Intel Prices

Intel CPUs
CPU	Price	Company	Rating
Pentium IV 1.8 GHz	$275	GoogleGear	4.1/7
Pentium IV 1.7 GHz	$199	Spartan	5.1/7
Pentium IV 1.6 GHz	$179	GoogleGear	4.1/7
Pentium IV 1.5 GHz	$162	Spartan	5.1/7
Pentium IV 1.4 GHz	$132	Spartan	5.1/7
Pentium IV 1.3 GHz	$139	Spartan	5.1/7
Pentium III 1 GHz	$183	TCWO	6.1/7
Pentium III 933 MHz	$147	TCWO	6.1/7
Pentium III 866 MHZ	$136	NewEgg	6.4/7
Pentium III 850 MHz	$128	TCWO	6.1/7
Pentium III 800 MHz	$118	Axion	5.8/7
Pentium III 700 MHz	$101	Spartan	5.1/7
Celeron 900 MHz	$74	NewEgg	6.4/7
Celeron 850 MHz	$63	TCWO	6.1/7
Celeron 800 MHz	$53	TCWO	6.1/7
Celeron 766 MHz	$46	TCWO	6.1/7
Celeron 733 MHz	$45	TCWO	6.1/7
Celeron 700 MHz	$42	TCWO	6.1/7

Intel

Yeah, yeah, it's our first pricing guide in ages and we already broke a rule, not to mention it being the cardinal rule! But listen, we have an excuse. The Intel pricing just took a massive cut and most resellers haven't caught up with it yet. We're guessing that most of the companies will fall into line pretty soon. In order to give you an idea of what the prices aught to be, we chose some companies that were not quite up to snuff.

You might also recall that Intel was packaging RDRAM with every retail Pentium 4 package. This is also screwing pricing up a bit. Many retailers still have these packages left, with the prices in combo mode. Take for instance Mwave, they are selling the P4 1.7 GHz with RAM for $424. Cut out the price of a stick of RAM and you get pretty close to the real price of the CPU. This policy of packaging a stick of RAM is at an end now. The last of those deals should be gone pretty soon, making our lives much easier in finding good prices on CPUs.

Slash and burn

As far as these prices go, Intel has cut their margins by quite a bit. Historically, their flagship processor always went for the price of a black market kidney. Despite the low prices, there are reasons to avoid these processors. Socket 478 is going to be jumping onto the scene in early September, making all these processors, and the motherboards upon which they sit, obsolete. The new Pentium 4 will also be the line upon which faster processors will be released. This is one of the greatest factors behind the sudden price drops. No one wants to put together a system that has absolutely no chance of being upgraded.

The Pentium III is slowly being put out to pasture. Like the slower Durons, the prices on these processors are dipping pretty low. If you have a slower Slot 1 or FCPGA CPU, this might the key to a quick speed increase without too much hassle. Although the higher speed Pentium IIIs are out of the question, as a comparable AMD system could be had for far less. The best bet would be the 700 MHz chip, an oldie but a goodie; those chips will most likely hit 1GHz nowadays. A year ago, everyone was pushing the tar out of the 700E by overclocking it to 933 MHz.

Celery?

You probably aren't going to see much benefit from getting a faster Celeron, as the newer Celeron lines come severely neutered. The price is low, but so is the performance. Even if you get a Celeron 900 MHz chip, a Pentium III that is almost 200 MHz slower than it will give it a hard time. Fork over a little more dough and get the PIII. Although, your best bet would be to sell your stuff and get a new setup if you have the time and money.