Intel to Cut Chipset Prices In June

by Anton Shilov
05/28/2003 | 05:19 PM

Sources reported that Intel Corporation will reconsider the pricing of its chipsets on the 29^th of June, 2003. The prices will not be cut really substantially, so, no need to expect cheaper mainboards to appear in July because of these changes in Intel’s price-list.

Generally speaking, Intel will reduce mainstream i865 “Springdale” series pricing $1 or $2 depending on the core-logic, while pricing of higher-end and as well as entry-level chipsets, such as i875P and i845, will remain on the same level as now. Take a look on table.

Intel Pentium 4 Chipsets Pricing
Chipset Model	May, 21	June, 29
Discrete Core-Logic
i875P	$50	$50
i875P RAID	$53	$53
i850E	$40	$40
i850	$38	$38
i865PE	$36	$34
i865PE RAID	$39	$37
i865P	$33	$32
i865P RAID	$36	$35
i845PE	$28	$27
i845E	$25	$25
i845/i845D	$21	$21
Core-Logic With Inegrated Graphics
i865G	$41	$40
i865G RAID	$44	$43
i845GE	$35	$35
i845G	$35	$35
i845GV	$24	$24
i845GL	$23	$23

As you see, Intel does not change the pricing of its i845-series and i850-series in June. In fact, given Intel’s intention to rapidly expand the market share of i865-series and phase out all older chipset products, we may suppose that there is no need to lower the prices on older products simply in order to make newer devices to look more attractive to customers while canceling the production of i845-series.

To sum up, do not expect the situation on the chipset market to change much in the coming month and maybe even in July. Currently Intel is the only supplier of core-logic with 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus; in fact, SiS sells already its SiS648FX with official support of such high PSB, however, they compete with Intel’s own i845-series that may support 800MHz QPB via overclocking. Looks like Intel will only lower the prices of its chipsets when other chipset companies, namely VIA Technologies, Silicon Integrated Systems and ATI Technologies launch their own 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus-supporting products.