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

[trollolo]

so who takes the cake for the 150-200$ CPU range? i don't want to shell out 300 for a 2600, but i don't want to spend 130$ on a phenom II and have myself an under performing rig.

 

[Concillian]

so who takes the cake for the 150-200$ CPU range? i don't want to shell out 300 for a 2600, but i don't want to spend 130$ on a phenom II and have myself an under performing rig.

Intel has made it so it's 2500k or go AMD.

It is what it is. Intel has made it clear there are no free rides under $200 anymore.
The landscape in that price range is terrible, which is why I haven't upgraded any part of my computer in over a year for the first time in about 15 years.

 

[greenhawk]

so who takes the cake for the 150-200$ CPU range? i don't want to shell out 300 for a 2600, but i don't want to spend 130$ on a phenom II and have myself an under performing rig.

2500K is proberly the best all rounder in that price range.

Though if looking at the non-K as not overclocking, then it might be worth dropping to the i3 range.

 

[trollolo]

so what's wrong with the i5-2400?

 

[Arkaign]

so what's wrong with the i5-2400?

Lack of overclocking makes it almost an insane buy when the 2500k priced so closely. 2400 turbo tops out at 3.4, 2500k regularly run at 4.5ghz like a boss, maybe 4.4 if you're really unlucky.

 

[Anarchist420]

Well, I'll just wait for when I have the money then. I'll have the money set aside for a 2500K in not too long.

I do agree that intel underpriced the i2500k. I remember this past february I saw a fairly high end intel chip for less than $250 and I was like "holy shit, I don't see how they're not going to put AMD out of business now that they've added a price advantage to their performance and TDP advantages".

 

[eternalone]

Good luck on your price drop wishes Intel is very slow when it comes to such fantasy's.

 

[Meghan54]

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

That's when I bought mine.....but got MicroCenter to PM that one day sale Fry's had. Helped that there are 2 Fry's near the 2 MC's I shopped.

I then combined that sale priced 2500K with a $95 (after $15 MIR) Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H motherboard. Let's see Newegg beat that bundle price......

 

[john3850]

The price will not drop any lower.
Next the IB may come multiplier locked so intel can raise there profit.
If IB comes locked the 2500-2600k will go up big time.

 

[bridito]

The price will not drop any lower.
Next the IB may come multiplier locked so intel can raise there profit.
If IB comes locked the 2500-2600k will go up big time.

I completely respect your opinion but I fear that you may have been subject to the "forum reality shift" ailment. The vast majority (I would say well over 90%) of computer users don't OC and don't even know what OC is. So to them a locked or unlocked CPU is fully irrelevant. IMHO: The price of current high end SBs is most likely to drop into the lower pre-established price points that Intel has come to love once SB-E hits the streets.

 

[john3850]

"forum reality shift"
well said thanks

 

[lol123]

I completely respect your opinion but I fear that you may have been subject to the "forum reality shift" ailment. The vast majority (I would say well over 90&#37 of computer users don't OC and don't even know what OC is. So to them a locked or unlocked CPU is fully irrelevant. IMHO: The price of current high end SBs is most likely to drop into the lower pre-established price points that Intel has come to love once SB-E hits the streets.

I'd say a very large portion of the people who actually decide between processors when buying a computer care about whether the processor is unlocked or not. The people who don't care about that or don't know, who naturally make up the majority of the total, buy their computers through OEMs who make those decisions for them. It could very well be argued that all the processor SKU's you see on for example Newegg are marketed toward enthusiasts, or at least to people who know anything about computers. They are the only ones who would ever buy a CPU separately.

So yes, if IB is released without any unlocked models (which I think is very unlikely) then it's very reasonable to assume that the prices of the i5-2500K and the i7-2600K will rise on sites like Newegg.

 

[blackened23]

I completely respect your opinion but I fear that you may have been subject to the "forum reality shift" ailment. The vast majority (I would say well over 90&#37 of computer users don't OC and don't even know what OC is. So to them a locked or unlocked CPU is fully irrelevant. IMHO: The price of current high end SBs is most likely to drop into the lower pre-established price points that Intel has come to love once SB-E hits the streets.

History proves you wrong. First off, SB is not a high end part -- lets get real here, a 200-300$ part isn't considered high end. Similar CPU's in the past have never dropped in price. Good examples would be i7-860, i7-870, and i7-920. The supply simply dried up because intel stopped producing them, and their MSRP never changed.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

History proves you wrong. First off, SB is not a high end part -- lets get real here, a 200$ part isn't considered high end. Similar CPU's in the past have never dropped in price. Good examples would be i7-860, i7-870, and i7-920.

O RLY? Why does it run circles around anything else outside of a dual-socket setup? Or 3x the price with 10%+ extra performance?

 

[Arkaign]

^^ Although it's indeed awesome, the 2500k in particular isn't marketed or positioned as a high-end part in the traditional sense. It's why you see the 'i5' label on it as well. High end for Intel at the moment starts with i7-2600k, and goes back up strangely to the hex-core socket 1366 stuff (which is due for imminent replacement via SB-E).

 

[blackened23]

O RLY? Why does it run circles around anything else outside of a dual-socket setup? Or 3x the price with 10%+ extra performance?

Your "orly" response is cute, so is the 2600k gonna run circles around a 990X in 3ds max? Cinebench? Adobe premiere? x264 video transcoding? No? Will the 2600k perform better in multi threaded applications? Or applications that are optimized for multiple cores? SB performs better in single threaded games that ARENT optimized for multiple cores and multiple threads. So what?

Fact of the matter is, its a great value processor that the enthusiast community latched onto because it performs great in games and overclocks extremely well. And its dirt cheap. Its obviously not the high end for intel, and not everyone uses their PCs solely for gaming. If your'e solely into gaming then sure, 2500/2600k are great. So............do you think its going to lower in price?

 

[Arkaign]

Good luck on your price drop wishes Intel is very slow when it comes to such fantasy's.

No, Intel doesn't traditionally price drop, they usually roll new SKU's through. It's better than AMD though. The last time they had a huge performance lead like this it cost huge bucks to get it. When the X2s came out, the cheapest one was the 3800+ X2, and it was $300. The higher end ones were MUCH more expensive, $500, $700, and $1000. Not to mention they didn't offer them on Socket 754 at all, leaving a lot of people high and dry with systems less than a year old.

To be honest, neither company is very good about keeping sockets over the long haul, and to the same end, both have had some expensive products as well.

~$200ish for the 2500 is a helluva bargain, particularly considering that it can meet or beat basically anything under the sun right now for gaming/home use. Typically prices have been much higher historically for that kind of supremacy.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Your "orly" response is cute, so is the 2600k gonna run circles around a 990X in 3ds max? Cinebench? Adobe premiere? x264 video transcoding? No? Will the 2600k perform better in multi threaded applications? Or applications that are optimized for multiple cores? SB performs better in games that ARENT optimized for multiple cores and multiple threads. So what? I love how you just completely sidestepped the argument away from whether the part will drop in price, and its pretty cute how you think a 200$ part is "high end".

Fact of the matter is, its a great value processor that the enthusiast community latched onto because it performs great in games and overclocks extremely well. And its dirt cheap. Its obviously not the high end for intel, and not everyone uses their PCs solely for gaming. If your'e solely into gaming then sure, 2500/2600k are great. So............do you think its going to lower in price?

Oops. I meant the 2600k [shoulda read the thread title]. And my point still stands. 3x the price. 9-15% performance increase. As with any of Intel's "EXTREME" parts - it's not bloody worth it. Haven't been doing much PC gaming, I use my 2600k for Premiere.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i7-2600k-990x_6.html

And no, I know Intel won't be dropping prices on the 2500k/2600k. I've been here too long.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i7-2600k-990x_11.html#sect0

 

[bridito]

I'm not gonna get into any debates about what does and does not constitute a high end part although it would seem to be self evident. As for the billion+ installed personal computers in the world today, it is also evident that more than 90% of them were not hand built from newegg and other etailers but owned by people who wouldn't know a computer core from a nuclear core. My wife's entire family has laptops or desktops. I just counted them up and there are 23 of them. Not ONE of them can tell you if they have a single-dual-quad-whatever core, and if you peel the sticker off the case they won't be able to tell you if it's AMD, Intel, or FisherPrice. Furthermore, not one of them has a single third party game installed (of course not counting the Zynga dreck from Facebook which is in the cloud). So these people are going to OC what exactly?

As john3850 so courteously acknowledged... there IS a "forum reality shift." Do not fall into its evil clutches!

 

[nyker96]

prediction: intel will bump the clock a bit, but no price drop.

 

[exar333]

The 2500k is already at bargain at just over $200 (and less tha $200 at some places). I cannot think of a more affordable CPU from Intel in many, many years that is this good when compared to the rest of the field. I thought the i7 920 at $299 was good a couple years back, but the 2500k is just an amazing value. Essentially it makes anything else over $125 a 'bad-buy' unless you already have a different MB (read: AMD) and you need a budget CPU to throw in. Unless you need extreme value, or you want/need the HT abilities of the 2600k, it's really THE processor to get right now.

That said, I doubt it will be price-reduced unless BD is just a performance monster. More likely, it will stay at this price and be replaced by a IB version next year.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

price drops on midrange are never huge enough to delay a purchase. if you want to get a good bargain on a mid range intel chip, buy it the day it comes out and use it for a year and a half

 

[RussianSensation]

Fact of the matter is, its a great value processor that the enthusiast community latched onto because it performs great in games and overclocks extremely well. And its dirt cheap. Its obviously not the high end for intel,

Not just that. 990X trades blows with 25/2600k overclocked and can't convincingly defeat them in a lot of situations even outside of games.

It's true that 2500k/2600k are not high-end from a traditional perspective for Intel (i.e., based on price). However, take a look at 4-5 pages of benchmarks that compared overclocked 2500k/2600k vs. an overclocked i7-990x and tell me with a straight face that'd you'd pay $700-800 extra for the 990X processor? :hmm: 2500k/2600k made 980X/990X obsolete in the consumer segment imo. Unless you make $$ by rendering/video encoding, then it's extremely difficult to justify a 990X over a 2600k for anyone outside of the top 5% income earners in America imo!

Don't forget that Intel had previously sold $1000 Extreme Edition Pentium 4s and they weren't faster than an overclocked $300 Athlon 64 chip. So pricing alone doesn't necessarily indicate the best performance overall. Certainly, 990X doesn't live up to that expectations at the moment - which is why so many people who originally wanted a 980/990X are waiting for SB-E.

 

[infoiltrator]

My guess is Intel is using three (maybe two) manufacturing forms for the Core Ix, that can be switched to meet demand. I am not saying unlockable or crippled top line chips, just fundamentally the same cost to produce.
Marketing, right or wrong, decided they would make mre money with a close price spread.
Best I can tell they are right, a lot of people are going Core Ix whether they need to or not, and it is value for money.
Only niggle I see is HD3000 should be standard accross the board. And anyone who cares has options.
Ivy Bridge is pushed back to March 2012.
Bulldozer should be a marketing success, whether or not it is an enthusiast chip. Only reason I can think of for delays was finalizing market appeal.ie, we know what it can do, what combinations of features vs price will sell the most chips?

 

[john3850]

The cheap unlocked cpu is never going down unless intel releases a faster one.
This forum reality shift comes in when there is lack of any new or faster products to toy with.
Once any new cpu gets released this form gets back to a normal overclocking form.