According to memos recently obtained by DailyTech, AMD will drastically cut prices on its desktop processors after the July 23rd release of Intel’s Core 2 Duo Conroe processors. The memos that DailyTech has secured are between AMD and Japanese system manufacturers and indicate the following price cuts will become effective July 24th, 2006:

    * AMD Athlon 64 price cuts will receive price cut up to 30%
    * AMD Athlon 64 X2 will receive price cuts up to 50%
    * AMD Sempron processors will receive price cuts up to 15%

The memos only mention the AM2 processors; however the AM2 parts are now priced identically with Socket 939 components.  AMD has previously indicated that the aim of the AM2 processors was to be price competitive with its legacy components.

Intel already announced that it will also cut prices of its Pentium D and Pentium 4 processors between now and the general availability of Conroe.  Conroe benchmarks have recently surfaced with significant performance advantages over Athlon 64, but the largest advantage of the processor until now has been the price advantage.  With AMD and Intel in a price war over next generation processors, ultimately consumers will benefit the most.

65nm SOI AMD Athlon 64 Revision G processors are expected to ship this December.  The memo also stated that AMD will not publicly announce the price cuts on its processor line until after the Conroe launch to avoid cannibalizing its current sales of AM2 CPUs.

Update from the EIC 12/06/2006: Digitimes is also running a story on this subject, claiming the Athlon 64 3800+ will fall to prices as  low as $152, and that a similar performing Pentium D 945 will run for $163 at the same time.