BEIJING, April 22 (Xinhuanet) --  Intel cut the prices of Core 2 Quad and Xeon up to 50 percent, a slap in the face to rival AMD -- long known as the low-price alternative in the chip market, Intel announced on its website Monday.

    According to Intel's new price list, its Q6700 Core 2 Quad processor price decreased from 530 U.S. dollars to 266 dollars for a shipment of 1,000 chips -- a 50 percnet change. The Intel Xeon X3230 also had its price slashed in half, dropping from 530 dollars to 266 dollars.

    The company also noted that the price of 1,000 Core 2 Duo E6850 chips was cut from 266 dollars to 183 dollars, a 31 percent drop, while the Intel Celeron 430 dipped 23 percent, to 34 dollars. And the price of an Intel Xeon 3085 shipment was cut from 266 dollars to 188 dollars.

    Patrick Ward, a spokesman for Intel, noted that most of the processors on the price-cut list were built on 65 nanometer technology, which Intel is phasing out in favor of its new 45nm chips. It's akin to car dealers cutting the prices on last year's models to make room for the latest ones.

    "This really keeps up the pressure on AMD," said Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group Inc. "Intel blankets the market from high end to low end, with multiple choices at almost every price point -- each competitive with AMD on either performance or price or both. They're making sure they have a compelling price and/or performance value proposition in every segment where they compete with AMD. In short, it isn't getting any easier to compete with Intel."

    AMD said last week that it's on track to ship its first 45nm chips in volume in the fourth quarter. If that is when AMD enters the 45nm race, the company will be about a year behind Intel, which shipped its first 45nm Penryn chip this past November.

    (Agencies)