I had heard that the price of intel quad-core processors was supposed to drop sometime in July. Does anyone know exactly when this is supposed to happen?
It is suppose to be around the 22nd of July.
I got an email from INTEL that the price drop is indeed on the 22nd.
This article also reports on the drop and has a price list:
http://www.hkepc.com/bbs/itnews.php?tid=789466&starttime=0&endtime=0&page=8
Awesome! Just in time for me to start building my BioShock box.
I’ve got an article on this going up tomorrow. By far, though, the deal of the century has got to be the E6850 3.0GHz dual core for $266 (qty 1000). That will put it under $300 in the retail channel.
Compare that to the X6800 Extreme Edition that runs at 2.93GHz, and you get a faster CPU at roughly 70% off.
Awesome just in time for me to build my new box. Outstanding!
Yeah, I’ve been waiting on the price drops to build.
Note that unless you already have P35 motherboard or an Nvidia 600 series board, you won’t be able to take advantage of 1333MHz FSB CPUs, like the E6850. (The NV boards will need a BIOS update.)
So Loyd, for a general purpose CPU with an emphasis on gaming, would you opt for the E6850 or a Q6600? Any word on if/when Valve is actually going to implement some of those Quad core enhancements we’ve heard about, perhaps for HL2: Ep 2?
Tought call, although a Q6600 will probably overclock at least one speed grade.
Quad core will help in a number of next gen games, but not be essential. If I had to choose, I’d choose a dual core CPU and put money into faster graphics hardware.
It’s likely a Q6600 will overlock at least one speed grade – but it’s already two ticks slower than an E6850 (2.4GHz vs. 3.0GHz), and you’ll likely be able to overclock a 6850 one speed grade, too.