AMD cuts desktop PC prices again, Intel expected to follow suit
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(InfoWorld) - Advanced Micro DevicesÂ (AMD) announced its latest round of desktop processor price cuts on Monday, and rival Intel is expected to follow the move later this month. AMD slashed prices on its top-of-the-line desktop PC microprocessors on Monday to $599 per pair for the 3GHz version from $799, making it the same price as its 2.8GHz version. The move may be a sign it wants to clear out the chips ahead of the launch of itsÂ next generation chips, Barcelona. The company also reduced the price of some of its best dual-core processors, the Athlon 64 X2 6000+, which runs at 3.0GHz, fell to $178 from $241 and its AMD 64 X2 5600+, to $157 from $505, according to its latest price list. The company has apparently stopped producing several chips, the Athlon 64 X2 3600s and 3800s. A total of six AMD Athlon dual-core offerings for the desktop can now be bought for below $100 each. The company's single core desktop processors are all now priced below $100, with the Athlon 64 3200+, a 2GHz chip, at $48 and the Sempron 3200+, a 1.8GHz chip, at $31, the lowest price processor on the list. AMD's laptop PC processor prices remained the same. AMD and Intel have been in a tit-for-tatÂ price warÂ for well over a year now, and the results have been great for users -- particularly in desktop PCs. Price reductions for microprocessors and other computer components are a natural part of the business. As products age, they lose value, so lower prices are used as a way to entice users to spend less on slightly older technology. But theÂ market share battlesÂ between AMD and Intel in recent years have pushed both companies to boost technology and keep pricing down, to the benefit of users. Intel is expected to follow the AMD price reductions with a round of its own price slashing on July 22, according to a report by investment banking firm Goldman Sachs Group. Â
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Dell has scaled back the range of consumer PCs with processors from AMD that it sells on its Web site, focussing almost exclusively on systems with Intel processors.Dell&#39;s entire line of AMD-based laptops for consumers, as well as most of its AMD-based consumer desktops, will now be sold only through Dell&#39;s 10,000 retail outlets worldwide, said Dell spokeswoman Anne Camden.Except for one desktop, the Inspiron 531, which includes the AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+ processor, Dell will focus its online consumer sales on Intel-based PCs. For businesses, Dell will continue to sell a range of AMD-based systems online.The decision, made this week, could be a setback for AMD. The Intel rival received a big boost in 2006 when Dell began offering its chips in desktops, laptops, and servers.AMD-based systems tend to be priced lower than Intel-based systems, so it makes sense for Dell to ship AMD products through retail channels, said Dean McCarron, founder and principal at Mercury Research.&quot;[Dell&#39;s decision] is not that surprising given that AMD&#39;s primary strength is the consumer retail channel,&quot; he said. Price points on PCs tend to be lower in the retail market, and retail buyers are more sensitive to cost than online buyers, McCarron said.AMD said the move was part of a strategy to offer a wider range of AMD-based PCs through retail channels. &quot;We are always evaluating product offerings and how customers can access them,&quot; Camden said.Not many consumers buy systems based on the processor type, she said, and few distinguish between AMD and Intel processors. Users select PCs based mostly on price and what they will use them for, such as surfing the Web or playing music and videos, she said.Dell has expanded its in-store offerings over the past six months by signing up more retailers, including Best Buy and Wal-Mart in the U.S., Tesco in the U.K., and Bic Camera in Japan.The retail strategy helped the company expand its lead over Hewlett-Packard as the largest U.S. PC vendor in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to IDC. However, HP remained the world&#39;s largest PC dealer, topping Dell, Acer and Lenovo, IDC said.Hewlett-Packard already offers more AMD-based PCs in retail than online, so Dell&#39;s decision isn&#39;t a first, McCarron said. Until it won over top-tier PC vendors several years ago, AMD relied on the retail market and white-box vendors for its chip sales.The effect of Dell&#39;s strategy shift on AMD remains to be seen, McCarron said. It is a large and important PC vendor, but it is also a relatively new partner for AMD.AMD has suffered some setbacks recently, reporting five straight quarterly losses and delaying shipments of some new desktop and server processors. Its market share was 23 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007, down a fraction from the year before, while Intel&#39;s market share climbed slightly to 77 percent, according to IDC.
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Must improve AMD suffered from the same desktop chip syndrome as rival Intel during its second quarter, as the company handed in another loss.â¦
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Win some, lose some AMD lost market share to arch-rival Intel in 2006, but the smaller chip-maker nonetheless managed to make small gains in the desktop and laptop segments, the latest figures from market watcher Mercury Research reveal.â¦
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I have decided to pay attention to this subject one last time, at least until Dell finally releases either desktop PCs or servers equipped with AMD processors.
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(InfoWorld) - Dell Inc. has stepped away from long-time supplier Intel Corp., launching one desktop that spurns the chipmaker's vPro business bundle and two others that use processors from chipmaking competitor Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD). Dell will still build its new Dimension E520 and XPS 210 desktop PCs with a choice of Intel's Pentium D or Core 2 Duo processors, the company said Tuesday. But for the first time, Dell will offer a choice of AMD's Athlon and Sempron chips in the new Dimension E521 and C521 models. For its new OptiPlex 745 business desktop, Dell said it developed its own bundle of business-friendly technologies instead of using Intel's vPro platform. Intel has seen strong sales in recent years for bundles of software and hardware such as its Centrino package for wireless notebook PCs. The company launched vPro in September as an effort to extend that strategy to business desktops. The company did not rule out the chance that it might add Intel's bundle to future desktops, but said vPro had to mature first. "We'll continue to work with Intel to help them refine the technology," said Dell's chief technology officer, Kevin Kettler. He spoke during the company's annual Technology Day meeting in New York. "There's still work to be done to drive that technology as a fundamental, strong value for our end customers." He compared the current vPro bundle to early iterations of hardware-based security in Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chips. "Dell was a slow adopter of TPM, and that's not because we didn't know about them or forgot to ask about them. There are some cases where we've ultimately used a technology but waited for it to mature a little bit before adopting it," Kettler said. Dell competitors Hewlett-Packard Co. and Gateway Inc. both launched vPro-enabled desktops last week, prompting some analysts to ask why Dell was lagging despite its close relationship to Intel. The answer is that Dell was assembling its own business bundle. The company's OptiPlex 745 boosts security and eases IT management while reducing power draw. Those are the same selling points as vPro, and the Dell system even uses similar components, like Intel's new Core 2 Duo processor and a TPM security chip. The difference is that Dell chooses and integrates the remaining pieces, retaining more control over the final product. In October, Dell will add its own Client Manager module to the system, allowing IT managers to remotely boot and troubleshoot thousands of client systems from a single site. Intel does that trick with its Active Management Technology (AMT). Likewise, Dell chose its own partner for security and password protection, using Wave Systems Corp.'s Embassy Trust Suite. Dell sells the OptiPlex 745 with a Core 2 Duo E6300 processor for US$899. The XPS 210 costs $1,190 for a premium entertainment package. The Dimension E520 and E521 will go on sale Wednesday for $719 and $329, both with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP Media Center OS, dual-core processors and multimedia options. The Dimension C521 will cost $359 but take up just half the space compared to the E520 and E521. In another announcement Tuesday, Dell is extending its relationship with EMC Corp., adding another five years to their partnership in selling storage products such as the Dell/EMC AX100 and CX3 UltraScale networked storage systems. Together, the two companies have sold 34,000 networked storage systems to 10,000 customers since founding their alliance in 2001.
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Intel Corp. INTC.O on Thursday  canceled plans to introduce its highest-speed desktop computer  chip, ending for now a 25-year run that has seen the speeds of  Intel's microprocessors increase by more than 750 times.
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Dell on Monday dropped prices on select servers, workstations, desktops, and laptops aimed at corporate customers, saying it was passing along lower component costs to buyers.
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Aggressive 1333MHz FSB pricing strategy Intel has slashed the price of a number of its desktop and mobile processors, but the cuts, while deep, aren't as extensive as anticipated. However, the move confirms an aggressive pricing plan for the chip maker's 1333MHz frontside bus parts.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) began selling its top chip for desktop PCs made with a 65-nanometer design on Tuesday, continuing its efforts toÂ keep up with IntelÂ as the industry migrates from 90nm design to a faster, more efficient generation of processors. By manufacturing its dual-core Athlon 64 X2 chip on the smaller geometry, AMD will be able to increase manufacturing output while improving the chips' performance and power efficiency, said Jack Huynh, a market development manager for AMD. Some PC vendors are selling the new chip in computers already, and by the first quarter of 2007 that list will include Acer, Dell, Founder Electronics, Hewlett-Packard, Packard Bell, and Tsinghua Tongfang Co., according to AMD. The move to 65nm manufacturing is crucial for AMD as the company strives to keep up with aÂ flurry of new processors from Intel. Intel had a rough year in 2006, losing ground to AMD in market share, but has rallied in recent months. The companyÂ launched its Core 2 Duo familyÂ of desktop chips in July and itsÂ quad-core Core 2 Extreme in November. Intel switched its chip manufacturing plants to a smaller architecture months ago, and already sells more 65nm chips than 90nm chips. A chip made with 65nm process technology has smaller features -- such as transistors and the wires that connect them -- than a chip made with 90nm technology, said Rob Willoner, a technology analyst with Intel's technology and manufacturing group. That progression is the engine that drives Moore's Law, the prediction that the number of processors on a microprocessor will double every 18 months. One nanometer is one-billionth of a meter, meaning that the wires on 65nm design chips are far slimmer than human hairs. Minuscule as that is, chip vendors already have plans to shrink the parts even smaller.Â Intel has already announced plansÂ to use chip features of 45nm by 2007, 32nm by 2009 and 22nm by 2011. As chip features continue to shrink, engineers struggle harder to take each new step. But as long as customers demand smaller, more efficient computers, there's plenty of economic incentive for the process to continue, he said. "There's bound to be an end at some point, but we can't see it yet," Willoner said. "At one point, people said it was 1 micron, which is 1,000nm, but the industry passed that without blinking about a decade ago. Now some people are saying it's 5nm. I don't see it happening before 2020 or 2025, and by then we could have radically different technologies to compensate." AMD chose to apply the new "Rev G" 65nm design to its high-end, dual-core desktop chip first because the company's midrange, single-core Athlon and Sempron chips are already fairly efficient, running at 62 watts using a 90nm design, said AMD's Huynh. The Athlon 64 X2 operated at a high 110 watts when it was first launched in June 2005, but this migration will bring it down to just 65 watts, he said. AMD will continue to produce both 90nm and 65nm Athlon 64 X2 chips until it phases the larger-design chips out completely by the second half of 2007. Next, AMD plans to apply the 65nm design to its single-core Athlon and Sempron chips, shrinking them by the end of 2007. And the company has already begun work on the next step, shrinking its chips to a 45nm design, although AMD did not give a specific date for that goal. AMD is selling the 65nm Athlon 64 X2 chips at prices of $301 for a 2.6GHz 5000-series chip, $271 for the 2.5GHz 4800 series, $214 for the 2.3GHz 4400 series, and $169 for the 2.1GHz 4000 series, all priced in lots of 1,000. Â
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Intel Corp. has confirmed its near-term plans for its desktop processors before it reaches the multicore era. The company will not release a 4GHz version of its flagship Pentium 4 product, having decided instead to realign its engineers around the company's new design priorities, an Intel spokesman said Thursday.
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x86 platform ousting others AMD regained a few percentage points of world microprocessor market share from its arch-rival, Intel, the latest, second-quarter figures from market watcher iSuppli show.â¦
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Investors not impressed Strong notebook and server chip sales carried Intel to a second quarter that neared the high end of previous forecasts. Investors, however, seemed unmoved by the results, as Intel noted strong pricing competition in the desktop market and a reliance on cost-cutting measures to gloss its results.â¦
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Dell Inc said on Friday it had  cut from its Web site most consumer computers with chips from  Advanced Micro Devices Inc and would sell AMD-based PCs mainly  in stores and by phone.
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Intel Corp. slashed prices across its Pentium 4 and Itanium product lines Sunday as it prepares for its biannual developer conference in San Francisco at the beginning of September.
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Processor and chipset plan made public Desktop Roadmap AMD yesterday spilled the beans on its processor plans for the next two years, at a stroke confirming much of the info that has leaked out of the company and onto the web this year. On the desktop, the future is HyperTransport 3 and DDR 3. Chipsets will not shift to DirectX 10 until late 2007.â¦
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AMD intends to hold the performance crown for desktop processors with today&#39;s introduction of the Athlon 64 4000+ (2.4 GHz) and FX-55 (2.