Without much in the way of fanfare, Intel added three new multi-core processors to its product price list over the Labor Day weekend. The chipmaker’s stealth launch of the new low-cost chips followed price cuts at rival Advanced Micro Devices, which recently lowered the cost of selected Phenom X4, triple-core X3, and Athelon X2 processors.
Some media outlets pointed to the cascading developments as evidence that last year’s price war between Intel and AMD may be heating up again. However, analysts have been cautioning the industry for some time now not to read too much into the revisions that Intel and other chipmakers periodically apply to their price lists.
Revisions are to be expected given the cost savings achieved through the introduction of new 45-nanometer process technology, said Matthew Wilkins, a principal analyst at research firm iSuppli. “These are the sort of things that go hand-in-hand with Intel’s transition to 45 nanometers,” Wilkins said earlier this summer.
Just in Time for Christmas
Chips like Intel’s new quad-core Q8200, which features a CPU speed of 2.33 GHz, are expected to gain traction among PC makers looking to introduce consumer-oriented desktops in the sub-$800 category in time for Christmas. However, the new $224 chip is clearly not for everyone.
The Q8200 features a modest 4MB cache — a temporary on-chip storage area where PCs place frequently accessed data for rapid access. By comparison, Intel’s other quad-core chips feature 6MB, 8MB or even a 12MB cache. Moreover, the Q8200 does not have an enterprise future because it lacks the virtualization technology Intel offers in its other quad-cores.
Intel’s other two low-cost chips are likewise squarely aimed at consumer applications. The new Core 2 Duo chip, priced at $84, features a clock speed of 2.5 GHz and has a 2MB cache. The lineup is rounded out by…