sadbuttrue
New member
Late last August CPU mfgr. Intel dropped the price of the i7-950 CPU by nearly 50% - from ($US) $562 to only $294. Oddly it's close neighbours in the product range, i7-940 and i7-960 stayed in the $600 US range. You can speculate all you want about whether they did this primarily to respond to AMD's hex-core (Phenom II X6 1055, 1075 and 1090T) competition in the same performance range, with Intel's only response in the price range at the time being the -920 and -930. After the price drop the 950 could compete within £20/$30 with the 1090T. And, (you'll get disagreement from the AMD fanboys on this, but) when overclocked the Intel chip left AMD's hex-cores in the dust.
If you visit Intel's website today, you can confirm that they've now followed suit with the i7 960, officially priced at $294 as well. Once again that's a drop from $562. That's great news for consumers, as the 1366 socket still has some life in it despite pressure from Intel's own newly introduced socket 1155 "Sandy Bridge" products.
Very recently I commented somewhere (it may have been here at OC3D) that Intel had in fact 'quietly discontinued' the i7 960, and were only selling old production in that SKU. That may have been true, it was never to my knowledge officially announced.
Whatever. I believe this price drop and that of the i7-950 last August have more to do with something else. I think it was just as much driven by Intel's improving their fabrication process to get higher yields on their faster-clocked i7s. Where they used to get a lot of -920s and -930s from each batch, they're now getting mostly -950s and -960s, so there's less need for them to charge so much for them.
It should also be said that you're not just getting a 1-bin higher multiplier and clock speed in the -960. The i7-970 is a hex-core CPU made with an entirely different (32 nm) process. Which means that the -960's bin should be open-ended at the top. The significance of that is that there are a few 'golden chips' in the i7-960 SKU that could overclock like crazy!
I expect Tom will hit 5.2 Ghz on air with one pretty soon.
The i7-970 also dropped in price, by 34% from $885 to $583. The i7-940 remains at $562. That should make it about as popular as ants at a picnic.
If you visit Intel's website today, you can confirm that they've now followed suit with the i7 960, officially priced at $294 as well. Once again that's a drop from $562. That's great news for consumers, as the 1366 socket still has some life in it despite pressure from Intel's own newly introduced socket 1155 "Sandy Bridge" products.
Very recently I commented somewhere (it may have been here at OC3D) that Intel had in fact 'quietly discontinued' the i7 960, and were only selling old production in that SKU. That may have been true, it was never to my knowledge officially announced.
Whatever. I believe this price drop and that of the i7-950 last August have more to do with something else. I think it was just as much driven by Intel's improving their fabrication process to get higher yields on their faster-clocked i7s. Where they used to get a lot of -920s and -930s from each batch, they're now getting mostly -950s and -960s, so there's less need for them to charge so much for them.
It should also be said that you're not just getting a 1-bin higher multiplier and clock speed in the -960. The i7-970 is a hex-core CPU made with an entirely different (32 nm) process. Which means that the -960's bin should be open-ended at the top. The significance of that is that there are a few 'golden chips' in the i7-960 SKU that could overclock like crazy!
I expect Tom will hit 5.2 Ghz on air with one pretty soon.
The i7-970 also dropped in price, by 34% from $885 to $583. The i7-940 remains at $562. That should make it about as popular as ants at a picnic.
