Introduction

As always, we like to discuss some handy features of our wonderful Real Time Price Engine, such as the ability to search for product SKU’s like “ADA3000DAA4BP”. This makes searching for an exact product a breeze. You can also try searching for product categories like “AMD CPU”. Another exceptional feature is the ability to ignore certain words from your search results. To do this, you would add the “-“ (minus) sign and the word. For example, if I were searching for all Pentium CPUs except the Pentium D, I would enter: “Intel Pentium –D”.

In this week’s CPU price guide, we found that the AMD Athlon Dual Core processors dropped prices in recent times. The X2 3800+ has remained unchanged for the most part and is still considered the “best bang for the buck”. We also noticed a recent price drop with the AMD 3800+ and 4000+ Venice cores, which could be due to the increase in demand for the dual core processors.

AMD’s Opteron line has remained mostly unchanged except for a few outrageous price jumps that we noticed. And the Xeon processors have remained practically the same since our last price guide, something we eagerly want to know why that is.

Also, the Intel 500, 600 and 800 series have also remained quite stable with the 500 and 600 series being just about equal in performance.



Dual Core Desktops

So far, the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester has remained unchanged for the most part. The X2 3800+ is still a bit pricier than its Pentium D counterpart, the 830, but it has proven to be the better CPU in Anand’s comprehensive X2 3800+ article. The big question is if the small increase in price is worth the increase in performance. If you’re not on a super tight budget and have the $15-$30 to spend, then the X2 3800+ Manchester [RTPE: ADA3800DAA5BV] is definitely the processor to go buy.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 (939) 3800+ 2x512KB Manchester

The high end X2 processors have dropped a considerable amount this past week; price reductions ranging from $30 all the way up to $85.



The Intel Pentium D processors haven’t fluctuated much over the course of these past several weeks. Intel still has the ball in their court with the entry level dual core 820 being drastically cheaper than AMD’s entry dual core, the X2 3800+ (Manchester). Even though they are not on the same level of performance, they are still entry level. We are hoping to see AMD add to the entry level competition, as more competition equals lower prices.





AMD Desktop

All the talk now-a-days is about the X2 64-bit processors, but AMD is still paving the way with their 64-bit Athlons by gradually lowering its prices. We've noticed some decent price drops in the mid to high end CPUs. The recent drop in the 3800+ and 4000+ is what caught our eyes this week. The price drop was only around $25, but we're glad to finally see the elevated price on the higher end Athlon 64s come down a bit.



Furthermore, the A64 3500+ Venice [RTPE: ADA3500DAA4BW] core hit a new record low this week, dropping a whole $40. This is very surprising, as you can see from the chart; the 3500+ had actually increased in price and suddenly plummeted to about $185.

AMD Athlon 64 (939) 3500+ 512KB Venice

In our honest opinion, there is no real reason to build a computer based on the Socket 754 platform unless you are on an extremely tight budget. Socket 939 offers greater features such as dual channel memory support and a larger L2 cache. And, if you do plan on going with a Socket 754, make sure to go with a board that supports PCI-E because with that, you'll have a greater selection of newer generation graphics cards from which to choose. Nevertheless, for a consumer looking for a cheap upgrade, a Socket 754 might be the way to go. All the processors in this class have held their grounds fairly firm, showing only a slight progressive decline in price. Although at $130, the Athlon 64 3000+ Newcastle [RTPE: ADA3000AEP4AX] appears to be at a decent price and has also been slowly, but surely, dropping in price over the past couple of weeks.

AMD Athlon 64 (754) 3000+ 512KB Newcastle

Sempron and Turion

In competing with Intel's Celeron processors, AMD's Sempron is doing a great job in keeping up and staying competitive. One of the 64-bit Semprons that caught our attention was the 2800+ Palermo core with 256KB L2 cache [RTPE: SDA2800BXBOX]. Hovering at about $75, it appears to be a decent deal for a budget upgrade. After various ups and downs, it seems as though the Sempron 2800+ has begun to steady out. Moreover, if you're looking into the higher end of the Sempron spectrum searching for greater performance, we would like to encourage you to take a peek into the Socket 939 because of the added L2 cache, which gives a fine amount of increased performance for the small addition of cost.

AMD Sempron 64 (754) 2800+ 256KB Palermo

AMD's Turion processor is doing fairly well in the market. After holding a steady price for some time, we've noticed that the Turion ML-37 [RTPE: TMDML37BKX5LD] has begun to progressively drop during the past week or so.

AMD Turion ML-37 1MB

Unlike the Mobile Athlon XP's, the Mobile Athlon 64's aren't that great of a hit with consumers. Perhaps because of the low sales, we are now seeing vendors with low stock on this processor. There hasn't been much of a change with these Mobile 64-bit CPUs, but the Mobile 3200+ with 1MB of L2 cache [RTPE: AMN3200BIX5AR] has recently begun to drop in price. From the diagram below, you can see that the price has quickly dropped within about one month to where it is at now. It could mean that vendors are trying to get rid of the current stock quickly, but we'll have to wait and see what will happen with these Mobile 64's.

AMD Athlon 64 (754) Mobile 3200+ 1MB

Intel Pentium 4

Currently, Intel's lineup has been quite stable in all the 5xx, 6xx, and 8xx series. We did notice the Socket 478 3.4GHz Extreme Edition [RTPE: BX80532PG3400F] skyrocket significantly, going up an outrageous $156!

Intel Pentium 4 (478) 3.4GHz 800FSB Extreme

Just like our last price guide, we still cannot recommend the 6xx series over the 5xx. We aren't seeing much of an improvement going from the 500 series to the 600 series. We'll have to wait and see what Intel will have for us next time around.

We did notice that the Pentium 4 670 [RTPE: BX80547PG3800F] had dropped about $30. It is certainly not the lowest price that we've seen for the 670, but nonetheless, it is a decent decrease in price.

Intel Pentium 4 (775) 670 800FSB 2MB

Intel Celeron D

It seems as though Intel isn’t fairing too well with their newer processors. For example, the Celeron D’s are being outperformed by their Sempron 64 counterparts. Intel needs to step up their game right now. Even though they are a bit cheaper than AMD, it still isn’t enough to draw consumers over onto their side of the field. Overall, the Celeron D processors haven’t had any significant price fluctuation over the past couple of weeks since our last price guide.



Pentium M

The Pentium M line is still quite expensive and not exactly ideal for desktop use. But if you’re looking to go with a lower power setup, such as something for a car computer, a Pentium M would be perfect. The Pentium M has not had any increase or decrease in price worth mentioning since our last guide. They have basically continued at a steady value, but we will continue to monitor their fluctuations, if any.





AMD Opteron

For the majority of the Opterons, we have not seen anything new with the exception of a few processors that either jumped up or down in price. And there is still no sight of the 154, 254, and the 854 processors hitting retail stores just yet.

We noticed a sudden decrease in price of $360 of the Opteron 848 Athens [RTPE: OSA848FAA5BM]. That’s quite a large jump for a processor to go down in one week.

AMD Opteron 848 Athens

While the 848 Athens decreased at such a great amount, the 848 Hammer [RTPE: OSA848CEP5AV] increased by an even greater margin at just about $541.

AMD Opteron 848 Hammer

Moreover, combining the decrease and increase in the 848 Athens and Hammer, the Opteron 150 Hammer has been up and down numerous times over the past few months.

AMD Opteron 150 Hammer

Intel Xeon

Unlike the insane pricing fluctuations that we saw with the Opteron line, the Xeon processors seem to be steady with minor increases and decreases in pricing, nothing significant enough to mention.