AMD Lowers Prices On Opteron, Mobile CPUs
Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices cut prices on many of its microprocessors on Monday night, including the first cuts to its Opteron chip line.
AMD reserved its cuts for its server and mobile processors, including the Opteron, Athlon MP processor, and all three flavors of the Athlon XP-M chip. AMD left the prices of its desktop AMD Athlon chips untouched.
AMD also left the prices of its most expensive Opteron 800 chips alone. AMD cut the price of its Opteron 144 from $669 to $438, however, and the 142 from $438 to $292. The price of the slowest Opteron 140 was left unchanged at $229. AMD's Opteron 200 models also received sharp discounts, as the chipmaker trimmed the price of the Opteron 244 from $794 to $690 and the Opteron 242 from $690 to $455. The Model 240 Opteron was sliced from $283 to $256.
The prices of AMD's Athlon MP chips were also trimmed slightly from their price on June 30. AMD rates its Athlon MPs from 2000+ to 2800+, which ranged in price from $116 to $275. After the price revisions, the Athlon MP 2800+ costs $230, the Athlon MP 2600+ costs $174, the Athlon MP 2400+ costs $131, the Athlon MP 2200+ and Athlon MP 2000+ both are priced at $116, a common tactic to phase out the slowest chips.
AMD also sliced the prices of its Athon XP-M chips used in notebooks, the fastest growing segment of the computer market. AMD's "desktop replacement" Athlon XP-M chips used to be priced from $55 for the 1700+ model up to $230 for AMD's fastest 2800+ offering. Now, the 2800+ chip costs $185, and the 2600+ model costs $108. The 2400+, 2200+, 2000+, and 1900+ "desktop replacement" Athlon XP-Ms are priced at $86, $71, $65, and $59.
