Intel Retailers Raise CPU Prices After Bulldozer Launch

The disappointing performance that AMD's FX-Series desktop processors have turned out to deliver, has apparently made Intel reconsider the prices of its Core i5 and Core i7 processors, which now seem to retail for higher prices than before Bulldozer was out.

Usually, a product launch by the competition, forces the other company to lower the prices of its hardware in order to prevent sales from being disrupted and losing market share.

In the case of Bulldozer however quite the contrary happened, as Intel has seen AMD's inability to deliver a compelling product as an opportunity to increase the margins of its products.

Using the Geizhals.at price comparison engines, one of the largest of its kind in the world, Bright Side of News analyzed the prices of Intel's processors both before and after the launch of AMD's FX-Series CPUs.

This way, the Website has found out that pricing for the Core i7-2600K rose from €237.62 to €258.29 in the timeframe taken into consideration, which is almost a 9% increase in price.

According to the same publication, the change cannot be explained due to fluctuations in the USD vs. EUR exchange rate as this would have caused the chips to be cheaper by a few percent.

Furthermore, similar price changes were also spotted in other processors that were monitored, including the i5-2500K, and i5-2400, so this appears to be a general trend in the market.

AMD launched the first FX-Series processors based on the Bulldozer architecture the last week, on October 12, but despite being eagerly awaited by many PC enthusiasts the performance of the chips has disappointed.

In most tests that were run by reviewers, AMD's FX-8150, lagged behind the Intel's Core i5-2500K, while a few tests showed it coming behind even a last-gen Phenom II X6 1100T processor.

In order to fix some of these performance issues, AMD is apparently working on developing a B3 stepping of the Bulldozer architecture.

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