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Intel cuts desktop chip prices

The cuts, including many to quad-core processors, are announced just before Advanced Micro Devices' earnings announcement Tuesday.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Updated at 10:30 a.m. PDT: adding processor retail price discussion.

Intel reduced prices on desktop processors late Sunday, with a many of the cuts coming on quad-core processors. The price moves come just before Advanced Micro Devices' planned earnings announcement on Tuesday.

Intel's Core 2 Quad processors saw a heavy concentration of cuts. The 2.66GHz Q9400 was cut 14 percent to $183 from $213, while the 2.5GHz Q8300 fell 11 percent to $163 from $183, among other standard-power Core 2 Quad price moves.

The Core 2 Quad "low power" chips also saw cuts. The Q9400S, for example, was cut 12 percent to $245 from $277.

A Core 2 Duo desktop processor (two cores), the 2.93GHz E7500, fell 15 percent to $113 from $133.

Pentium desktop chips got cuts ranging up to 14 percent, while the 2.2GHz Celeron E1500 was reduced 19 percent to $43 from $53.

A Xeon server processor, the 2.66GHz X3330, was cut 14 percent to $188 from $219.

Update: These price cuts, however, do not necessarily reflect retail prices of Intel chips. Newegg, for example, lists the Q9400 at prices lower than Intel list prices, as one reader points out. That said, Intel's Sunday list-price cuts may affect retail prices in the future.