CPU Prices Chart - September 22, 2003

Notes and Recommendations: There hasn't been much movement since the last chart- Intel has dropped the prices on the P4's by 10-15% while AMD lowered its prices by about 20%. New to the chart are the 64-bit AMD Opterons. The Opterons offer impressive floating point performance over the P4 and the Athlon XP, but their steep prices and the current lack of 64-bit software make them not very attractive- at least for mainstream computing. Intel clearly has the advantage currently performance-wise with its crop of 800 MHz bus CPUs which all support hyperthreading (a technology that emulates the performance of two CPUs). If you decide to get a P4 make sure it has a 800 MHz bus- Intel current sells them in 5 flavors- 2.4, 2.6, 2.8, 3.0, and 3.2 GHz. On the value-front it's hard to beat the Athlon XP 2600+, which sell at an average price of a little over $100.

Best high-end, best-bang-for-the-buck CPU for this time: Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz 800 MHz bus