Intel Company informed its distributors that another significant price reduction, which will touch upon their Pentium 4 processor family, is to take place on May 11, that is 10 days before the announcement of slower Pentium 4 processors with 800MHz bus. This is what the whole thing is going to look like (for a better comparison we are also giving the prices for the not yet announced processors with 800MHz bus):
| Price before May 11 | Price after May 11 | Price at launch, May 21 |
Pentium 4 3.0 (800MHz QPB, HT) | $417 |
|
|
Pentium 4 3.06 (533MHz QPB, HT) | $401 |
|
|
Pentium 4 2.8C (800MHz QPB, HT) |
|
| $278 |
Pentium 4 2.8 (533MHz QPB) | $375 | $262 |
|
Pentium 4 2.6 (800MHz QPB, HT) |
|
| $218 |
Pentium 4 2.66 (533MHz QPB) | $241 | $193 |
|
Pentium 4 2.4C (800MHz QPB, HT) |
|
| $178 |
Pentium 4 2.4 (533MHz QPB) | $163 | $163 |
This is unbelievable! Pentium 4 2.8GHz with 533MHz bus will get 43% cheaper, and Pentium 4 2.66GHz price will get 25% lower!. Well, no doubt it doesn’t make much sense to buy these CPUs now, before the price drop.
By the way, note that CPUs with 800MHz bus and Hyper-Threading technology support will cost a bit more than their brothers with 533MHz bus: the price difference will make around $15-$25. But this higher price is absolutely justified: CPUs with 800MHz bus will support Hyper-Threading technology, which also sometimes ensures a pretty significant performance boost.
Well, the only thing I would like to mention in conclusion is the fact that Pentium 4 3.2GHz CPU due in the end of this quarter will cost $637. This will be the last Northwood based solution.



