Say good bye to i7-940

[OutSider]

its OT but i wanna ask is there any price cuts for i7 expected from intel?

[grimREEFER]

That's why I7 is a waste (of money) for gamer.

well, i7 is awesome, blame games for being terribly coded.

[IvanAndreevich]

well, i7 is awesome, blame games for being terribly coded.

You mean blame graphics cards manufacturers for not keeping up with CPU performance increases in the last few years

[naokaji]

I for one couldn't see the justification in such a large premium in price but not performance over the 920, especially for overclockers, and if your not an overclocker, chances are you wouldn't need something that fast, I mean 940 for web surfing?

Not entirely true, there where some really bad clocking 920's out there, Anand had some that could not even do 3.8...
With the 940 you could basically buy a piece of mind that you can avoid the worst few chips out there. Of course, with the release of the 920 D0 that is not necessary anymore.

[Smartidiot89]

Always thaught that Core i7 940 was a waste of money. In my eyes there were only 2 processors: Core i7 920 and 965. Why were the 940 there, and why was it priced so darned high?

[tool_462]

I wish Intel would price their CPU's more like AMD does, the better models cost a decent amount more than the base models to account for the performance difference, but not this crazy doubling/quadrupling of the price for only a few percentage points more performance.

So you want Intel to price their chips like they are the underdog?

Remember AMD's pricing before Core 2 came out?

[gOJDO]

It makes no sense to me. Why not to reduce it's price to $300~350, then introduce the i7-950 at $400~$500, add i7-960(non EE, with locked multi) tot he list at $600~$650 and i7-975 EE at $999.

[dan7777]

q6600 on water at 4.3ghz is still the king in gaming

[aka1nas]

You mean blame graphics cards manufacturers for not keeping up with CPU performance increases in the last few years

Not really, tons of benchmarks are showing that you need a high-clocked I7 to fully feed a high-end SLI setup, let alone a Tri-SLI loadout. If anything, it's the CPU designers that are behind in delivering affordable chips that allow modern GPUs to stretch their legs.

[Jamesrt2004]

So you want Intel to price their chips like they are the underdog?

Remember AMD's pricing before Core 2 came out?

+1 although it would be nice to buy the extreme edition for £20 more then the bottom chip,

Amd did do the same with athlon 64, if you want the best equipment you got to pay top price im afraid =(


-----------------------
On the games side of things it's the crappy lazy coding there game makers are doing to not support quad chips better.

[RaZz!]

It makes no sense to me. Why not to reduce it's price to $300~350, then introduce the i7-950 at $400~$500, add i7-960(non EE, with locked multi) tot he list at $600~$650 and i7-975 EE at $999.

why introduce a couple of new cpus at the same or higher price after even the old one wasn't in demand? THIS wouldn't make sense

however, the 920 is the only i7 cpu that's worth the money, imo; and while looking at future i5 cpus i'm quite sure that i'll skip this generation of cpus altogether. as a gamer i really don't see the point of upgrading to one of these, especially the i5 cpus, while having a decent c2q.

so yeah, that's probably the reason there's only demand for the cheapest i7 (920) and the extreme 965 with its unlocked multi for enthusiasts (with money )

[Viss]

While I agree that the i940 pricing is ridiculous - just as previous chips in that pricing segment (just below the extreme editions) - you guys need to know that the i940 is being replaced by the i950 D0. Now if it were left to me, we all should boycott that chip, but I know for a fact that there are many enthusiasts out there waiting for that particular chip because it offers the easiest way to break the 5Ghz barrier, save for the 965/975.

Agreed. With the 23x multi and boards that are able to push ~ 230 bclk easy i950 wil become a very nice alternative for the 975EE

[mikeyakame]

Agreed. With the 23x multi and boards that are able to push ~ 230 bclk easy i950 wil become a very nice alternative for the 975EE

Great point indeed. I've held back purchasing i7 hardware for myself as I've been waiting on the X58 stepping update to begin circulation, and since the 950 looks like it'll be out round the same time frame as X58 stepping update, might be a good choice. i7 965 are priced around $1800AUD, so the 975 will be even more locally, this is the next best thing!

Other point I would make is, we don't see all that much value in the 940/950 as a viable option because the low end 920 can run circles around it for half the price. Though many of us forget to consider that the 940 probably sold the most units through OEMs like HP, Dell, etc. You don't buy an off the shelf PC and overclock it, you buy it for what it offers and use it like that. If a 940 specs out higher than a 920, then the product is faster for a user who won't be playing with bios settings.

[hecktic]

too bad... but maybe a wise decision since these times in our economy are extremely tight even for gamers.

p.s. I am doing an economics research paper on amd vs intel covering all aspects of the financial side of the two giants plus some commentary/opinion on the product lines of the two. if anyone wants to help or offer any suggestions or tips feel free to shoot me a pm.

[Donnie27]

Always thaught that Core i7 940 was a waste of money. In my eyes there were only 2 processors: Core i7 920 and 965. Why were the 940 there, and why was it priced so darned high?

The only thing in your eyes was AMD,j/k

I can't believe some of the things I'm hearing about prices compared to CRAP folks were calling good and great deals just 3 years ago about this time. i7 940 is from a better Bin than i920. They'll make room for i7 950 and it will sale as well. But not to me LOL!

[DdotRoq]

I bought a 940 and it clocks pretty nice. Highest clocks between the 920 / 940 (atleast the batch I received), however I probably would be at the same with a 920 D0.

Won't be worth it to upgrade for me yet until 995 or something is released. I'm waiting for a factory clocked 3.6+ XE cpu is released.

[icecpu]

So the 950 will replace the 940 with the same price range around $ 550 ???

[highoctane]

So the 950 will replace the 940 with the same price range around $ 550 ???

Yes...

[affiliate13]

Be careful when you get out of bed in the morning, you might knock over that framed picture of Jen-Hsun Huang on your night stand.

..should be sig'd.

[Arkangyl]

partially the economy, partially Intel's fault. Not too long ago the Core 2 Quad lineup ranged from $250 (6600) into the $400-500 range.

lately CPU prices have come back down (Quad is 150 - 350, Duo is 60 - 230), then Intel left i7 in the old C2Q range.

Then they put turbo-mode on i7 so the 920 would, when needed, be a 940.

Really with i7 being positioned as the 'higher-level' chip Intel might be best suited following AMD a bit:

$230 i7 920 (i.e. what Microcenter currently charges)
$300 i7 920x (unlocked 920)
$800 i7 XE (top-binned, unlocked i7)

but that's just me

[cobra_kai]

I just wish the CPU market would get as competitive as the GPU market. Look what the 48XX series did to nvidia's pricing. Those 280s dropped something like 200 dollars overnight after the 4870 numbers came out. If AMD could come out with a chip that is as fast, or at least nearly as fast as say the 920 and price it where they have their Phenom II 955 BE now... the price wars would be awesome.

[highoctane]

I just wish the CPU market would get as competitive as the GPU market. Look what the 48XX series did to nvidia's pricing. Those 280s dropped something like 200 dollars overnight after the 4870 numbers came out. If AMD could come out with a chip that is as fast, or at least nearly as fast as say the 920 and price it where they have their Phenom II 955 BE now... the price wars would be awesome.

As in the past if AMD had a chip that performed at the same level or better than Intel then AMD would be charging more for the higher bins. It's not like AMD want to be pricing their top BE's at low end Intel quad prices.

[naokaji]

As in the past if AMD had a chip that performed at the same level or better than Intel then AMD would be charging more for the higher bins. It's not like AMD want to be pricing their top BE's at low end Intel quad prices.

QFT.

Here are some AMD prices from 4 years ago.

Athlon 64 X2 4200+ $537
Athlon 64 X2 4400+ $581
Athlon 64 X2 4600+ $803
Athlon 64 X2 4800+ $1001

source

[Arkangyl]

So true, to be fair I recall GeForce 6800 Ultras being $700 or so, *sigh* good, err, old days

Between Phenom II X3 and X4 and Intel's Core 2 Duo & Quad lines, the $80-250 segment is pretty damn good for CPUs right now.

i7 is cool for being the 'new tech on the block' and with the Microcenter i7 920 prices, it's hard to say no if you're building a new system, but ultimately there just isn't that much reason to go i7 or C2Q 9x50 or even an e8600 depending on what you need.

[rocket733]

There's a lot more than goes into pricing than meets the eye. While it's possible to sell more chips at a cheaper price, whether or not it's a good idea depends on the price elasticity of demand. This determines how many more chips will be sold given the price, so a price drop of $1 might only sell 1 more chip, or a price drop of $100 might only sell 3 or 4 more chips so it really depends on this measurement along with many other factors to correctly determine prices to maximize revenue and profits.