The first quarter with its weak computer market ended and manufacturers of hardware components feel relief from stabilizing sales. Nevertheless, a lot of challenges are ahead since in Summer not a lot of us are coping with computer hardware, but prefer to spend money on something else. Those who try to sell us personal computers know about this fact and always try to offer us something we would not be able to turn down. Given that the pace of technology development is very high nowadays they not only have to sell us something, but to sell it quickly. That is why manufacturers and vendors always start to cut prices in late April and offer products for very low prices in May, June and July. This year is not an exception and mainboard makers already started to cut the prices; the company that reduced its wholesale prices to nearly the level of production is ASRock.

Taiwanese market sources reported that mainboard makers try to clear-out their stocks of inventory before Summer and now decrease the pricing of their products. Prices for i845D-based mainboards from ASUSTeK and MSI are now $43-$45, whereas ASRock’s mainboards on P4X266A and P4M266A chipsets are quoted at $36-37, down $5 in average compared to earlier offerings. Other companies had to follow ASRock and reduced the pricing to the level of $41-$43 per unit. The most substantial impact of the price-cuts is felt in European market, though, I believe that customers in different parts of the world will also be able to buy entry-level mainboards for cheaper price. Note that pricing of AMD Athlon XP-mainboards should also reduce slightly.

Another reason of unprecedented price cuts is Intel’s upcoming Springdale platform that will capture the market very quickly as well as loads of new and powerful chipsets coming from VIA Technologies, Silicon Integrated Systems and ATI Technologies.

One of the dangers with such massive price-cuts is weak US Dollar. Given that manufacturers pay salaries to work-force as well as for components in national currency, their profit margin is now very low. Once the USD starts to rise, companies may lose certain amount of money on currency conversions. The same happened last year, though, this year they continue to cut the prices even more aggressively.