Today, in an unusual announcement, Intel told observers that they prepare to cut the prices of their Quad-core CPU line. Usually, Santa Clara tells about the near future price cuts, but here they extended it to Q3 forecasts: The 2.4GHz Core 2 Quad Q6600 CPUs will go down 70% from $851 to $266 in the third Quarter of 2007. This comes with a number of more usual price cuts for all the Quad-core line.
This all points to bad news for AMD. When they will be ready to present their Barcelona offering (first CPUs able to counter Intel on their Quad-core current monopoly), Intel is going to fight hard and fast on the price. It will be a tough market with Intel out to kill AMD in front of their customers. Q3 will probably see on of the fiercest price fights of CPU history.
All this is probably part of a larger Intel marketing plan. Someting going like: Don’t bother buying waiting for AMD, buy our Quad-cores now; Anyway, Intel will trounce AMD in a few months.