 OctaveanPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-31
New York, NY
kudos:1 | said by Vamp9190:said by Octavean:What makes you think there will be a price drop for the i7-970 Gulftown part? That's the beauty about technology, everything drops in price once the next gen. stuff rolls out. Remember when 8800GT were $350? Now they are sub-$100. Remember wen RAM was hundreds of dollars for a few MB??? Remember when ALL Quad core CPUs were around $1,000? ....and on & on.... Quite right,…
However, Intel has also had a bit of a history in terms of discontinuing a Core i7 chip rather than reducing its MSRP. At which point said chip is replaced with a higher spec part for the same price point and the old chip never receives a significant price reduction. This tactic artificially keeps the price rang relatively static or at least it has in the past. Examples of this would be the Core i7 920 being replaced with the Core i7 930 or the Core i7 940 being supplanted by the Core i7 950.
Recent competition from AMD in the form of the Phenom II X6 line may have changed this somewhat though. The introduction of the unlocked Core i7 875K at ~$330-ish made the ~$500+ Core i7 870 redundant so it was reduced in price and can now be found for about the same price of the Core i7 860 (~$300), which, in turn makes the Core i7 860 redundant. Likewise there will presumably be a Core i7 950 price drop to ~$300 down from ~$580-ish soon, which, would make the Core i7 930 redundant.
This, one would think, makes the Core i7 line more competitive and or palatable price wise. So I guess a price drop isn’t unheard of but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Core i7 970 Gulftown part is simply discontinued and replaced with a higher spec part either. I guess it might depend on how well the Competition progresses with their new line and at what price point. |
