Just as we supposed a couple of weeks ago, Intel officially launched its highest-end Xeon processor 3.06GHz for entry-level servers and workstations. Intel decided not to issue any official word about the launch, but to simply start officially offering the 3.06GHz model to all direct customers. The reason of such calm product launch could be the fact that the Santa Clara, California-based chip company has been offering the Xeon 3.0 and 3.06GHz processors since early February to its largest clients, such as Dell and HP (see this news-story), so, in fact, the newcomers are already available, but there may be no need in attracting a lot of attention to them because the quantities of such fast CPUs may be rather low. I remember that reportedly Intel had problems with fulfilling all orders on its Xeon 2.80GHz CPUs as well as the 3.06GHz Pentium 4 processors; therefore, I will not be surprised if there are some issues with volume availability of 3.0 and 3.06GHz Xeon microprocessors.

In addition to the launch of new Xeon chip and the price reduction on desktop processors, Intel today revised its official prices on the CPUs designed for 2-way servers and workstations. AMD followed with the same decision shortly and now prices on the Xeon and Athlon MP processors look as follows:

Intel Xeon (DP) Vs Athlon MP Current Official Pricing
Intel Xeon DP Model	Price	AMD Athlon MP Model	Price
Xeon 3.06GHz (533MHz QPB)	$722	-	-
Xeon 2.80GHz (533MHz QPB)	$455	-	-
Xeon 2.80GHz (400MHz QPB)	$433	-	-
Xeon 2.66GHz (533MHz QPB)	$284	-	-
Xeon 2.60GHz (400MHz QPB)	$273	Athlon MP 2600+	$273
Xeon 2.40GHz (533MHz QPB)	$209	Athlon MP 2400+	$200
Xeon 2.40GHz (400MHz QPB)	$198	Athlon MP 2400+	$200
Xeon 2.20GHz (400MHz QPB)	$198	Athlon MP 2200+	$174
-	-	Athlon MP 2000+	$133

As you may have noticed, prices are reduced not really significantly (check old prices here) by just 11% to 16%. As a result, the situation on the market is not going to change: AMD Athlon MP processors do not cost a lot cheaper compared to Intel Xeon chips and the gap between prices is not enough to compensate the gap between higher costs of mainboards intended for Athlon MP CPUs compared to platforms for the Xeon microprocessors (see this news-story for details on the matter). In this case, Intel Xeon-based systems are going to be cheaper compared to Athlon MP powered. Either AMD has decided not to aggressively promote its MP processors now, but wait the Opteron to come and then penetrate the market with the x86-64 offerings, or the Sunnyvale has just a number of clients who are really interested in the K7 processors for their solutions despite prices and so on.