Intel Corp. this week officially decreased pricing of its desktop processors targeting performance computers. As a result of price reduction, the company’s more advanced Intel Pentium 4 600-series microprocessors became least expensive compared to corresponding Intel Pentium 500-series central processing units (CPUs).

The company’s price-slash on the desktop processor was massive: from 20% to 33%. As a result of the reduction top-of-the-range Intel Pentium 4 670 processor costs $605 now, down from $851 earlier. By contrast, Intel Pentium 4 models 571 and 570 cost $637, which means Intel charges higher price for processors with not so advanced feature-set and lower performance. When it comes to less expensive models, their pricing is equal for chips with similar clock-speeds in both lineups.

Intel Pentium 4 processors 600 sequence support Enhanced Memory 64 Technology (EM64T), Execute Disable Bit (EDB) security capability, Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology that reduces power consumption as well as contains 2MB of L2 cache. By contrast, Intel Pentium 500 family of chips sport only 1MB of level two cache, do not feature EIST and in certain cases do not have EM64T and EDB enabled.

Both families of the Pentium 4 microprocessors are produced using 90nm process technology, however, the generally more sophisticated 600-series offer better functionality, but at the cost of higher maximum power consumption in certain cases of higher end processors. Both lineups of the chips use 800MHz processor system bus and come in LGA775 packaging.

Massive price-reduction on the Pentium 4 600-series means that Intel aligns its pricing with the 500-sequence and afterwards is likely to start phasing out the least demanded CPUs, particularly the high-end of the Pentium 4 500-series, as customers switch to processors with better functionality.