As predicted back in June, Intel has introduced a series of price cuts for a wide range of PC processors. The most notable of these is a 47.6% cut in the price of the Intel Core i7 950 quad-core processor, from US $562 to $294. This heats up competition severely in the $250~$300 bracket with Intel-AMD competition as well as competition among Intel processors of various platforms. In this bracket, you will now find the Core i7 860 priced at $283, Core i7 870 and Core i7 930 at $289; and now Core i7 950 at $294, quite a mix danger-close to each other. If you add AMD to the concoction, the six-core Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition is going for $290. If you're a high-end dual-core fan, Intel has Core i5 670 for you at $299. In addition to this, Intel released some new chips that include Core i3 560 at $138, Pentium Dual Core E6800 at US$86, and Celeron E3500 at $53.

Acer, the world's second largest vendor in the PC market, today announced its newest Acer Aspire "Predator" gaming desktop PC is armed for combat and ready to do battle in the U.S. A force to be reckoned with, the power-packed AG7750-U2222 gaming rig harnesses the pinnacle of processor, graphics and memory technologies for conquering the fiercest opponents.

Taking bold style and performance to a killer level, the Aspire Predator is designed for avid gamers with a "take no prisoners" attitude. It's a monster machine outfitted with plenty of ammo, including Intel Core i7 quad-core processors, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 graphics with 3-way SLI support and a whopping 12GB DDR3 memory for blowing away the competition.

A recent report by HKEPC shows that Intel will be cutting the prices of certain key SKUs to make them and the price-point they're targeting, more competitive. For instance, until now available for over US $500, and replaced by the Core i7 960, the Core i7 950 (LGA1366, 3.06 GHz, quad-core) chip will be placed at the $294 price-point, displacing the Core i7 930 2.80 GHz chip.

With the value segment, the socket LGA1156 Core i3 500 series chips will have a new SKU, the Core i3 560. This dual-core chip is clocked at 3.33 GHz, and priced at $138. Intel has recently released its new $200 LGA1156 quad-core chip, the Core i5 760 2.80 GHz. The new pricing will be effective from August 29.

The much talked about 'value' addition to Intel's Core i7 series in the LGA-1366 package, the Core i7 930, has begun being listed on online stores. The quad-core upper-performance segment chip is listed on popular European retailer, Home of Hardware (HOH.de), for 254.82 €, around 25 € higher than the price of Core i7 920 (D0 stepping) on the same store. Company roadmaps suggest two things about the positioning of this SKU: 1. that it will displace the Core i7 920 from its price-point, and eventually replace it; and 2. that February 28 could be the date when this SKU becomes official to markets worldwide.

The Core i7 930 is based on Intel's 45 nm Bloomfield D0 core. The quad-core chip comes in LGA-1366 package, and operates at 2.80 GHz (133 MHz x 21), with a Turbo Boost speed of 3.06 GHz (133 MHz x 23). It has HyperThreading technology enabled, to provide the operating system with 8 logical CPUs to deal with. It has 256 KB of L2 cache per core, and 8 MB of shared L3 cache. The QuickPath Interconnect between the chip and the X58 chipset operates at 4.80 GT/s. It features a triple-channel on-die memory controller. Most existing LGA-1366 motherboards should support it, some requiring BIOS updates.

Contrary to older reports, Intel will stick to the Core i7 brand identifier to sell its first consumer (client) six-core processor based on the Nehalem architecture, codenamed "Gulftown". The first offering of these socket LGA-1366 processors, is the Core i7 980X Extreme Edition. Its positioning and pricing shows that Intel will replace its current flagship desktop processor, the Core i7 975 Extreme Edition with it, and at the very same price-point of US $999 (in 1000 unit tray quantities).

A future price list also shows that the Core i7 980X Extreme Edition is slated for March 2010. A month ahead of its launch, Intel will introduce the Core i7 930, which succeeds the Core i7 920 at its price-point of $284. The Gulftown core will be manufactured on Intel's brand new 32 nm HKMG process, it features 6 processing cores with 12 threads (HyperThreading Technology), triple-channel DDR3 memory with its integrated memory controller, 6.4 GT/s QPI link to the Intel X58 Express chipset, 12 MB of L3 cache, compatibility to platforms that support the Core i7 9xx processors, and 130W TDP. The Core i7 980X Extreme Edition comes with a clock speed of 3.33 GHz, The Core i7 930 on the other hand, is a quad-core processor which runs at 2.80 GHz.

Intel's Core i7 LGA-1366 performance segment processors is in for another update, past the recent introduction of the Core i7 960 (3.20 GHz). The newest entry replaces the popular Core i7 920, and leverages the company's socket LGA-1366 platform as the ultimate high-performance desktop platform. The Core i7 930, like all processors in the Core i7 900 series, runs on motherboards with the Intel X58 Express chipset. The processor comes with a clock speed of 2.88 GHz. Assuming it retains the base frequency of 133 MHz, we're not entirely sure how 2.88 GHz is worked out with a bus multiplier value that is a whole number. Since the Core i7 930 replaces the i7 920, it is expected to seat itself at the same price point of $299. Since this release comes slightly ahead of that of Intel's "Gulftown" 6-core processor, in Q1 2010, it remains to be seen if this processor continues to be built on the 45 nm HKMG process, or the newer 32 nm one.