8. Pricing For Mobile Sempron And Turion 64 Models

In contrast to Intel's Pentium M CPUs, AMD's Turion 64 and Mobile Sempron CPUs are available for purchase in the form of so-called "boxed processors," also known as PIB (for "processor in a box"). Even so, we'd like to take a look at the price ranges for these products. These go from $354/$225 for the Turion 64 ML-40/MT-34 up to the ML-28/MT-28 for $154/$159. The top models for the Mobile Sempron 3300+, at $125 for the 25 Watt version, and $134 for the 62 Watt version, are significantly less costly. The entry-level Mobile Sempron 2600+ is available for $67 and $89, respectively.

For its top of the line Pentium M 780 model (2.26 GHz, 2 MB L2, 533 FSB, 90nm) Intel demands $637; the lowest Pentium M 275 model (1.6 GHz, 2 MB L2, 400Mhz FSB, 90nm) still costs a hefty $209. Prices for the Celeron M models, all sans the Speedstep power saving functionality, a 1 MB L2 cache and 400 MHz FSB, stretch from $86 for the Celeron M 350 (1.6 GHz) up to $135 for the Celeron M 380 (2.3 GHz). All prices are based on net costs for 1,000-unit lots.

Although AMD's Turion 64 (left) and Intel's Pentium M (right) are both based on 90 nm process technologies, the Turion's die is noticeably larger than the Pentium M's.

The back side: To the left, the AMD Turion for Socket 754, to the right, Intel's Pentium M for Socket 479.

What's relevant to CPU pricing is obvious in how the Turion 64 stacks up to clear advantage against its Intel opponent. The 25 watt TDP versions of the Mobile Semprons recommend themselves because of extremely low prices and integrated energy saving functions, as affordable energy saving notebook alternatives for e-mail, surfing the Web and word processing.