DigiTimes heard Intel notified its partners that it will reduce the pricing of its Sandy Bridge processors. Some Core i3 and i5 chips will see drops of 10-15 percent.

Since Intel is set to announce its next-generation Ivy Bridge-based processor in April of 2012, the company is hoping the price reduction could stimulate the market demand with several notebook vendors such as Lenovo, Asustek Computer and Acer have already dropped their Core i5-2430 equipped notebook model to below NT$20,000 (US$659) and Core i3-equipped models to below NT$13,000.

The sources also expect the vendors to drop the prices of their first-generation Core i5-based ultrabooks to US$799-899 in January of 2012 to clear up inventory and to avoid these machines from biting off demand from their next-generation ultrabook models.