A bit of sour news for those anticipating the release of Intel's next-gen Sandy Bridge-E series (to replace the aging LGA-1366 core platform) that was originally said to be Q3, then delayed to Q4, and now as a reliable source has indicated, is looking to be more like Q1 of 2012.

VR-Zone has a possible reasoning behind why Intel keeps pushing back the launch, but it's all only speculation at this time. The Sandy Bridge-E series units are based on the same core used in Intel's upcoming LGA-2011 and LGA-1356 Xeon processors. As these chips are larger in size, it means fewer per wafer, so it could simply be a case of Intel making efforts to stock up on a good amount of these for its refreshed Xeon family before moving attention back onto the consumer market again.

It should be iterated, though, that this is only a possible basis for the delay, but whatever the reason, I guess there is a bright side to this - it also gives you a little more time to save your pennies up for Intel's next-gen flagship consumer platform.