In a bid to boost popularity of its desktop microprocessors, Advanced Micro Devices on Monday officially slashed pricing of its chips, well ahead of the time when the company will start to ship new central processing units (CPUs) that are projected to offer higher performance. The company also eliminated several single-core chips from its price list, which should either increase or stabilize AMD’s average selling prices.

The price reduction is rather considerable; however, it is not as dramatic as some of AMD’s CPU price corrections in the past. The time AMD decreased pricing of its entry-level single-core chips by 11.9% - 23%, whereas mainstream and performance CPUs with two cores are now 15.4% - 29.8%. The significant price reduction on AMD’s dual-core lineup emphasizes that the company experiences tangible pressure on its AMD Athlon 64 X2 and FX products from Intel’s Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors.

As a result of the reduction, a set of two AMD Athlon 64 FX-74 processors now cost only $599 in 1000-unit quantities, whereas AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ is priced at $178. AMD’s least expensive products – AMD Sempron 3000+ and 3200+ – now cost $31.

Lower pricing of AMD’s processors is likely to make them more popular among end-users, despite of the fact that AMD has not introduced a single high-performance microprocessor for several month, whereas its arch-rival Intel Corp. is going to start shipping the family of chips with 1333MHz processor system bus this month.

AMD does not release any statements regarding its price changes.