The retail price actually varies from $1020 to $1218 with a medium value of $1167 per CPU. That may not be as cheap as you would expect but it will surely turn out cheaper than the offer coming from Dell: $1234 over an E6300 Core 2 Duo, when you choose the CPU that will be mounted onto your new PC.
Dell plays it cool since it probably has a sufficient amount of QX6700 CPUs, unlike most suppliers who are almost out when it comes to Kentsfield. A quad core with no less than 8MB of level 2 cache is not an easy thing to find in stores. And the situation can only change for the better with the arrival of another CPU from the same family. Q6600 is set to come out in January and will have the same attributes as his older brother but it will work at a lower speed (2.4GHz). The price tag will be of $851.