by Anton Shilov
06/27/2006 | 03:31 PM
Advanced Micro Devices once offered premium technologies at very affordable pricing, however, once times changed, it became more conservative and kept the finest parts for those, who can afford. But as Intel Corp. attacks with affordable dual-core chips, AMD has to react and this reaction could follow in the fourth quarter with the intro of AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+.
The AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor will run at 2.00GHz and will contain 512KB of level two (L2) cache (256KB per core), while being made for the AM2 form-factor. A news-story at HKEPC web-site claims that the part will be available for sale in Q4 2006, however, the web-site does not indicate, how much the new product will cost.
Even though there is no pricing information regarding the part, it is likely to be very affordable, as AMD’s arch-rival Intel Corp. is planning to release several new cost-effective dual-core chips and also to reduce pricing on its microprocessors that contain two processing engines significantly, while launching its new Intel Core 2 Duo products for desktops featuring new micro-architecture.
The introduction of the new desktop chips powered by Intel’s new micro-architecture, which boast with low-power high-performance micro-architecture, will trigger Intel to lower the pricing of its dual-core microprocessors based on the aging NetBurst architecture, namely Pentium D. Even though the latter do not win all performance benchmarks against current rivals Athlon 62 X2 chips, their decreased price, lowered power consumption and some other advantages may improve popularity of such chips among performance-demanding end-users.
Intel is planning, according to earlier reports, a price slash on 23rd of July, Intel will reportedly decrease the pricing of Intel Pentium D 960, 950, 945, 940 and 820 to $316, $224, $163, $183, $133 and $113, respectively. Meanwhile, its Pentium D 805 will cost only $93, starting from that date.