Just to remind everyone, who keep suggesting April/May/June for the possible dates, business "quarters," as the ones this article refers to, start in October. The first fiscal quarter is October-December, the second is January-March. So this price drop will happen in the next two months. Look it up if you want.

The Core 2 Duo Processors are very tempting to buy, but i'll wait for the Quad Core Series (probably more than 1 year). In Q4 2007 i hope we'll be seeing on the market DDR3 and chipsets to support it from Intel. AMD hasn't
released a Dual Core that can match the 6xxx Series, so we don't know how powerfull are AMD's processor (they don't hurry, and Intel will not stay and watch).
Like I said, I'll wait for DDR3 and Quad Core (probably Bloomfield, which looks like a monster with 4 cores, simultaneous multi-threading, integrated memory controller) and of course, the change of 775 socket and of the FSB/

That quad core is looking very tempting. I'll wait until June before getting it; the price should have dropped by then.

Holy hell. I can't wait.

Mmm, E4300 for $113. That's $50 cheaper than the 1066 MT/s FSB part.

The real question is, when in Q2? That could mean April, it could mean June.

The Pentium E2140 and E2160 are coming in Q3 too. Those are the 1MB 800 MT/s processors. I wonder how much those will go for.

Sounds like K8L is gearing up to be a bit of a bruiser, otherwise Intel wouldn't be slashing prices like this. Too bad apart from the FX series, the really affordable desktop dual-core K8Ls won't be coming until Q4 (the Arcturus core without L3 cache, see http://www.mikeshardware.co.uk/RoadmapQ407.htm ).

Meh, AMD held the ball for some time until Intel grabbed it. If AMD can regain the lead under that timeframe, that will still say something. Let's just wait and see.

Oh, and price announcements mean jack when retailers dont' adjust the prices accordingly. Hell, there are still people selling the FX-62 for a grand. I'll believe the prices when I actually see them. Will still upgrade to Core in Jan - IF the prices do drop, maybe upgrade to Quad later.

I wonder what the E4300 would be like as an overclocker? surely that at 3.2ghz or something would be quite the CPU?

i wonder when the exact date will be for the q2 price cuts :)
because like the famous saying: Time is Money

That E4400 looks to have a 10x multiplier for <$150. If the overclocking is as easy as just telling the BIOS to run at a 1066 (233x4) FSB rather than 800 (200x4), then that means that it can get 2.3 GHz. Do you think this might be the case?

An E6600 for $224?
Thats pretty damn good bang for the buck.
At stock 2.4Ghz they are fast and cool running but at 3.Ghz they really rock.Extreme Edition performance for less than $250...awesome.

I can only hope that DDR2 prices drop as well. Done in tandem with a CPU price drop, that'd spur quite a few upgrades (including myself).

before it was intel and amd boxing, one side would get the upper hand, but nothing big happened, then intel got a good uppercut with conroe; cheap quad-core chips is a dragon punch that's going to leave a big scar across amd's chest unless k8l brings one hell of a game

must get core 2 quad for cheap

Them's some nice prices, Marv!

If only my rig coulda waited till then to bust!

Now we just need some massive RAM price drops.

- Seems like the ramp's doing well and the Netburst inventory is being flushed out.

- These cuts, again, put AMD's Q2 TOPTL CPU in competition with Intel's $316-part and with the $113 E4300 roughly equalling the X2 4200~4400+, this could put AMD in a place where they're selling their 2 - 3 GHz DCs in the $100 to $400 range by Q2.

- AMD could really be hurt by this Core deployment given L2's smaller die size (vs. Rev G) and the limited amount of 65nm wafers available. (90nm would mean much lower margins)

- Conroe's cache doesn't seem to be a yield killer.

Of course they are.

What processor ever has remained stagnant in the marketplace? I think we can assume they will lower prices again later that year as well.

Hmm, might be due to AMDs introduction there. Or that 45nm chips are very close. I hadn´t expected any pricecuts until Q3 when 1333FSB hits along with 45nm chips. But 530$ for a 2.4Ghz Quadcore looks nice.

Good lord. That's plenty low enough to tempt me to go quad-core in my next build. It's almost scary how well Intel's doing now... Enough so that I'm beginning to fear for AMD's ability to compete with them. Let's hope that K8L is God's own avenging sword.

Curse Intel for giving that bloody Shintai more ammunition. ;)

E6420 for me!

That should clock to 2.66 with a bit of luck giving me an 'E6700' for $183 :)

So i now can Afford Quad core CPU's ... good my salary had increased??... Or is it intel slashed the priced .. ;)

WOW!

They're pretty substantial price drops...I'll think I'll wait until quad-core becomes affordable then! :D (although the E6420 seems tempting)

...No! *Must*resist*any*upgrades*until*2010*

At the risk of sounding like a troll or fan boy, this sucks for AMD. They already can't compete on the performance front, even at the e6300 level, now with the price drop I really can't justify building an AMD system at this level.

Looks like the January build of a new rig isn't going to happen. Someone on TR post an update when their favorite e-tailer has the prices updated and I'll be jumping.

Something 200ish for CPU, no dual gpu action needed -- just 2x HDDs and 2GB of ram!

E6600 for $220........sweet. Sign me up.

This will make building my first Intel Box a more stable possibility. I would only have to get proc, mainboard and ram. Everything else I have would work fine. And from the look of things, my system would, quite possibly, run cooler

Freak Pros and Shintai are going to Kick A## of AMD's Fanboyz now.. Sad story will begain anytime now.. ;)

#2 I agree... Why build AMD?

oops, never mind, heh.