14 DAY TRIAL // Just to make sure they stay on top of things, Intel has announced price cuts on a lot of its mainstream processors. Although the price change is due next week, online e-tailers have already reduced prices, so that they can just meet the demand. Intel's prices however are given for quantities of 1.000 units, so it's harder to maintain a low price for people buying just one processor, as opposed to the entire lot, but they are still managing to do it somehow.
The prices Intel is going to set are as follows: the Intel Core 2 Duo Q6600 2.4GHz will have a price of $530, the E6700 2.66GHz - $316, E6600 2.4GHz - $224, E6420 2.13GHz - $183, E6400 2.13GHz - $183, E6320 1.86GHz - $163, E6300 1.86GHz - $163, E4400 2GHz - $133, E4300 1.8GHz - $113. All prices are for 1.000 unit quantities and we also see some new models entering the "stage", the ones ending with Exx20. These are lost cost models that use 4MB L2 cache, instead of 2MB, which is the default size for those series and are part of Intel's attempt to "bump-up" the features of the processors so that they would sell better. In this category we also find the Intel Exx50 processors, which have a 1333MHz FSB, increased from the 1066MHz FSB, the normal value, with just a little bit of a price change to make them affordable.
On the other hand, Intel is offering a lot of competitive products, a marketing strategy that is paying off, but it is also said that their processors are now being fitted with a "black box", which is said to have the same basic principle it does on an airplane: it records everything you do so in case of an unfortunate overclocking accident, Intel would know what you have done. The result is the demise of the processor, but the following arguments at the store you bought it from regarding the warranty will now become obsolete, as for if you do crash and burn the CPU, the retailers and e-tailers will get a response from Intel "within three to five weeks" concerning whether or not you have voided the warranty or not. So get a new CPU, that overclocks more than 100%, chances are you won't be able to use that three year warranty anyway.