AMD will next month trim its Sempron chip prices as it moves to push its Athlon 64 X2 line down-market.

So claim mobo industry sources cited (http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20050706A2006.html) by DigiTimes. The Sempron tweaks will knock around ten per cent off each part's current 1000-chip batch price. The sources only mention the Sempron 2500+, but it seems unlikely AMD plans to adjust the price of a single product.

Early August will also see the arrival of the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ at $345 well below the single-core 3800+'s $373 price tag. That suggests AMD may be considering single-core Athlon 64 price reductions, or using prices to persuade customers to migrate to the dual-core version.

The cheapest X2 is currently the $537 4200+, which is not unreasonably more expensive than the single-core 4000+, priced at $482.

The Sempron revelation comes days after Intel formally added its 64-bit enabled Celeron D processors to its price list. The chips' release had been on the cards for some time, having been hinted at (http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2005/03/01/intel_64bit_celeron/) by the chip in February and announced (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/31/intel_64-bit_celeron/) early last month.

Joining Intel's price list are the Celeron D 351, 346, 341, 336, 331 and 326, clocked at 3.2, 3.06, 2.93, 2.8, 2.66 and 2.53GHz, respectively. The chips' prices are $127, $117, $103, $89, $79 and $73, the same as their comparably clocked, EM64T-less siblings.

DigiTimes' sources claim the Celeron D prices will come down on 24 July by between 5.4 per cent and 13.5 per cent.

Intel also ships an EM64T-less 3.2GHz Celeron D 350 at $127. Unlike the other, LGA775 Celeron Ds, the 350 uses the Socket 478 interconnect. ®

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AMD ships world's 'fastest overclockable gaming CPU' (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/27/amd_fx-57/)
AMD dual-core Athlons 'sell out' in Tokyo (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/20/amd_athlon_x2/)
Intel ships 64-bit, 1MB L2 Pentium 4s (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/13/intel_p4_5x1_series/)
AMD launches dual-core Athlon 64 X2 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/31/amd_athlon_64_x2/)
Intel announces 64-bit Celerons (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/31/intel_64-bit_celeron/)
Intel confirms 64-bit Celeron scheme (http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2005/03/01/intel_64bit_celeron/)