Intel's Core 2 Duo has cut the price of AMD's dual-core chip

The successful introduction of Intel's Core 2 Duo dual-core processor range for desktops has forced dramatic price cuts on AMD's own dual-core chips.

AMD has slashed prices by more than half on its high end Athlon 64 X2 chips in response to superior benchmark performances from the new generation Intel Core 2 Duo chips.

The move by AMD signals a determination by the company to defend its market share at all costs.

AMD made a big noise when it succeeded in crossing the 20% market share barrier at Intel's expense in the desktop space. The company's CEO Hector Ruiz has also predicted that AMD will achieve 30% market share by 2008.

However, Intel, which has been going through a rough patch, appears to have a different vision of the future and recently declared that it will be first to market with a quad-core processor before the end of the year.

In response, AMD has said that it will be first to market with a "true" quad-core processor in mid-2007, distinguishing its four single cores on one die architecture from Intel's two dual-cores on one die solution.