3GHz Phenom II to launch at $275

Phenom II may be at the heels of Intels Core i7 on the price ladder, according to EE Times. The site has posted prices for a couple of the upcoming Phenom II processors, and it claims AMDs upcoming 3GHz CPU will launch at $275—just $9 below the volume price of Intels 2.66GHz Core i7-920.

EE Times goes on to say the slower, 2.8GHz Phenom II will cost $235, which would put it in roughly the same ballpark as Intels new 2.5GHz Core 2 Quad Q8300. Of course, even the 3GHz Phenom II might not compete directly with any Core i7 for a while. That's because the AMD chip will work with DDR2 memory and much cheaper motherboards than Intels new brainchild. More realistically, a $275 Phenom II would end up facing the Core 2 Quad Q9400.

Both 2.8GHz and 3GHz Phenom II variants should launch at the Consumer Electronics Show in early January. Puzzlingly, EE Times also mentions 65nm Phenom II flavors, even though AMDs own presentation slides tie the Phenom II name to the new 45nm design.