Reports from motherboard makers suggest that Intel’s new Extreme
Bloomfield quad-core 3.2 GHz CPU will be released at US$999 for a
thousand-unit tray, which is around two thirds of the price for the
current high-end CPU.
Past releases by Intel were always priced with the Extreme model
selling for US$999, however Intel has headed a different course in
recent history, no longer sticking to the same pricing scale, however
these reports suggest Intel may be going back to old practices.
Intel will be releasing the Bloomfield in three models, the high-end
Extreme 3.2GHz CPU, the performance 2.93GHz, and the mainstream
2.66GHz, with the prices for the 2.93GHz and the 2.66GHz being US$562
and US$284 for thousand-unit trays respectively. Each of the Bloomfield
models will be based on the X58 chipset motherboards with a LGA 1366
socket.
Industry analysts believe that Intel is wanting high-end users to
take up the Bloomfield as is, and not wait for the LGA 1160 socketed
platform, which will be released some time in 2009 with two Nehalem
chipsets and Intel’s Havendale and Lynnfield chipsets.
The X58 (code named Tylersburg) has been up-scaled recently, which
has lead to some features being taken off the LGA 1160 to set it up for
the mid-end market. The QPI and tri-cannel DDR3 components to the X58
makes it the first to support the Bloomfield CPU, and it is these
aspects which are now absent from the LGA 1160 platform.
Story link: Intel’s Bloomfield CPU Pricing Lower Than Expected
