The sub-$200 quad-core era has finally arrived to Intel's Santa Clara HQ as the company's latest round of price cuts has seen the 1000 tray unit cost of the 65nm-built Core 2 Quad Q6600 drop 14%, from $224 to $193. In addition to making its most popular quad-core CPU cheaper, Intel has also slashed the prices of three 45nm dual-cores, the E8500, E8400 and E7200.

The 3.16 GHz-clocked Core 2 Duo E8500 has seen its price tag go down 31%, from $266 to $183 so as to leave room for the 3.33 GHz E8600 while the E8400 and E7200 went down 11% and 15% to settle at $163 and $113 respectively.

Interestingly enough, Intel's documents don't mention the E8600 or the Q9650 although they have being to appear in stores.