Cheaper chips for mobile computing

By Alun Williams

Posted on 3 Sep 2002 at 12:02

Another round of processor price cuts - this time from Intel - with the focus on mobile processors.

It was on 26 August that Intel announced the new 2.6, 2.66 and 2.8GHz Pentium 4 desktop processors, and its range of processor pricing has now been readjusted. Cheaper chips for laptops lead the way, this time around.

The current top-of-the range 2GHz Mobile Pentium 4 sees a 45 per cent price cut from $637 to $348. And not far behind, the 1.9 and 1.8GHz offerings see price cuts of 40 and 43 per cent respectively - the 1.9 Mobile Pentium 4 now being priced at $241 and the 1.8GHz at $198.

Still on the mobile side of things, there have also been big price cuts for the Mobile Celeron processor, Intel's offering for budget systems. The leading 1.5GHz version sees a price cut of 44 per cent, from $170 to $96, and the 1.4GHz offering also sees a cut of 36 per cent, from $149 to $96.

Last week - on 25 August - Intel announced a 62 per cent price drop for its previous fastest Pentium 4 desktop processor, the 2.53GHz model (down from $637 to $243). And further cuts on the desktop models have now been revealed. The biggest changes involve the 2.4GHz versions (both the 533MHz and 400MHz front side bus offerings). These have both been cut 52 per cent, to $193. Similarly, both the 2.26 and 2.2GHz models have been reduced to $193, which represents cuts of 20 per cent.

The price of top-of-the-range 1.8GHz Celeron desktop processor has also been cut by 19 per cent (from $103 to $83).

Last week AMD announced a price rejigg of its own for its processors, in the wake of the new desktop Athlon XP processors.

As always, all pricing is based on 1,000 unit quantities.