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Pentium D, Pentium 4, Celeron D prices slashed
by Cyril Kowaliski — 11:14 AM on July 27, 2006

As Intel gears up to officially launch its Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors later today, the company has updated its price list (PDF) with some substantial cuts for the Pentium D, Pentium 4, and Celeron D lines. The top-of-the-line Pentium D 960 has plummeted down from $530 to $316, and the remainder of the Pentium D 9xx chips are at $224 or below. Here's what the new pricing looks like when put up against AMD's latest price cuts and the Core 2 Duo line:

Intel	Price	AMD
Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.67GHz/4MB)	$530
Pentium D 840 (3.2GHz/1MB)	$423
Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.40GHz/4MB)	$316
Pentium D 960 (3.6GHz/2MB)	$316
Pentium D 830 (3.0GHz/1MB)	$316
	$301	Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (2.6GHz/512KB)
	$240	Athlon 64 X2 4600+ (2.4GHz/512KB)
Core 2 Duo E6400 (2.13GHz/2MB)	$224
Pentium D 950 (3.4GHz/2MB)	$224
	$187	Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (2.2GHz/512KB)
Core 2 Duo E6300 (1.86GHz/2MB)	$183
Pentium D 940 (3.2GHz/2MB)	$183
Pentium D 930 (3.0GHz/2MB)	$178
Pentium D 920 (2.8GHz/2MB)	$178
Pentium D 945 (3.4GHz/2MB)	$163
	$152	Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2.0GHz/512KB)
Pentium D 915 (2.8GHz/2MB)	$133
Pentium D 820 (2.8GHz/1MB)	$113
Pentium D 805 (2.66GHz/1MB)	$93

At $316, the Pentium D 960 doesn't stand much of a chance against the Core 2 Duo E6600 according to our benchmarks. Intel could turn a few heads in the sub-$200 range, though: the Pentium D 945—essentially a Pentium D 950 without Intel's Virtualization Technology—might be an interesting alternative to the Athlon 64 X2 3800+. Intel also has AMD beaten on the very low-end with the Pentium D 920, 820, and 805 chips, against which AMD has no dual-core offering to compete.

While Intel's dual-core price cuts may appeal to some, the Pentium 4 cuts aren't all that attractive. Only the Pentium 4 6x1 series and a couple of Pentium 4 5x1 chips received cuts, and they still top out at $183 for the 3.6GHz Pentium 4 661. The Celeron D line has been squeezed even lower than before, though, with the flagship 3.33GHz Celeron D 356 now only $74.

Finally, Intel did also apply some very minor cuts to its Core Duo line, but none of them seem to exceed $1.

Tags: CPUs