Staff Techdrunk 
Yahoo! News reports that, Intel has decided to reduce the prices of it Core 2 Duo processors and has slashed the rates by as much as 31%. This surprising move can be speculated as Intel’s move to keep its grip firm on the international desktop market. By far the largest price drop has been witnessed in its E8500 Core 2 Duo processor. The E8500, is the fastest in the line of Core 2 Duo processors with a speed of 3.16-GHz and its price has been brought down to $183 from $266. Even the Quad Core processors didn’t escape the price cut and model Q6600 price has been reduced to $193 from $224.
The E8400 processor, with a speed of a 3.00-GHz is also now available at bottom price tag of $183. The buzz around is that, such a move is usually made by Intel, when it needs to phase out the slower processor in the face of the faster one. Does it mean that, we should be expecting the same fate befalling upon E8400? We sure think so!
The E7200, E4600 and E4500 Core 2 Duo processors have all been brought down to the same price of $113, a slash 13%. However, E4600 and E4500 are slower than E7200 and they also have only 2 MB (mega bytes) of level-2 cache or cache memory. Thus it sort of makes the decision making a bit confusing for the consumers.
It seems that, through these massive price cuts, Intel is clearing the way for its top of the line Core 2 Quad lineup. Intel’s server-based Xeon line also saw some price reductions. The X3220 (2.4 GHz) processor dropped to $198 from $224.
