IDG News Service - Intel Corp. on Monday announced price cuts across a wide range of processors used in mobile and desktop PCs, including reductions of up to 40% on its quad-core chips.

For example, Intel's Core 2 Quad Q9650 processors are now priced at $316, a 40% drop from December. The prices of other Core 2 Quad chips were cut by between 16% and 20%. The quad-core chips, which debuted in January 2007, are used in high-end desktops, such as gaming systems.

Intel's move could be a response to increasing price pressure exerted by rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc., which earlier this month announced a pair of Phenom II quad-core chips for high-end desktops. AMD's chips are priced at between $235 and $275.

Intel also cut prices on some of its Xeon chips for servers and Celeron processors for mobile devices. The quad-core Xeon 3370 is now priced at $316, a 40% drop from December, while the Celeron 570 chip was cut by 48%, from $134 to $70.

Amidst the price reductions, Intel introduced three more power-efficient versions of Core 2 Quad chips, adding an "s" at the end of their model numbers. For example, the new Core 2 Quad Q9550s includes 12MB of L2 cache, runs at 2.83GHz and draws 65 watts of power. Priced at $369, the Q9550s is a retooled version of the Core 2 Quad Q9550, which draws 95 watts of power.

The other new chips include the Q9400s, which runs at 2.66GHz, and the Q8200s, which runs at 2.33GHz. Those two processors are priced at $320 and $245, respectively.

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