Core i7 prices: Seriously?

[shifty]

$279 for the cheapest CPU at NewEgg?

What the hell is so special about it? It's like, hardly even 2.6GHz.

Has anyone seen a sub-$100 i7 chip out?

When do we get to start buying stock, out-of-the-box 4.0GHz CPUs that cose less than $300-400?

I just don't get it. CPU market is getting to be about like the GPU/vidcard industry. You get 2% performance increase each time, if that, and they charge you 50% more than the average price of its predecessor when it came to market.

[Wes]

hhe. i can certainly wait for the price to drop.

[Cor]

That i7 will do 4Ghz most often with a little overclocking.
The i5 will be out soon and cheaper. Wait a little longer.
I do agree the market is very stagnant. I would have thought we would see 5Ghz (stock) -10Ghz by now but it's all going multi-core instead of speed.

[Ninjahedge]

I have popped over to Sharkeyextreme every so often (I think they are running low on funds though... reviews are MUCH less frequent) and their weekly CPU story has been, for the past 4 months of so, an exercise in finding different ways to say "stagnant"....

http://www.sharkeyextreme.com/

Weekly CPU Prices - Week of August 17, 2009 (http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/WCPG/article.php/3835616)-August 21, 2009
Unfortunately, prices drops are even more a rarity in this week's guide than what we saw in the previous week's edition. Only a few of the prices we track fell at all and only one fell by more than a few dollars. The rest, for the most part, held right where they've been for weeks.

Weekly CPU Prices - Week of August 10, 2009 (http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/WCPG/article.php/3834646)-August 14, 2009
This week's guide contains one double-digit price drop from each camp; and each camp's prices held otherwise steady. Price drops, unfortunately, remain a rarity, with few prices dropping at all and fewer still dropping by enough to draw much interest.

Weekly CPU Prices - Week of August 3, 2009 (http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/WCPG/article.php/3833751)-August 7, 2009
As we've seen all too often, recently, most of the prices we tracked in this week's guide held steady or fell by too little to take much notice of. A few modest price drops can be found, here and there; but unfortunately, they remain too much the exception and nowhere near the rule.

Weekly CPU Prices - Week of July 27, 2009 (http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/WCPG/article.php/3832756)-July 31, 2009
By and large, prices continued to stagnate across all sections of this week's price guide. A few minor price drops can be found scattered here and there; but none that are likely to send many readers running for their wallets.

Weekly CPU Prices - Week of July 20, 2009 (http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/WCPG/article.php/3831676)-July 24, 2009
While prices, on average, continued to hold steady, we did see a handful of price drops in this week's guide, mostly coming in on higher-end offerings from the two camps. Hopefully, this will prove to be the start some increased price competition and result in more downward price movement in the coming weeks.

Weekly CPU Prices - Week of July 13, 2009 (http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/WCPG/article.php/3830536)-July 17, 2009
While prices, on average, continued to hold steady, we did see a handful of price drops in this week's guide, mostly coming in on higher-end offerings from the two camps. Hopefully, this will prove to be the start some increased price competition and result in more downward price movement in the coming weeks.

Weekly CPU Prices - Week of July 6, 2009 (http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/WCPG/article.php/3829306)-July 10, 2009
The prices we tracked in this week's guide held about as steady as we've seen them be in a while. Only two prices (one from each camp) dropped at all, in fact, and a few others moved slightly upwards. But by and large, prices held right where they've been for weeks.

Weekly CPU Prices - Week of June 29, 2009 (http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/WCPG/article.php/3828401)-July 6, 2009
For the most part, prices continued to stagnate in this week's CPU Price Guide. But a few price drops can be found scattered amongst the various sections of the guide, with a few of those dropping by enough to merit at least some attention.

Weekly CPU Prices - Week of June 22, 2009 (http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/WCPG/article.php/3827256)-June 26, 2009
A few significant prices drops help keep things interesting this week's CPU guide. And we remain hopeful that the coming weeks will bring even more of the same. But by and large, most of the prices we track held right where they've been for weeks.

Weekly CPU Prices - Week of June 15, 2009 (http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/WCPG/article.php/3826031)-June 19, 2009
While this week's did contain a couple of double-digit price drops (literally... one from each camp), the overall trend continued to be one of general stagnation. But as we move toward the end of the second quarter and the beginning of the third, we're hopeful that increased competition between the two camps will translate into more in the way of price drops.

[Dr. Death]

It's all about wide, not fast these days. It's very hard to get 2x increases in speed from 3 GHz, but it's easy to double the bus width to 64 or slap another core in there.

The reason is because anything faster than a few GHz requires that the engineers designing the chips and boards be well versed in microwave transmission principles--skin effect, standing wave ratio, length of transmission lines, etc. The propagation delay of a signal from one side of the wafer to the other is significant.

It also means much more heat. All these circuits are based on CMOS technology, which is low power ONLY when it's static. A chip running 2x faster will consume 4x more power and generate 4x more heat.

So yes, clock speeds are going down and the core count and bus width is going up.

Fortunately, I think there is still some headroom in the Front/Side bus, which is where the real benefits of speed increases will be seen.