Intel has announced price cuts ranging from 13% to 40% on its Pentium and Pentium II lines of processors.
The Pentium II running at 266 MHz will cost $US530, down 21% from $669. The 233 MHz version will drop 24 percent in price, from $530 to $401, said Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy.
The price of a 300 MHz Pentium II, Intel's fastest chip, is down 13%, from $851 to $738, he said.
Mulloy said the price cuts are in line with reductions Intel makes on a quarterly basis. These depend on factors including market demand, production yield, and what stage a product is at in its life cycle.
The new low-power consumption 120 MHz MMX chip for mobile devices fell 12%, to $106, while the desktop version of the 166MHz Pentium with MMX fell 23%to $112, Mulloy said.
The greatest cut is in the older 133MHz Pentium with MMX, which fell from $177 to $106.
"Demand for this will drop off significantly unless we move the price, because we're at the low end of the performance scale," Mulloy said.