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Officially unveiled at the end of the weekend, the new pricing regime covers the Pentium 4, the Mobile Intel Pentium 4-M, the Mobile Intel Pentium III-M and the Intel Xeon (for servers). The good news is that such price decreases should be passed along to the consumer in the shape of cheaper computer systems.

The pricing cuts - made as a periodic review - reflect the 'robust production yields' from Intel's new 0.13micron manufacturing technology, Graham Palmer - Intel's European marketing manager - told us. The move, in particular, is intended to move the Pentium 4-M in to the mainstream - onto a 'broader range of platforms and lower-price

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platforms', according to Palmer.

Processors below the top of the Pentium 4 range - the 2.53GHz version - have seen cuts of up to 43 per cent news. While the 2.4GHz Pentium 4 - with a chipset supporting a 533MHz system bus, which was only released at the start of May - will see a 29 per cent decrease, the 2.26 and 2.2GHz Pentium 4s have been cut 43 per cent. To complete the picture, price cuts also range from 32 per cent for the 2GHz version ($193) to 12 per cent for the 1.7GHz ($143).

The biggest decrease - a cut of 53 per cent - is for Intel's new processor for laptops: the Mobile Intel Pentium 4-M. The cut has been made for the 1.7 models, with the 1.6 also cut by 51 per cent. The top of the range offering, which clocks 1.8 has been cut 45 per cent to $348.

To a lesser degree, the Mobile Intel Pentium III-M also sees price reductions - the 1.2GHz offering falls 13 per cent to $348 with the 1.06GHz model cut by 18 per cent to $198.

The headline fall for the Xeon processor involves the 2.2GHz offering - a 44 per cent cut from $465 to $262.

Pricing is based on 1,000 unit batches of the processors.

AMD is expected to follow Intel's move with price cuts for its own range of processors.