SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Prices for PC motherboards based on Intel Corp.'s Pentium 4 microprocessor are expected to tumble by 25% or more--that is for products built around the company's new SDRAM-enabled Brookdale chip set, according to Asian board makers.
The Brookdale-enabled Pentium 4 boards are expected to narrow the wide and troublesome price gap between these products and motherboards built around the aging Pentium III processor, according to analysts.
At present, the average selling price (ASP) for an existing motherboard based on the Pentium 4 runs about $150 per unit in the distribution and system integration channels. These Pentium 4-based boards are built around Intel's 850 chip set, which only supports Rambus Inc.'s RDRAM memory.
Current Pentium 4-based boards and systems are still expensive, analysts said. In comparison, the ASP for a board based on Intel's Pentium III processor is only about $80 per unit in the channels, sources said.
But Intel hopes to turn the Pentium 4 into its flagship product line, causing the company to take some dramatic measures to achieve these goals. For example, the company recently slashed the prices for the Pentium 4 by up to 50%.
The Brookdale chip set, also known is the 845, is the next measure. When Intel reportedly ships Brookdale in volumes by September or so, the price for a Pentium 4-based board built around this new chip set could run as low as about $110, according to Asian board makers. This is about 25% below the price of a RDRAM-enabled Pentium 4 board, board makers said.
Intel has not officially announced Brookdale, but the company was showing the device at the recent Computex trade show in Taiwan. The 845 chip set enables the Pentium 4 to support less-expensive SDRAM memory (see June 4 story).
However, the Pentium 4-based boards built around the RDRAM-enabled 850 chip set are expected to remain at a premium for the remainder of the year. The ASP of an 850-based board could fall to $140 or below by year's end, board makers said.
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