AMD follows Intel with price cuts

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) cut wholesale prices on some of its Athlon and Duron processors Monday, following rival Intel Corp.'s price cuts over the weekend.

The price of an Athlon XP 1800+, the top performer in the Athlon series that competes with Intel's Pentium 4 range, was cut to US$223 in quantities of 1000 units, down 12 percent from $252. The Athlon XP was introduced on Oct. 9. The Athlon 1.4GHz, part of AMD's pre-Athlon XP offering, was discounted from $130 to $125 in quantities of 1000 units.

In the Duron series, processors for value PCs that compete with Intel's Celeron chips, the 1000-unit quantity price of the 1.1GHz processor was cut to $89 from $103, while that of the 1GHz Duron fell 17 percent to $74, down from $89. The bottom-end 950MHz Duron was reduced from $74 to $69.

The price cuts should soon bring down prices of AMD-based systems, which are more popular among consumers than business users, said Hollis Krym, a Paris-based AMD spokeswoman.

Street prices for computers won't go down immediately, as systems now in stores contain processors bought at the higher price. The price cuts will trickle down eventually, according to AMD.

"I can't say exactly when systems in stores will become cheaper, but they will," said Krym.

Some of Intel's price cuts over the weekend are deeper than AMD's, with 29 percent chopped off the price of the 2GHz Pentium 4 processor, the fastest Pentium 4 available, bringing it down to $401 in 1000-unit quantities. Intel cut the price of its 1.8GHz part by 12 percent to $225.

AMD, in Sunnyvale, California, can be reached at +1-408-732-2400 or http://www.amd.com/.

Read more about hardware in ITworld's Hardware section

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