Intel Corporation rather unexpectedly reduced prices on its Celeron microprocessors late last night. The price-cut is not really massive, but the final prices on Celeron chips are nearly equal to competing AMD Athlon XP processors, so, we can make a conclusion that Intel wants to expand its market share in lower-end segment, meanwhile AMD tries to penetrate server market with its Opteron processors.

Take a look at the new Celeron vs. Athlon XP official pricing in quantities starting from 1000 units:

With lower price Intel’s Celeron processors are now more attractive for end-users compared to same chips but a week ago from a price point of view. But those, who need higher performance, should definitely pay attention to the Pentium 4 and the Athlon XP processors.

Note that with lower prices on Celeron CPUs, Intel’s overall financial performance will also be lower in the ongoing quarter since these processors are rather popular.