Intel price hikes coming?

[Yousuf Khan]

These are just some rumours from some stock talk groups and other sites, but
if they're true, they will obviously necessitate readjusting your next
computer buying decisions:

http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/msg.gsp?msgid=20491978

http://www.overclockers.com/articles1096/

With, Intel's recent announcement that it's not going to be able to make its
previously predicted revenues for this quarter, it would seem that
microprocessor prices are a little too unstainably low for it. So it looks
like it's trying to sneak in some price hikes. It used to be able to lower
prices in some segments and subsidize them with its other product lines, but
it doesn't look like those days are going to return anymore. I guess it's
decided to simply call a truce with AMD (for the time being) and make some
money instead.

Yousuf Khan

 

[JK]

Intel raising prices would be interesting. I guess they figure AMD doesn't
have that much inventory in the channel, and has only so much productive
capacity. AMD is moving production to 90nm, however it seems like this
90nm production will at least initially be mobile A64, low power Opteron,
and higher end Athlon 64 chips(3800+ and above). Since Intel can't
effectively compete against AMD's 64 bit mobile processors and the
Athlon 64 3800+ and 4000+, as well as AMD's low power server chips, I
Intel could probably start firming prices on the Celeron D and Pentium 4
chips 3.2 ghz and below. That strategy might be effective before AMD
gets a chance to start selling the 90nm Sempron (Athlon 64 with half the
cache of A64,and AMD64 features disabled) in 2005. Of course Intel
raising prices strategically would help AMD, it would help Intel even more.
Price wars between Intel and AMD are silly. The industry is an oligopoly,
and AMD is a strong competitor that is getting stronger. Intel's attempts
at hurting AMD with price wars have hurt Intel much more than they hurt AMD.
Now that the other computer components(hard drives, lcd monitors, ram, etc.)
have gotten to very low price levels, overall PC demand has a chance for very
significant growth. I see that growth coming from lesser developed countries
where many families want to buy their first computer, and from families in
developed countries who want to buy a second or third computer(isn't it annoying
when parents have to wait for a child to finish doing his homework on the pc
before they can use it?).

 

[Nudge]

That strategy might be effective before AMD gets a chance to
start selling the 90nm Sempron (Athlon 64 with half the cache
of A64, and AMD64 features disabled) in 2005.

<tongue in cheek>But... Who'd want to buy a 32-bit CPU?!?!

 

[JK]

<tongue in cheek>But... Who'd want to buy a 32-bit CPU?!?!

Many people will want a 32 bit budget cpu. My issue is with high
priced 32 bit processors.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Intel's attempts
at hurting AMD with price wars have hurt Intel much more than they
hurt AMD. Now that the other computer components(hard drives, lcd
monitors, ram, etc.) have gotten to very low price levels, overall PC
demand has a chance for very significant growth. I see that growth
coming from lesser developed countries where many families want to
buy their first computer, and from families in developed countries
who want to buy a second or third computer(isn't it annoying when
parents have to wait for a child to finish doing his homework on the
pc before they can use it?).

Well, according to Intel overall demand is very weak, both for processors
and flash. But they could be lying.

Yousuf Khan

 

[JK]

Well, according to Intel overall demand is very weak, both for processors
and flash. But they could be lying.

AMD might be gaining a tremendous amount of market share. Notice
Dell's retreat from the lower end of the Chinese pc market, as they didn't
want to compete against Lenovo selling low priced AMD based computers.

http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/20040816-4104.html

 

[George Macdonald]

Well, according to Intel overall demand is very weak, both for processors
and flash. But they could be lying.

Overall demand... probably.... but the CPU I had my eye on a month ago has
risen in price beyond what I want to pay for it - bloody annoying that!

FTR that was the Athlon64 3500+... which is listed at $346. (reduced from
$500. in July 26 price reductions) and which was selling for $352. a few
weeks ago... and is now selling at ~$420.

In fact all the upper-end A64s, socket 939s, seem to be holding or
exceeding list price quite well. Is this production constraint here?

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[Nudge]

Many people will want a 32-bit budget CPU. My issue is with
high priced 32-bit processors.

<tongue in cheek bis>Shelton should come quite cheap.

 

[JK]

Overall demand... probably.... but the CPU I had my eye on a month ago has
risen in price beyond what I want to pay for it - bloody annoying that!

FTR that was the Athlon64 3500+... which is listed at $346. (reduced from
$500. in July 26 price reductions) and which was selling for $352. a few
weeks ago... and is now selling at ~$420.

You can still get it for $365 or less. Check www.pricewatch.com.
Monarch Computer has the retail box for $365. Others have it
a bit less, however they might not be as reliable as Monarch.

In fact all the upper-end A64s, socket 939s, seem to be holding or
exceeding list price quite well. Is this production constraint here?

The production appears to be growing, however the demand appears
to be growing even faster. Since the price drop from around $500,
to around $350 the Athlon 64 3500+ has been in great demand.

 

[The little lost angel]

The news article about that did mentioned it's in contrast to what
most other businesses are reporting about their PC sales and handphone
sales. Isn't it possible that AMD is finally gaining on Intel again on
both fronts? ppP

--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code

 

[George Macdonald]

You can still get it for $365 or less. Check www.pricewatch.com.
Monarch Computer has the retail box for $365. Others have it
a bit less, however they might not be as reliable as Monarch.

Thanks for the refer to Monarch - Pricewatch just has too many
bottom-feeders for my liking.

The production appears to be growing, however the demand appears
to be growing even faster. Since the price drop from around $500,
to around $350 the Athlon 64 3500+ has been in great demand.

Seems to be available in spurts - Newegg just dropped back (from $425) to
$389. in a coupla days or so. I'm not desperate so maybe I'll wait for a
bit yet.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[Never anonymous Bud]

Thanks for the refer to Monarch - Pricewatch just has too many
bottom-feeders for my liking.

www.resellerratings.com

 

[Rob Stow]

Thanks for the refer to Monarch - Pricewatch just has too many
bottom-feeders for my liking.

A note about Monarch:

I have purchased 4 Tyan S2885's from Monarch. Two in
my first purchase and then two more singles.

The last two Tyan S2885's I got from Monarch came with
the antistatic bag already opened and some of the jumpers
and BIOS settings were not at the factory defaults.
When I confronted Monarch over that they confessed that
I was probably shipped used boards that had been returned
by other customers. They did allow me to return the boards
for full refunds. The first time I was very annoyed.
The second time I was really pissed off.

Someone else recently posted a similar story on
a.c.peripherals.mainboard.tyan.

I think I'll give http://www.lynncomp.com/shop5/
a chance next time I want a Tyan motherboard.

 

[keith]

A note about Monarch:

I have purchased 4 Tyan S2885's from Monarch. Two in
my first purchase and then two more singles.

The last two Tyan S2885's I got from Monarch came with
the antistatic bag already opened and some of the jumpers
and BIOS settings were not at the factory defaults.
When I confronted Monarch over that they confessed that
I was probably shipped used boards that had been returned
by other customers. They did allow me to return the boards
for full refunds. The first time I was very annoyed.
The second time I was really pissed off.

Thanks. I've been tempted to buy from Monarch, but I've had such
excellent service from newEgg and Axion that I'm willing to pay a few
bucks more for the known pain-free service. OTOH, it seems from your
experience that Monarch's service is good. If a board is returned NDF,
it's going somewhere. Perhaps they need more practice at repackaging. ;-)

I'm in the market for a DVD writer (preference - Plextor 708 or 712) and
the prices in pricewatch are all over the place. The PW bottom-feeders
are almost half the price of the name outlets. Interestingly enough, the
prices direct from Plextor seem rather decent. I've found this in a
number of cases where the vendor sells via their web site.

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

Thanks. I've been tempted to buy from Monarch, but I've had
such excellent service from newEgg and Axion that I'm willing
to pay a few bucks more for the known pain-free service.

I've used Axion for years since they're local.
They run a nice, busy, store.

-- Robert in Houston

 

[George Macdonald]

A note about Monarch:

I have purchased 4 Tyan S2885's from Monarch. Two in
my first purchase and then two more singles.

The last two Tyan S2885's I got from Monarch came with
the antistatic bag already opened and some of the jumpers
and BIOS settings were not at the factory defaults.
When I confronted Monarch over that they confessed that
I was probably shipped used boards that had been returned
by other customers. They did allow me to return the boards
for full refunds. The first time I was very annoyed.
The second time I was really pissed off.

Someone else recently posted a similar story on
a.c.peripherals.mainboard.tyan.

I think I'll give http://www.lynncomp.com/shop5/
a chance next time I want a Tyan motherboard.

Thanks for the info.

I've had similar "open box" experiences myself with a coupla vendors:
missing retention assemblies etc. In neither case was the vendor really at
fault - just the drop warehouse they used and in one case I was assured
that they (www.neutronet.com FTR) would switch warehouses... which they
seemed to do, since it never happened again.

So far I've been very happy with Newegg - no problems and their
shipping/handling is top notch and does not have any $ surprises.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[JK]

Thanks. I've been tempted to buy from Monarch, but I've had such
excellent service from newEgg and Axion that I'm willing to pay a few
bucks more for the known pain-free service. OTOH, it seems from your
experience that Monarch's service is good. If a board is returned NDF,
it's going somewhere. Perhaps they need more practice at repackaging. ;-)

I'm in the market for a DVD writer (preference - Plextor 708 or 712)

Why not LiteOn? Plextor drives are good, but so are LiteOn drives, and you
usually get much more value for your money with LiteOn.

 

[keith]

I've used Axion for years since they're local.
They run a nice, busy, store.

If they were local (or *ANYONE*), I'd likely use them too. Actually my
son was the one who turned me on to newEgg. I was dealing with Axion long
before that. Axion's web page turned me right off (like blindingly
right off) a few years back, so I've dealt exclusively with newEgg
since.

 

[keith]

Why not LiteOn? Plextor drives are good, but so are LiteOn drives, and you
usually get much more value for your money with LiteOn.

How make LiteOn drives? I'm old enough to have gone through the CD,
CD-R/W batttles of the past. Plextor has always been #1, followed by
Yamaha and Ricoh. Since Yamaha seems to have fallen by the wayside...

I'm not afraid to spend a few bucks. I despise hardware that doesn't
work. I'm not about to take chances for pocket-change. That said, my
sone was recommending LiteOn when I talked with him the other day.
<shrug>

 

[Lurker1]

How make LiteOn drives? I'm old enough to have gone through the CD,
CD-R/W batttles of the past. Plextor has always been #1, followed by
Yamaha and Ricoh. Since Yamaha seems to have fallen by the wayside...

I'm not afraid to spend a few bucks. I despise hardware that doesn't
work. I'm not about to take chances for pocket-change. That said, my
sone was recommending LiteOn when I talked with him the other day.
<shrug>

You need to do more research. I have been spending a lot of time on the forums at
club.cdfreaks.com, videohelp.com, forum.rpc1.org, and cdrinfo.com. Owners of the Nec 3500
are almost universally happy, so are owners of the Pioneer 108. Liteon owners are jumping
ship in droves, most of them jumping to the Nec. In the Plextor forums, some are happy,
some are not. Quality on the Plextor 712 drives seems to vary a lot, and luck plays a big
role, it would seem. But it would appear that you cannot go wrong with the Nec 3500 or
the Pioneer 108.