Intel Core Duo Price Drops in May?

[billyboy]

Apple is in whole different playing field now and they must adjust accordingly.

How about Dell are in a whole new playing field and have to adapt to the challenge of an amazing software package included with all (expensive) Apple hardware.!!!!

Apple have all the balls in their court with all 3 main OS es able to run natively and the killer advantage is that arguably the best of the OS es, OS X is fully supported by Apple who happen to be the manufacturer of the hardware it runs on. This is something Dell and co cant even think about offering, let alone do. Mikey and the Intel-using PC manufacturers without an OS or any decent bundled multimedia software of their own will be reevaluating their business model, not Steve.

 

[gnasher729]

so the price of chips from intel may be going down, and theoretically this should affect macbook prices, but when would the consumer get to see the actual price changes?

They already did.

Compare the MacBook Pro as it was announced with the MacBook Pro as it has been shipping. Then compare the new Intel prices with the old ones and notice that the next faster chip costs exactly as much as the slower one cost before. Then ask yourself whether Apple has to wait for reduced prices as anyone else, or whether there is maybe a special relationship between Intel and Apple.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Apple is going to have to adapt their pricing structure now that they are on intel chips. They can't just keep their computers significantly higher than the competitors with the same specs becuase it would kill possible buyers. Why buy a mac when the dell is $500 cheaper for the same stuff?

I haven't been over to Dell.com for a while, but would you mind spec'ing out a Dell w/comparaible hardware and software to a Mac so I can have the most update picture of the significant price difference between the two?

I tend to agree w/the posters that think we'll see speed bumps but not price drops.


Lethal

 

[fishkorp]

Asking someone to just go to dell.com isn't a fair evaluation of their pricing. If you've ordered from Dell before or hunt deal websites you get coupons to greatly lower the price of a machine. Just last week they had this config:

Intel Core Duo processor T2300 (2MB Cache/1.66GHz/667MHz FSB)
Genuine Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display
FREE 1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 Dimm
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
40GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive
Dell Wireless 1390 802.11b/g Mini Card (54Mbps)
53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
1Yr Ltd Warranty, 1Yr Mail-In Service, and 1Yr HW Warranty Support

For $578 +tax/shipping after coupons. Granted it's not up to MBP specs, but it's also $1500 less. The Acer with comparable specs to the MBP goes for about $1499, $1299 when on sale at CompUSA.

Irregardless of the price, I'm keeping my eyes open for the 13.3" MacBook when it's available 🙂

 

[BenRoethig]

yay, more profits to apple. Can someone tell me when the macbooks will be available for order, not delivery, just order.

Yeah, pretty much. I doubt we're going to see a cent of that price drop.

 

[wildmannz]

No price drop here people...

Some people seem to forget that Apple got a RATHER good deal with Intel in the first place.
Apple would have started with a very aggressive price point for the Intel chips... probably a decent margin under what competitors pay.
These price drops (which don't state quantities - i.e. per 1000) might just bring that to par with what Aple already pays.

Some other people also forget about the speed bump that MBPs got on release.
No price drop on the MacBooks and MacBook Pros.
And why would you expect one. Perhaps this time next year when an upgraded product is out.🙂

 

[BWhaler]

yay, more profits to apple. Can someone tell me when the macbooks will be available for order, not delivery, just order.

You're joking, right?

Apple hasn't even announced that the product exists, is going to be called MacBook, specs, etc. Sure, the replacement is coming, but you need to be patient.

 

[zenvision]

when do you think we'll see the speed bump to 2.33? june? i'm wondering whether to wait...

ah theres always something better around the corner... 😉

 

[MacinDoc]

In the most confused reader of the day contest, we have our winner. 🙂 I understood the other post just fine -- he wants to buy a 1.83 core duo processor for under $200 to put in the 1.5 mini, which, effectively, makes it faster than Apple's $799 mini for less money.

...which would work just fine, if he wanted to upgrade 1000 Minis, but since this is unit price when ordered in lots of 1000 processors, I doubt it will save him much money...

 

[weldon]

...which would work just fine, if he wanted to upgrade 1000 Minis, but since this is unit price when ordered in lots of 1000 processors, I doubt it will save him much money...

You'd be surprised at how close the 1000 lot price is to the retail price. The Core Duo 2.0GHz (T2500) already sells for less at retail than the price announced for 1000 lot orders less than two months ago (Mid Feb). As another point of reference, the current retail price is 20% less than the 1Ku tray unit pricing published in Jan '06.

 

[SoGood]

Apple can keep their price point, as long as they increase the value of other components eg. HD, RAM, optical drives etc.

 

[SeaFox]

The price of the high end 2.16GHz Core Duo that is a build to order option for the MacBook Pro is set to drop as much as $214 per unit. The slower clocked chips will see more modest price drops ($129 drop for the 1.83GHz chip and $54 drop for the 1.66GHz chip). Also expected is a 2.33GHz T2700 Core Duo processor later this year.

This does not necessarily mean a price drop on corresponding Macs, however. Apple historically has been relatively consistent in their Mac pricing for the duration of a product's lifespan.

So who cares? 🙄

I haven't ever seen Apple lower the price of a product when the components get suddenly cheaper mid life. I assume part of the reason is Apple gets contracted prices that are lower than regular retail to start with.

 

[BillyShears]

Not good enough for some

Uh... "if you wait, you really can get the system cheaper in a few months." Just wait until the new models are released or speed bumped, and the old ones always drop in price. 🙂

There are a lot of people in the Mac community that want the fastest Mac they can get.

For them, if Apple drops the price on the high end models that is ideal.

If Apple drops the price on the current high end models, and introduces faster models at the old price, this is no good. They still have to pay the same price and get no benefit. (Except the speed/specs increase, but this is negligible to them, anyway.)

 

[Lollypop]

I think Apple (if they will be saving anything) will absorb the profit, but hopefully they use to to further improve their other hardware offerings, improved iSight, bigger HDD, new case designs and materials, R&D.... I wont mind if apple keeps the money but in the end of the day spend it to make their hardware even cooler!

 

[gnasher729]

Asking someone to just go to dell.com isn't a fair evaluation of their pricing. If you've ordered from Dell before or hunt deal websites you get coupons to greatly lower the price of a machine. Just last week they had this config:

If you managed to order one and receive one at that price and get all the money for your coupons, you can post it here. Dell doesn't want you to get the machine cheap. If they wanted that, they would just sell them cheap.

Last week, I had to help someone on a very, very limited budget to buy a computer. A Mac Mini plus monitor was unfortunately not within the budget. Dell was definitely not the cheapest (in a usable configuration); the cheapest was a local supermarket. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing out there that can beat the 17 inch iMac at value for money. There are crap PCs that are cheaper, but nothing at the same price that comes near it.

 

[jamieg]

Help Me Clear Things Up

I will be looking to replace my 12" PowerBook when the intel replacement comes, I'm getting a bit confused!

Will these price drops affect the price/spec of the MacBook straight away? I dont want to shell out for one to find the has been a drop in price or bump in spec soon after.

With these price drops are apple likely to put 2.33GHz T2700 into higher end laptops (or even in MacBooks)? Do you think its wise to wait and see what happens once the 2.33GHz T2700 is out there before replacing my 12" PowerBook?

In fewer words, WHEN will it be safe to replace my 12" PowerBook without wishing I held out for a few weeks/months more?

 

[BWhaler]

if apple is really serious about trying to lure PC users, they will have to drop the prices. Someone in the market for a laptop will look at Dell, Sony, Toshiba and will have even less incentive to now pay a double premium for a Mac.

Not necessarily true at all.

Apple's doesn't want the $299 CompUSA buyer. They are massively unprofitable on the whole. It's why the PC side of the business has basically fallen apart except for the high end and Dell. Everyone else is gone or dying.

I STRONGLY recommend everyone read www.daringfireball.com to understand how Apple thinks and works.

In there John Grubner, astutely points out key points pundits and Apple fans alike miss:

1. Apple's market share is not a random 3-5% of the market, it is the premium market.
2. Apple has a high share of the profits of the industry
3. The mass market of the PC business is highly unprofitable
4. Apple makes 95%+ of their money from hardware.
5. For Apple to explode their revenue, they need to add 1-3% of the high end PC market, not 25% marketshare of the unprofitable masses. Therefore, they don't need to massively drop their prices.

So, expect prices to be more competitive, but thinking it's smart for Apple to go after the $299 desktop business or the $699 laptop business shows a basic lack of understanding of how Apple remains competitive and healthy. (Don't forget the cheap clones almost killed Apple.)

 

[BWhaler]

Some people seem to forget that Apple got a RATHER good deal with Intel in the first place.

Bingo. You seem to be the only poster who gets this.

Apple has their own deal with Intel. So the mass market (for lots of 1,000 chips) prices drop, so what.

And seriously, has anyone thought this through? Apple lowers the price, and then upgrades the chip in 3 months and raises the price. Then, 6 months later, lowers the price and then... It's idiotic.

Apple, who negotiated to buy 10's of millions of Intel chips over several years, has an entirely different deal. This is not news at all.

 

[LethalWolfe]

For $578 +tax/shipping after coupons. Granted it's not up to MBP specs, but it's also $1500 less. The Acer with comparable specs to the MBP goes for about $1499, $1299 when on sale at CompUSA.

Well crank it up to MBP specs and get back to me w/the cost. Of course a lesser product should cost less. That is the reason I asked for machines w/"comparable hardware and software." Does the Dell come w/programs comparable to iMovie, iDVD, Garageband, iPhoto, or Front Row (w/remote)? Does it have a built in webcam? How much more is it to bump the Dell up to at least an 80gig HDD? Blue tooth? DVI out? Optical audio out? A comparable GFX card? Firewire? DVD burner?


Lethal

 

[Kelmon]

Yonah vs. Merom

Well the Meroms are coming out later this year making these core duos obsolete so this comes as no big shock. When Merom is released, the Core Duo prices will probably go down even more. I hope Apple keeps using Core Duo processors in the mini and iBook systems even when Merom comes out for pricing purposes.

Can anyone tell me what the advantages are of Merom over Core Duo, other than being 64bit? It's been stated that it will increase battery life because it runs cooler but by how much?

I was kinda hoping that someone else would address this question. However, as no one else has I'll have a bash at it myself.

The big difference between Yonah and Merom, as best as I can tell, is one of performance and power consumption. Yonah represents a re-design of the older Pentium M processor that worked so well in older notebooks while Merom (and the rest of the Intel Core Microarchitecture processor family) represents an all-new architecture. As you noted, 64-bit and power consumption are the biggest new factors that Merom brings. From my reading on the subject (see AnandTech and Wikipedia) the following are the main benefits:

1. 64-Bit processing to support more than 4GB RAM (great for desktops/servers, perhaps of limited use in a notebook)

2. Lower power consumption by doing things like combining 2 instructions into 1 and therefore saving a clock cycle, and scaling power usage according to processor load

3. Support for faster Front Sided Bus to access main memory (800MHz with Merom; 1.33GHz for the Server/Desktop versions)

Hardware supported virtualisation had been proposed as another selling point for these processors but, as we know from the Parallel Workstation product, this is already supported in Yonah.

While the power consumption required by Merom is lower than Yonah, don't expect to be seeing much in the way of increased battery performance. Most likely the laptop will be set to use its more efficient processing to do more with the same power and therefore outperform an equivalently clocked Yonah by about 20% or more (Quake 4 demonstration showed a 25% performance increase over Yonah in the AnandTech article).

This is most definitely the processor that I have been waiting for but, as the AnandTech article shows, there's another decision to make - do you buy a Merom system with Napa Refresh platform or do you wait for the Santa Rosa platform to be released in 2007 (Q1, I believe)? The Napa Refresh will basically give you what is provided in a MacBook Pro today (i.e. 667MHz FSB, 802.11b/g wireless support, etc.) whereas Santa Rosa will allow the FSB to run at 800MHz and provide 802.11n wireless support. Personally, I'm through waiting so I'll be ordering a Merom-based 17" system as soon as they are announced, but if you don't need one straight away then it may be wise to wait a few months. Of course, just because Intel releases these chips doesn't necessarily means that Apple will release new MacBook Pro's, but we can hope...

 

[AidenShaw]

1. 64-Bit processing to support more than 4GB RAM (great for desktops/servers, perhaps of limited use in a notebook)

2. Lower power consumption by doing things like combining 2 instructions into 1 and therefore saving a clock cycle, and scaling power usage according to processor load

3. Support for faster Front Sided Bus to access main memory (800MHz with Merom; 1.33GHz for the Server/Desktop versions)

4. Higher performance (in 64-bit mode) due the ISA changes in the x64 architecture (more registers, etc)

Also, for your point #1, 64-bit is needed for a single process to use more than 4 GiB of RAM - it is not needed to support more than 4 GiB per *system*.

A G4 can support 64 GiB of RAM, as can 32-bit Intel workstation/server CPUs. Apple never exploited this capability, but it was common for 32-bit Intel servers to support 8 GiB, 12 GiB or more. The Intel/AMD x64 chips can support up to 64 GiB even when running in 32-bit mode.

 

[D*I*S_Frontman]

Apple's doesn't want the $299 CompUSA buyer. They are massively unprofitable on the whole. It's why the PC side of the business has basically fallen apart except for the high end and Dell. Everyone else is gone or dying.

I STRONGLY recommend everyone read www.daringfireball.com to understand how Apple thinks and works.

1. Apple's market share is not a random 3-5% of the market, it is the premium market.
2. Apple has a high share of the profits of the industry
3. The mass market of the PC business is highly unprofitable
4. Apple makes 95%+ of their money from hardware.
5. For Apple to explode their revenue, they need to add 1-3% of the high end PC market, not 25% marketshare of the unprofitable masses. Therefore, they don't need to massively drop their prices.

So, expect prices to be more competitive, but thinking it's smart for Apple to go after the $299 desktop business or the $699 laptop business shows a basic lack of understanding of how Apple remains competitive and healthy. (Don't forget the cheap clones almost killed Apple.)

Best post so far. Dead on.

BTW, the healthy profit margins + insane iPod profits = aggressive R&D, which means better systems in the future. No, Apple is not designing CPUs, GPUs, or any other component on in their products. But they have the deep pockets to get design details right, to craft very user-friendly and stable software, and to focus on end-user ease of use and productivity with near-evangelistic zeal.

To focus on initial price and ignore TCO is a fool's game. I have NEVER had to reinstall an OS on a system. I got the "Scores" virus on my old 512ke back in the late 80's, which was the last time I have ever had a virus of any kind. Where I work the IT department deals with viruses, trojan horses, and goofball XP incompatabilities on almost a daily basis. The main system in my department has had XP reinstalled twice in the 2 years I've been with the company, all due to virus hacks.

For people in content creation fields, downtime is VERY expensive. In a recording studio, even a cheap DIY home one, people bill anywhere from $30-100/hour for studio time. Just one system glitch that takes half a day to resolve completely eats up whatever savings might have been realized from buying a PC vs. a Mac. Not to mention how it affects your reputation, or your own piece of mind.

Apple is NOT going to lower prices on most of their line. The Minis and iMacs will be the lower cost "switcher" systems, and prices there may dip just a bit, but they'll never be a true "bargain" compared to PC offerings. And higher-end towers and laptops will always be offered at premium prices.

That's the price of superior hardware/software integration, security, stability, and user-friendliness.

 

[ready2switch]

You're not paying for the components when you buy a mac. Plain and simple.

Agreed. If you're just shopping for the cheapest components you can find "usable" machines for well under Apple's price points.

But, you get what you pay for 😛

 

[bbyrdhouse]

Personally I don't think it would be wise for Apple to lower their prices too much.
I think it would create a couple of problems:

1. There would be too many people switching to Macs too fast. This would create alot of customer support issues. (I know that for all of the "better designed, better built" arguments out there, I have had to send in my G4 Powerbook in for repair 4 times in less than a year.)

2. Apple (the company) needs to be able to grow with it's customer base. So that they will be able to handle the supply / demand issues.

People are switching to Macs all the time now and that trend will continue IF, Apple maintains an attitude of creating a better product that just works.

Lowering the prices too low would I think do more to harm Apple than help Apple. (note Gateway, Dell)

Apple is not a "bargain basement" computer. Although, when you buy a Mac you really do get a bargain.

 

[Whistleway]

1. Apple's market share is not a random 3-5% of the market, it is the premium market.
2. Apple has a high share of the profits of the industry
3. The mass market of the PC business is highly unprofitable
4. Apple makes 95%+ of their money from hardware.
5. For Apple to explode their revenue, they need to add 1-3% of the high end PC market, not 25% marketshare of the unprofitable masses. Therefore, they don't need to massively drop their prices.

There are some tiny holes in this logic. You can't just increase 1-3% of high end PC market. Because it just doesn't exist. Anyone who spends major moola to get a computer knows about Apple and still choose to buy PC. Their reasons may vary. Apple's strategy to create artificial barriers discourages them away from ever trying out a Mac. But, they are improving now with Bootcamp as a start.

Apple has long been missing out the low hanging fruits that would push them to around 10% market share with a marginal change in their strategy. Why create barriers that prevents them from switching?

While you are at it, fire most of the apple store employees who just think they are too cool to be out there. 😉