14 DAY TRIAL // AMD cuts back prices for many of its processor families. This comes as good news for every computer user that may want to upgrade his processor to one of the Athlon 64 products. All Athlon 64 X2s are well below $200 and for the first time, there are some even below the $100 mark. Even the high-end CPUs are cheaper, the top of the line Athlon 64 X2 6000+ dropped 27% to only $178 and the 5200+ model reached $136. The 4000+ family fell below $100, with the 4400+ at a more than reasonable $94 and the X2 4000+ at $73 from $104.
Usually, price cuts are attempts to clear inventories before new product releases or attempts to gain a greater share of the market. With the Barcelona core still months away, Intel is hammering AMD in terms of raw power and performance, so these price cuts could be interpreted as measures designed to keep the company's market share from sliding downhill until new and improved CPUs are launched.
A number of rumors say that AMD wishes to transfer some of its processor fabrication business for the next generation CPU to TSMC. It is not yet clear if that means that TSMC will produce PCU based on the new Barcelona core, but analysts from FBR claim in a report that TSMC will produce "45nm high-end CPU parts" for AMD, with large quantities being produced later next year. TSMC may produce Barcelona based CPUs or, as some rumors say, they will help AMD with its next line of products, the GPU/CPU hybrid dubbed "Fusion". What is clear is that TSMC will see more business on the PC market with AMD CPUs being a significant part of it.
TSMC used to fabricate ATI's GPUs and now, since ATI merged with AMD, it produces the ATI/AMD video processors. In light of this fact it would not be very surprising if AMD chose to move more and more of its production into the TSMC foundries, even more so since there are a number of rumors claiming that AMD would be shifting to a mostly "fab-lite" state. In the near future one may see AMD as a company without its own production lines and depending on IBM and TSMC to actually produce CPUs. This move could be interpreted as the result of increased pressure from Intel which already cut back prices for most of its CPUs.