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Intel Corp. trimmed prices on its Pentium 4, Pentium III and server lines this past Sunday, as expected.
Both Intel and its rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., are instituting price cuts to attract buyers as the holiday selling season begins to ramp up. Although the overall technology industry is laboring to pull out of its economic doldrums, PC buyers may use the price cuts and the new Windows XP operating system as a lure for new buyers.
On the desktop, Intel cut the prices of its 2.0-GHz Pentium 4 processor by 24 percent, to $401. The Snata Clara, Calif.-based company reduced the prcies of its 1.9-GHz and 1.8-GHz Pentium 4 by 27 percent and 12 percent, respectively, to $273 and $225.
Although Intel reduced the price of selected Pentium III desktop processors, the company left its Celeron brand untouched. Intel trimmed the price of its 1.2-GHz Celeron by 10 percent to $241, and the “1.13-A GHz” chip by 14 percent to $193. The “A” designation indicates the new “Tualatin-class” processor with a 133-MHz front-side bus. Intel also reduced the price of its 1.10-GHz Celeron—which uses a 100-MHz front-side bus—to $193, down 14 percent. The 1-GHz Celeron now is priced at $173, down 10 percent.
Intel also reduced the price on some of its server processors. The 2.0-GHz Xeon chip now costs $455, down 26 percent from the previous mark. Intel also cut the tags of its –S series of Tualatin processors, designed for low-end, high-volume servers. The 1.26-GHz chip now is priced at $300, down 11 percent, while the 1.13-GHz chip now costs $235, a reduction of 9 percent.
Last week, AMD, Sunnyvale, Calif., notified its resellers of an official price reduction to be made Monday. While the firm confidentially passed along the information to its resellers, the official price reductions have not been made.