Intel to Bundle Solid State Drives with Latest Microprocessors

From X-bit Labs: In a bid to popularize sales of solid-state drives, Intel Corp. has reportedly started to bundle its SSDs with its latest Intel Core i7 central processing units. Since both products are targeted at performance-demanding enthusiasts, such bundles make a great sense, however, their significance should not be overestimated as flash-based storage is still too expensive for the mainstream.

According to a news-story at DigiTimes web-site, Intel is offering a 10-15% discount on the combined price of the CPU and drive as part of its promotion campaign which is mainly targeting markets in China, Europe and North America. It is not exactly clear whether Intel is offering bundles to personal computer makers only, or also gives resellers an opportunity to acquire such bundles.

Intel’s solid state drives currently cost from $385 to $760 in business quantities, hence, are not very popular among end-users. Meanwhile, Intel Core i7 chips cost from $284 to $999, which makes them far more popular than solid-state drives.

The fact that the world’s largest maker of microprocessors bundles solid-state drives with its chips means that Intel is taking the demand towards high-performance flash-based storage seriously and wants to ensure that going forward it will have its own slice of the flash-based storage market.

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