Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 and Massive Price Cuts

Once More, With Feeling

We've already been through one major set of Intel price cuts this year, that was just three months ago after the Core 2 QX6800 launch. The smoke hadn't even cleared from the first round but both AMD and Intel are back in price slashing mode.

AMD already cut its prices before today's article, while Intel's cuts aren't scheduled to take effect until July 22nd (next week). We'll start off with AMD's pricing:

Hello savings! The fastest Socket-AM2 processor AMD offers now costs less than $200, and only two of AMD's processors sell for over $150. Competition may not be good for AMD's bottom line but it's definitely enabling cheap system builds this year.

As exciting as a $1,000 CPU running a whole 70MHz faster than its predecessor may be, the real story today is how AMD and Intel stack up when you take the latest round of price cuts into account.

Intel's lineup looks very confusing at first, but after the price cuts take effect it'll be a lot easier to recommend processors. The table below has all currently available Intel CPUs (as well as a few that are due out soon), but you'll notice that some lines are in red. The lines in red are products that are available in the market, but no longer make sense to buy after the price cuts next week.

In an attempt to quickly move the market to 1333MHz FSB platforms, Intel has made those chips far more attractive than the previous 1066MHz FSB processors:

See a trend? Financially it makes no sense to buy any of the 1066MHz FSB CPUs anymore, Intel sure knows how to push new chipsets on a market.

If you remove all the CPUs that no longer make sense to buy from the chart, you actually get a pretty nice and simple processor lineup:

It's almost like the early days of the Core 2, when model numbers weren't overly confusing for end users, almost.

Motherboard Requirements for 1333MHz FSB?

While there's no official support for 1333MHz FSB CPUs on Intel's P965 and 975X chipsets, many high end P965 motherboards provide unofficial support with little more than a BIOS update. Obviously if you're building a new system today, Intel's 3-series chipsets all enable the 1333MHz FSB and are available with both DDR2 and DDR3 support. We tested with Gigabyte's GA-P35C-DS3R, which offers four DDR2 and two DDR3 slots, giving you the option of either memory technology.

NVIDIA is quick to point out that all of its 680i based motherboards not only support the 1333MHz FSB but will also support Intel's forthcoming Penryn core, all that's necessary is a BIOS update. Motherboards based on Intel's 3-series chipsets should support Penryn just fine, but the verdict isn't out yet on what P965 boards will work with Intel's first 45nm core due out at the end of this year.