Intel slashes price of Sandy Bridge processors

According to a report by DigiTimes, Intel has notified its partners (OEM) that it plans to reduce price of processors based on its Sandy Bridge architecture. The processors that will be affected by this price-cut carry the marketing moniker of Core i3 and Corei5 series. According to notebook vendors, this will bring down the price of some Corei3 and Core i5 processors by 10-15%, which will in turn bring down the retail price of notebooks based on these processors.

In addition to drop in price of notebooks, vendors expect the price of UltraBooks to also drop to similar levels by January 2012. Intel has made this move to clear the existing stock of notebooks based on current generation (Sandy Bridge) architecture, clearing the way for the next generation of (Ivy Bridge ) processors that will be manufactured using the 22nm fabrication process. Intel is expected to announce its next-generation Ivy Bridge-based processor in April of 2012, with just $10-$15 increase in price over existing processors.