Tuesday, January 21st 2020
Intel Reportedly Looking Into Further Reduction in CPU Pricing for 2020
Intel's policy on CPU pricing has been a strong, definite one for years: no price reductions. Faced with less than admirable competition from a struggling AMD back in its Phenom and especially Bulldozer days, Intel enforced a heavy hand on the market and on CPU pricing. However, a much revitalized AMD and difficulties in the transition to the 10 nm process have left Intel with no other recourse than to cut pricing on its CPUs in order to remain competitive. No uptake of new I/O technologies such as PCIe 4.0 has also taken its toll on Intel's position in the server and HEDT market, which has led to recent price-cuts and tightening of Intel's Xeon line of CPUs - as well as price-cuts in the order of 50% in their Cascade Lake-X processors compared to the previous generation.
DigiTimes, citing industry PC makers, says that Intel is gearing up to keep fighting in the only front it actually can, besides puny core count increases on their heavily-iterated Skylake architecture - pricing. This move comes in a bid to keep its market dominance, which Intel themselves have said - after Zen 2, that is - isn't a priority for the consumer market. You can rest assured that Intel is very, very likely already practicing hefty price reductions for tray-quantity purchases for partners. However, it seems that the company might bring some price cuts on to its upcoming Comet Lake CPUs. The company has always been loathe to reduce pricing on existing inventory, rather choosing to reduce the price on new launches (see the Cascade Lake-X example above), which, arguably, saves Intel's face on claims of only being able to compete on pricing - which lurks dangerously close to Intel being painted as the budget, price-cut alternative to AMD.
Sources:
DigiTimes, Tom's Hardware
DigiTimes, citing industry PC makers, says that Intel is gearing up to keep fighting in the only front it actually can, besides puny core count increases on their heavily-iterated Skylake architecture - pricing. This move comes in a bid to keep its market dominance, which Intel themselves have said - after Zen 2, that is - isn't a priority for the consumer market. You can rest assured that Intel is very, very likely already practicing hefty price reductions for tray-quantity purchases for partners. However, it seems that the company might bring some price cuts on to its upcoming Comet Lake CPUs. The company has always been loathe to reduce pricing on existing inventory, rather choosing to reduce the price on new launches (see the Cascade Lake-X example above), which, arguably, saves Intel's face on claims of only being able to compete on pricing - which lurks dangerously close to Intel being painted as the budget, price-cut alternative to AMD.
50 Comments on Intel Reportedly Looking Into Further Reduction in CPU Pricing for 2020
As always it's all about competition. And don't think for a second AMD won't follow suit given a chance. Do you remember the Athlon 64 FX-60 CPU? Do you remember it cost $1000 in 2006 (adjusted for inflation that would be over $1300 in 2020)?
AMD fans are always quick to forget that AMD is a commercial company whose interest is not "the best CPUs and GPUs for consumers" but their profits first and most.
How will Intel offer price cut, when they still have cpu shotrage? Business 101 : Price will always increase during shortage.
Ryzen woke them up and finally pushed increased core counts on mainstream platforms in roughly a decade.
Who remembers the $1k Pentium 4 EE CPUs...?
www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium_4/Intel-Pentium%204%20Extreme%20Edition%203.73%20GHz%20-%20JM80547PH1092MM%20(BX80547PH3730F).html
Why lose all that market share by then?
Do it now! start working on it!
Before that, all they could change was clock speed and cache size. Quite a different situation compared to now..
C'MON INTEL YOU CAN DO IT :laugh:
Personally I'm fine with anything USB 3.
But seriously, if they're going to really do a price cut, they should undercut the 3700X, maybe around $280 if they want to still save face.
EDIT: Actually $300 would be a good spot since it would be a good upgrade for existing 8400, 9400F, 8600K, 9600K, 8700K/9700K(probably not???) owners who may be on Z370/Z390. It is possible to get an "okay" Z390 board for around $100 now.