Intel has reportedly notified its partners of plans to reduce prices of the existing Sandy Bridge-based processors, in en effort to clear up inventory toward the relese of the new Ivy-bridge processors next year.

Digitimes.com expects some Core i3 and i5 series processors to see a drop of 10-15%, according to information obtained by sources from notebook players in Taiwan.

Intel is set to announce its next-generation Ivy Bridge-based processor in April of 2012 and the price reduction could stimulate the market demand with notebook vendors such as Lenovo, Asustek Computer and Acer.

Vendors are also expected to drop the prices of their first-generation Core i5-based ultrabooks to US$799-899 in January of 2012.

Next-generation 22nm Ivy Bridge-based processors including Core i5-3450, Core i7-3370, are expected to be priced between US$184-332, just US$10-15 more expensive than some of Intel's existing CPU models.