4 is the only option left!
Sounds Alright But... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sounds Alright But... (Score:2)
chips that they're currently paying to store. They need to flush out the
channel before the new chips hit the market otherwise they'll be undersold
by their own product.
Re:Sounds Alright But... (Score:2)
Price cut or garage sale? (Score:5, Insightful)
Gawd, I was afraid that Intel would never put to sleep this monstrosity...
Robert
Re:Price cut or garage sale? (Score:2)
The prices drops are for the P4 (Score:5, Insightful)
the price drops are on the older P4s. That's great if you don't mind getting a P4, but Intel is doing what any other company would do. Drop prices on older products to clear out space for newer ones. Makes sense.
Re:The prices drops are for the P4 (Score:2, Insightful)
Drop prices TO instead of BY please. (Score:3, Insightful)
AMD's joining the party (Score:5, Informative)
those are non-dualies (Score:2)
If you've seen the info on the Intel cuts, they will be cutting all current products, including Pentium Ds.
Me, I'm getting a Core 2 Duo, so I guess I won't benefit.
Re:AMD's joining the party (Score:2)
Seems like it already happened (Score:5, Interesting)
AMD is laughing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:AMD is laughing (Score:2)
Intel could give the damned things away and I'll still buy AMD... I had been a faithful Intel drone for years and turned my brain off to everybody saying good things about AMD
So you used to be an Intel drone and now you're an AMD drone? Have you ever considered not turning your brain off or being any kind of drone? You could actually... you know... evaluate the choices and pick the best product for what you need to do at any given time?
Right now I see Intel winning for most of the laptop space. They ar
Re:AMD is laughing (Score:2)
Two words for you... well, one mnemonic, and one word. Ready: "FDIV Bug"
The problem isn't that there was a bug in an intel processor. Bugs occur in processors all the time. The problem wasn't that the bug couldn't be corrected in microcode - that happens too, albeit less frequently. The problem was originally that intel said that
Re:AMD is laughing (Score:2)
I have the luxury of using an Intel centrino laptop and an AMD powered laptop side by side and I gotta say that If intel is doing so much better how come I don't see it.
There are dozens of good chip comparisons out there. I'd say it depends upon which two chips you have and what the other specifications are. Intel leapfrogged AMD at the beginning of the year when the released the core duo chips. Centrino is a marketing term for a pairing of chips, motherboards and other miscellany. If your laptop says "C
Re:AMD is laughing (Score:2)
I'm not saying that you've not got a good box-- hell, you can probably do anything you want on it-- I'm just saying that I don't see the Sempron beating strong P4's at all.
Disclaimer
And the price of fish stays the same... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:And the price of fish stays the same... (Score:2)
You know Macs these days come with Intel CPUs, right?
Re:And the price of fish stays the same... (Score:2)
OK, that's nice (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:OK, that's nice (Score:2, Informative)
Re:OK, that's nice (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:OK, that's nice (Score:2)
Re:OK, that's nice (Score:2)
That's a good question, I don't know, but I don't think it makes up the gap. I can google for some tech docs, but it will still be hard as the intel northbridge (or whatever they call it today) still has more circuitry to it other than the memory controller. Based on what we've heard from the press and tech sites, the Wattage of the Intel memory controller would have to be equal to one Core 2 Duo to match AMD's wattage (I see quotes of 40% LESS power, however real that may be).
Also, sharing a memory contr
Re:OK, that's nice (Score:2)
Price correction? How about old-model clearout! (Score:4, Insightful)
For the first time (Score:2)
Re:For the first time (Score:2)
All i've upgraded is the video card (Geforce 6600GT currently) and disk space (not required really, but I dual boot).
Sure, it's not top of the line any more, but I have yet to try running something that was not playable to force me to upgrade...
If nobody's buying them anyway, drop the price (Score:2, Insightful)
Intel's current CPU strategy:
Nobody want them. The new CPUs are coming, so that gets rid of your loyal customers. AMD is kicking your butt, so you don't get the loyal AMD customers to buy your CPUs. So drop the prices so that you can clear off your shelves of the CPUs nobody is buying anyway, and you can force AMD to lower their prices. You loose profits yourself, but you leverage your action to hurt your competitor.
So, what should AMD do?
Processor lock-in more important anyway (Score:3, Interesting)
For the longest time, Intel shares have been based on the projection of 90+ percent market share - while Motorola has been knocked out now that Apple is using Intel chips, the rapid adoption of AMD by Dell and other suppliers has meant the market dominance model was in danger.
The geek in me, of course, loves AMD - I have one in my home laptop, and most of our lab's computers are dual core dual processor AMD Linux boxen with dual hard drives.
But looked at from the market perspective, this makes a lot of sense.
I predict, however, that this news will cause the non-techie investors to bail out of Intel - more cheap shares for techies like me, I guess.
Re:Processor lock-in more important anyway (Score:2)
Apple relationship implications (Score:2, Interesting)
Yet Apple's pricing model has always been pretty strict - normally you can count on paying the same price for a MacBook or MacBook Pro in another couple weeks or a month barring any product line updates. But this type of news may ha
does that mean (Score:2)
I sure hope so.
Lower prices are not the answer. Proposal. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's very, very sad to see Intel on the way down. Intel processors have literally helped the world become a better place.
Self-destructive behavior at Intel did not start with Otellini. Long ago, Intel closed its consumer division because it could not manage it effectively.
Do I think I could be a better CEO of Intel than Otellini? Yes, I do. I told one Intel employee that I thought of applying for Otellini's job, not because I thought I could get hired, but because I might possibly be able to educate the Intel board of directors about what needs to be done to pull Intel out of its long-term slump.
First, I would re-organize Intel's marketing, which has become Zombie-like in that it has been minimally connected with reality. Last year Intel sent me several email messages offering an "Intel BunnyPeople(TM)" doll if I would be involved with one of their marketing efforts. Possibly there were those who make purchasing decisions who were not offended by an offer of a free doll. However, I've never known one who would be influenced by such an offer. There are plenty of other examples of the scary disconnection of Intel marketing from Intel's needs.
For example, I would re-organize Intel's web site. I haven't checked recently, because we stopped buying Intel motherboards. But before, the part numbers for Intel motherboards were not immediately available. To get the part numbers necessary to place an order, it was necessary to jump through hoops with an online registration, and then have an Intel employee direct you to the proper web page. The result was that it was difficult to call a distributor and order Intel motherboards. The salesman at the distributor would offer plenty of choices, but there was no way to know which one to choose unless you had done Intel's hoop jumping.
Second, I would change the culture at Intel. Business is NOT a place for top executives to act out their anger. Top managers should go into therapy if they need to deal with their anger. They should NOT make their anger a problem for the corporation. But that's what has been happening. I think it was perhaps 15 years ago that I became acutely aware of this. I could give several examples, and I've heard others from Intel employees.
Third, very important, I would take good care of the technical staff. At present they are not treated sufficiently well. If I were Intel CEO and I saw a floor that needed to be sweeped to give the technical staff a better work environment, I would sweep it myself if necessary. Intel's business DEPENDS on creativity. It's difficult to be creative in a poor social environment.
There's more, but this is is not a complete proposal, of course. It is just a Slashdot comment.
Re:How can you talk about price discounts today... (Score:2)
You are correct, citizen. The Two Minutes' Hate is far more important. Baaaaa
Re:Software price-drop (Score:2)