The word from the CPU rumor mill is that Intel is planning more major price cuts, and following slashing the asking prices of the incoming Cascade Lake-X processors, Skylake-X pricing will be decimated in line with that.
As you may well be aware, Intel cut pricing on its Cascade Lake-X CPUs (which are due in November) more or less in half, and now according to German tech site Computer Base, similar cuts to the tune of up to 50% are coming to Skylake-X, Intel’s current high-end desktop CPUs.
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Naturally, it makes sense that prices will have to be cut with the preceding generation once Cascade Lake-X is launched – otherwise we have a situation where the new CPUs are way cheaper than the last-gen Skylake-X. So who on earth would buy the latter?
So in a way, these price drops must happen for the remaining inventory of Skylake-X to be sold, and presumably retailers will be compensated by Intel for having to flog off these chips so (relatively) cheaply – otherwise they could be seriously out of pocket, and therefore seriously annoyed at the chip giant.
That said, Computer Base observes that stock of Skylake-X is getting thin on the ground with some models anyway, which makes equal sense as Intel winds up production and prepares the next-gen CPUs for launch.
But still, the upshot is if you want a cheap Skylake-X chip, then they could be available – at least for a time – in the near future, if this speculation is correct.
Buyer’s rage?
Naturally those who have just purchased a Skylake-X model in recent times have every right to feel a little cheesed off (again, assuming this comes to pass as reported).
Intel is also slashing the prices of its Intel Xeon W CPUs, in the face of the growing threat from AMD – with the server market being a particular worry – and has made some more minor cuts to its bread-and-butter budget processors recently, too.
Will we see more price cutting from Intel going forward? This is far from out of the question, and indeed one recent theory is that Intel’s plan is to outmuscle AMD with $3 billion worth of CPU price cuts. Although this potential scenario is also playing out against rumors of continued stock shortages for Intel…
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Via Wccftech
