Price drop (or lack thereof) predictions on the 2500k

[Anarchist420]

Does anyone here expect a price drop by years end? If so, by how much and precisely when?

I'd like to get one, but I'd kind of like to wait until the price drops if it ever does.

I don't expect the price to drop within the next month though, and I don't expect BD to reduce the price because BD will have much higher TDP, is the same price, and is probably going to be quite a bit slower overall. In addition the fact that there is no way BD won't be a dud, the 2500k is already at a great price. The problem is that there are other things that I need to buy such as more silver bullion (have accumulated 10 ounces so far this year), a retail W7 64 license, and the Asus Essence One.

 

[bridito]

Does anyone here expect a price drop by years end? If so, by how much and precisely when?

I'd like to get one, but I'd kind of like to wait until the price drops if it ever does.

I don't expect the price to drop within the next month though, and I don't expect BD to reduce the price because BD will have much higher TDP, is the same price, and is probably going to be quite a bit slower overall. In addition the fact that there is no way BD won't be a dud, the 2500k is already at a great price. The problem is that there are other things that I need to buy such as more silver bullion (have accumulated 10 ounces so far this year), a retail W7 64 license, and the Asus Essence One.

I'm glad that you have the cojones to state that categorically: "there is no way BD won't be a dud". I've been trying hard to keep my optimism up but it gets far more difficult every day. I fully expect that there will be an across the board repricing of Intel's stock as soon as SB-E is out which looks like it's going to be about two months away. Maybe with the upcoming currency collapse, your 10 oz. of silver might be worth over a thousand bucks soon and that can buy you a new system!

 

[996GT2]

Microcenter currently has the 2600K on sale for $280 PLUS $80 off any Z68 motherboard.

It's the best deal on a 2600K right now. If you want it, get it ASAP because the sale is only good until 9/4.

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3273324

 

[Anarchist420]

I'm glad that you have the cojones to state that categorically: "there is no way BD won't be a dud". I've been trying hard to keep my optimism up but it gets far more difficult every day. I fully expect that there will be an across the board repricing of Intel's stock as soon as SB-E is out which looks like it's going to be about two months away. Maybe with the upcoming currency collapse, your 10 oz. of silver might be worth over a thousand bucks soon and that can buy you a new system!

Thanks I can hold out another two months because as you say, it would make sense for price drops on the existing line when SB-E comes out.

I was never optimistic about BD and since it's been confirmed that BD will be 125W TDP vs. intel's i5 2600k's 95W TDP, it's safe to say it will be a dud. The L3 cache is simply going to be clocked too slow for it to be able to compete speed-wise and the fact that they're having much higher clock speeds than intel indicates that it won't be able to do as much per clock or at least not as much per watt. Intel's chipsets are also much better. AMD's 990FX and SB950 have already been reviewed and they're not much faster than the 890FX/SB850.

 

[texasnightowl]

Microcenter currently has the 2600K on sale for $280 PLUS $80 off any Z68 motherboard.

It's the best deal on a 2600K right now. If you want it, get it ASAP because the sale is only good until 9/4.

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3273324

dang....are you trying to make me drive 5 hours each way to the nearest Microcenter this Labor Day weekend?

 

[bryanW1995]

TDP/chipsets/etc are all nice indicators, but I think that BD will be a dud just because it's so ********ing late.

SB-E is our best bet to get a price break on current model 2x00k cpus.

 

[blackened23]

Does anyone here expect a price drop by years end? If so, by how much and precisely when?

I'd like to get one, but I'd kind of like to wait until the price drops if it ever does.

I don't expect the price to drop within the next month though, and I don't expect BD to reduce the price because BD will have much higher TDP, is the same price, and is probably going to be quite a bit slower overall. In addition the fact that there is no way BD won't be a dud, the 2500k is already at a great price. The problem is that there are other things that I need to buy such as more silver bullion (have accumulated 10 ounces so far this year), a retail W7 64 license, and the Asus Essence One.

There's absolutely zero reason for intel to lower the price....fact of the matter is that intel probably regrets pricing the SB as it did - because its such a strong chip that it trumps even their 990X extreme edition processor in everything related to gaming / mainstream stuff. In previous generations the extreme edition chips performed much better than the mainstream cpu's....so like I said intel probably regrets their current pricing model. So I see no price drop in the forseeable future..... Unless BD blows SB out of the water.

 

[LoneNinja]

I don't expect a price drop, it's Intel.

 

[djshortsleeve]

There's absolutely zero reason for intel to lower the price....fact of the matter is that intel probably regrets pricing the SB as it did - because its such a strong chip that it trumps even their 990X extreme edition processor in everything related to gaming / mainstream stuff. In previous generations the extreme edition chips performed much better than the mainstream cpu's....so like I said intel probably regrets their current pricing model. So I see no price drop in the forseeable future..... Unless BD blows SB out of the water.

this exactly. Its almost mind boggling as to why the 2500k is only a bit over 200. The only reason I can think of is they wanted to bring back Intel-haters ot they wanted to head off those waiting for the next AMD chips. I was both of these but I could not resist building a 2500k machine.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

soon as SB-E is out which looks like it's going to be about two months away.

Really? SB-E is that close? I can't keep track of all these release schedules these days. I am looking to upgrade soon and was thinking late September or October would be likely, but it SB-E is in that timeframe, I can wait.

 

[StrangerGuy]

I doubt it will drop at all given how competitive the 2500K and S1155 mobo prices are right now. Even the 955 BE is a tough sell at $120.

 

[gevorg]

Unless AMD introduces something competitive to 2500K/2600K, they won't drop in price until Intel releases new gen CPUs. Maybe Sandy Bridge refresh update with higher clocked CPUs will drop current Sandy Bridge prices a bit.

 

[BD231]

The 2500k still has to compete with the X6 encoding at default clocks, so no, its not under priced.

 

[notty22]

Imo, NO, you won't see a price drop on the 2500K.
It's similar positioning to the i5-750.
Except now it comes with a gpu. And it's unlocked so marketing wise it seems priced right, just a little higher than the i5-750.
What's good for Intel's bottom line, is they get more of these off the same size wafer, as the 45nm i5-750's.

 

[Fallengod]

Im just waiting for FRys to have the 2500k for $150 again.

I do need one.

Makes me wonder what kind of deals we might get for black friday.

 

[sm625]

You guys have short memory spans. Athlon 64 was this late and more. I predict that whatever BD sells for $180 will be faster than a 2500k overall, and I also predict that intel will not lower their prices one red cent even if the $180 BD is faster than a 2600k.

See this article from 2003: http://www.anandtech.com/show/1101/6

Based on this, it looked as if athlon 64 was only 12% faster than the athlon xp 2200, which ran at the same clock. Well we all know how that turned out... and hell we dont even have anandtech benchmarks on BD yet. But these clowns all know for a fact that it will be so bad... just like they knew back then that Prescott would blow away athlon 64 when it came out. You guys are so funny.

 

[IAteYourMother]

2500K was like 180 at microcenter

 

[gevorg]

You guys have short memory spans. Athlon 64 was this late and more. I predict that whatever BD sells for $180 will be faster than a 2500k overall, and I also predict that intel will not lower their prices one red cent even if the $180 BD is faster than a 2600k.

See this article from 2003: http://www.anandtech.com/show/1101/6

Based on this, it looked as if athlon 64 was only 12% faster than the athlon xp 2200, which ran at the same clock. Well we all know how that turned out... and hell we dont even have anandtech benchmarks on BD yet. But these clowns all know for a fact that it will be so bad... just like they knew back then that Prescott would blow away athlon 64 when it came out. You guys are so funny.

One word for you:

Phenom

 

[RussianSensation]

Thanks I can hold out another two months because as you say, it would make sense for price drops on the existing line when SB-E comes out.

Actually no. If you followed Intel in the last 5 years, they rarely drop the price. They like to replace current processors with faster versions at the same price levels (i.e., Core i7 860 --> Core i7 870 --> Core i7 880, etc.)

2500k is already only $220. It may fall to $196 or something but not much more. That's $30 of savings for 2-3 months of waiting? That's even if BD beats a SB. Intel may not even lower prices at all if BD is only as fast or slower than SB. In other words is $30 savings worth waiting another 2 months.....Not if you really need a new system.

 

[blackened23]

Actually no. If you followed Intel in the last 5 years, they rarely drop the price. They like to replace current processors with faster versions at the same price levels (i.e., Core i7 860 --> Core i7 870 --> Core i7 880, etc.)

2500k is already only $220. It may fall to $196 or something but not much more. That's $30 of savings for 2-3 months of waiting? That's even if BD beats a SB. Intel may not even lower prices at all if BD is only as fast or slower than SB. In other words is $30 savings worth waiting another 2 months.....Not if you really need a new system.

Good point. Now that I think of it, the previous enthusiast champions - 920, 860 and 870 - never dropped in price signifigantly. Considering how strong the sandy bridge is, its likely that they wont drop the price by anything signifigant.

 

[Concillian]

You guys have short memory spans. Athlon 64 was this late and more. I predict that whatever BD sells for $180 will be faster than a 2500k overall, and I also predict that intel will not lower their prices one red cent even if the $180 BD is faster than a 2600k.

And if this happens, Intel still won't drop the price of the 2500k, they'll keep the 2500k at current price and launch a 2520k or something that's higher clocked so it competes well at the same price, just like the i5 750 --> 760. Just like the e7200 --> e7300 --> e7400 --> e7500.

I do not see Intel dropping prices for AMD. They haven't before and I doubt they'll start now.

 

[RussianSensation]

You guys have short memory spans. Athlon 64 was this late and more. I predict that whatever BD sells for $180 will be faster than a 2500k overall,

A $180 BD is probably going to be either the FX-4100 @ 3.6ghz / 3.8ghz Turbo Boost OR FX-6100 @ 3.3ghz / 3.9ghz Turbo Boost (more likely)

Right now Sandy Bridge has at least a 40% instructions per clock (IPC) advantage over Phenom II. On top of that, it easily overclocks to 4.5ghz. So a BD would need to have a 40% IPC increase over Phenom II per core just to match SB @ 3.4ghz. However, out of the game its 2 core module design can only deliver up to 80-90% of the performance of 2 full fledged cores. Taking higher end of this spectrum, you have a minimum 10% penalty to begin with. So that is even worse: BD would actually need to be 55% more efficient per clock than Phenom II just to match a 2500k (i.e., 1.40x / 0.90x) OR would need much higher clock speeds than 3.3-3.4ghz (hence much higher turbo modes on their models, or so the rumors say).

I think AMD is going to through their FX-8100 series at around $225-250 to go against 2500k (i.e., their proposition will be more cores for users who rely on heavily multi-threaded programs, but their per core performance still won't match 2500k, and esp. not a SB in overclocked states).

 

[greenhawk]

I don't expect a price drop, it's Intel.

+1

As to price drops due to SB-E, not going to happen. SB-E is aimed at a different market segement. Inital prices for the cpu is $500 and $1000. No way is that going to effect a $200/$300 cpu.

when the SB replacement comes out (IvyBridge), then their might be a change, but I suspect intel will just price ivyBridge up higher instead.

 

[Ken g6]

I just saw a 2500k for $215 @ Amazon.

Newegg bundles beat that, so far.

 

[blackened23]

I just saw a 2500k for $215 @ Amazon.

Newegg bundles beat that, so far.

Major offtopic post incoming!

My reason to go with amazon.com

1) hassle free returns, and they pay for return shipping

2) Free trial to amazon prime - amazon prime gives you unlimited free 2nd day air shipping, and next day air shipping for 3$ regardless of what you buy (as long as it qualifies for prime)

3) Newegg won't ship an air shipment same day unless you order before noon and pay a rush processing fee.

4) Newegg charges you full price for air shipping

5) Newegg also doesn't provide free return labels for everything


As you can tell i'm an amazon.com fanboy. I order practically everything from amazing since shipping is always free, and I can order something for next day air (only 3 bucks). Don't get me wrong, newegg is great -- but for nearly everything amazon is the same price but offers me free air shipping with hassle free returns. In addition, I can place an order to be shipped via nextday/2nd day air right up to 6:30pm EST, and not have to pay a rush processing fee.