AMD's processor prices unofficially plummet

This story is an ironic case of covering a topic without even being aware you've covered it. On Tuesday, I wrote about Intel's new quad-core, dual-core, and single-core processors, and covered the comparative market around these chips. In the process, I talked about the Phenom X4 9950 BE as a $179.99 part, without even recognizing how big a drop that was from the chip's initial launch price.

As I noted yesterday, the 140W Phenom 9950 (2.6GHz) is down to $179.99, down from its official price of $235. The quad-core 9150E (65W, 1.8GHz) is $179.99, as is the 125W X4 9750 (2.4GHz). The 95W 9650 (2.3GHz) is $175, as is the 9550 (2.2GHz), and—get this—the 125W 9850 at 2.5GHz is $174.

As for the company's triple-core parts, the 95W Toliman 8750 (2.4GHz) is just $139, down from an April launch price of $195 and a current "official" price of $175. The 95W 8650 (2.3GHz) is now $119, while the 8450 (2.1GHz, still 95W) is just $102. The closest Athlon 64 X2 would be the original 6000+ (125W, 90nm, 3GHz) at $109.99, while a boxed Athlon 64 X2 at 2.9GHz and a 65W TDP is $87.99.

This doesn't directly change anything with regard to the Intel post from Tuesday, but the dramatic price cuts on Toliman merit their own comparison to what Intel's got cooking in the Core 2 Duo family in the same price range. At $139.99 there's the E7300 (2.66GHz, 3MB L2) and the E7200 (2.53GHz, 3MB L2) at $119. The new E5200 (which Newegg, at least, continues to refer to as a "Core 2 Duo") is $89.99 at 2.5GHz, 2MB of L2, and an 800MHz FSB.

Toliman is downright attractive at its new price points if you have real use for that third core. The 8750 will never be as fast as the E7300 in single-core or dual-threaded workloads, but should be significantly faster in any program capable of scaling above two processors. This continues to be true for the 8650 vs. the E7200, but I'm not entirely sure about the Phenom X3 8450 at 2.1GHz versus the E5200 at 2.5GHz—Phenom isn't as efficient as Core 2 Duo to begin with, and a 19 percent clockspeed gap in the E5200's favor wouldn't help in that regard. I suspect that the X3 8450 would still eke out some multithreaded wins, but only in programs that scale well on a third core.

The 2.9GHz, 65W 5600+ should compete reasonably well against the E5200 as well, though I'd have to put the two chips head-to-head to give a firm estimate. The fact that AMD has managed to scale its 65W Athlon 64 X2 chips up to 2.9GHz is a mark in its favor, as is the fact that the Core 2 Duo its going up against is something of a weenie. Overall, I'd say AMD is on much better competitive footing with Intel than it was six months ago, but we won't know how much of a positive impact this has on sales until the company gives third-quarter results in October.

Overall, these price cuts leave AMD's product line looking much more attractive, especially if you've been eying a 780G or 790GX board. With Shanghai not shipping in consumer form until the first quarter of 2009, this might not be a bad time to pick up a current board and an AMD chip—any board that can handle the power draw of a Phenom X4 should be more than capable of jumping to Deneb (desktop Shanghai) when that chip is available