On April 22, Intel is slated to announce a 40 percent price cut on its current quad-core processors and significant drop on Core 2 Duos. AMD plans to launch its first quad-core processors, developed under the code name Barcelona, in mid-2007. Intel plans price cuts on its Core 2 Duo E6300, E6400, E6420, E6000 and E6700 processors, and the reducaions will range from 20 percent on the low end to 40 percent on the high end. There's also a 40 percent reduction planned for the Q6600 processor.

AMD on April 9 is expected to announce big discounts across its entire Athlon 64+ product line and its lower-end processors. Some of the reductions will be as high as 30 percent, but like Intel, AMD is leaving some of its popular processors unaffected, such as the 4200+.