Intel to rebrand client chips once Meteor Lake splashes down

When Intel debuts its forthcoming Meteor Lake client processors, it could be the end of the chip giant's long-standing naming conventions for desktop and mobile processors. Chipzilla today told The Register "We are making brand changes as we're at an inflection point in our client roadmap in preparation for the upcoming launch …

[doublelayer]

Marketing: why do we need it again

This is the same thing they did a few months ago when they rebranded their low-end parts, formerly Celeron and Pentium, to just "Processor". That was probably a waste of time. The only time where a brand name change made sense was when they stopped releasing things with the Atom branding, having cemented the impression in anyone who cared that it translated as "so underpowered it isn't useful for anything". Calling everything Ultra won't convince people that it is in fact ultra, especially if it's 90% of the Intel parts available for typical computer purchases.

I get the point of some marketing people to toss around names for new things, although I'm not sure whether you really need any of the credentials that those people have since basically anyone can think up possible names, but I don't know if I've ever seen a renaming that had any benefits to the seller or to the customer.

[jake]

Re: Marketing: why do we need it again

I've seen benefits with renaming and rebranding. They've all been negative, though.

Marketards are only legends in their own tiny, little minds. They are truly one of the lowest forms of life, ruining almost everything they touch. The rest of us would get along just fine if the lot of them were to jump off the edge of the world, never to be seen again.

[ludicrous_buffoon]

Re: Marketing: why do we need it again

No circle of hell is hot enough for the damage done to the English language from this class of wretches. The word salads they concoct rot worse every day.

Soon we'll have something like: Intel Core Super Wolf Blood Moon 7 XIII. And then the same people will join the call at Microsoft to decide the brand name for the Xbox Next One X Series Z.

[IHateWearingATie]

Re: Marketing: Intel Core Super Wolf Blood Moon 7 XIII

Shut up and take my money. More than a blood moon, its a super wolf blood moon!

I assume it can run Crysis?

[Sandtitz]

Re: Marketing: why do we need it again

"I've seen benefits with renaming and rebranding. They've all been negative, though."

Goldstar monitors (and their other products) were on the cheapest, lowest rung but when the company rebranded as LG, most people didn't seem to make the connection to Lucky Goldstar. Whether LG still is or isn't a sign of quality I cannot say, but they've since had a much bigger presence on TV / Monitor market.

'Firefox' hasn't been a negative renaming of product, although I wouldn't really care if my browser of choice was named Firebird or Phoenix...

MacOS -> OS X worked also pretty well for Apple. Can't say the same about OS X -> macOS, which was pointless to me.

[Martin an gof]

Re: Marketing: why do we need it again

As I recall, the change from Goldstar (which wasn't a worldwide brand I think) to LG also coincided with a change from outsourcing and badge-manufacturing to in-house. Certainly LG made their own plasma panels (and were the last to continue to do so, after Panasonic dropped theirs) and the quality of the TVs which used said panels was not at all bad (I still have a couple in use, though they are beginning to show signs of age). The same went for subsequent LCD models; I have some LG and Sharp units bought at around about the same time, and the LG still has a significantly better picture for non-HD sources; better processing. Still buy Panasonic for commercial use though.

Datsun --> Nissan in the 1980s (Europe)? Also coincided with a step-change in build quality.

Royal Ulster Constabulary --> Police Service of Northern Ireland? Not sure how well that one's going.

Marathon (a name apparently unique to the UK) --> Snickers? Still smarting over that one (and Opal Fruits to Starburst; I don't think I've bought a pack since!).

Jif --> Cif and Oil of Ulay --> Olay simply so they could use the same labels across Europe?

For the past several years I've been buying AMD processors for building computers. In general they have been cheaper and less power-hungry than the equivalent Intel parts. For moderate desktop use, the A-series processors might not have been (quite) as fast as contemporary Intel parts, but other than that they worked really well for me.

Ryzen is fantastic, but expensive in comparison and I was utterly gobsmacked when AMD dropped the older (and cheaper) parts altogether. The price difference with Intel is not as great now, and if chiplet manufacturing can reduce the costs further, I might be on my way back to Intel.

That said, if the performance/efficiency cores thing is there mainly to deal with Intel's historically poor power consumption, I'd prefer it if they'd get their act together on that front first. Oh, and if they are going to rebrand, make it easier to understand what you are getting. Cars (particularly of the 1970s and 1980s) are a fantastic example; is the "T" better than the "L", and what about the "TL"? Is the "GTL" a better spec than the "TX"? (my dad had a lot of Renaults in the 70s and 80s) Even aged about five I spotted the cynical marketing behind Ford's "Ghia" - this is the car we've fitted all the "gear" to... (this in the day when a neighbour had a company Vauxhall Viva, bought as a fleet car it didn't even have a heater matrix, so the air coming out of the vents was always cold!)

That seems to be a common theme with failed rebrandings - confuse the punter.

M.

[Geoff Johnson]

Re: Marketing: why do we need it again

Marathon (a name apparently unique to the UK) --> Snickers? This happened around the same time they were running an ad campaign about how they were proud to be British. Leaving me wondering why this proud British company dropped the British name.

[iron]

Re: Marketing: why do we need it again

> 'Firefox' hasn't been a negative renaming of product, although I wouldn't really care if my browser of choice was named Firebird or Phoenix...

Firefox was a very suvvessful renaming of a product because it stopped the Mozilla Foundation being sued by the owners of software that already used those names.

I was the person who told the Foundation that they couldn't use Firebird due to the already existing open source RDBMS of the same name.

[doublelayer]

Re: Marketing: why do we need it again

It's not so much that rebranding is usually negative, but that in most cases it doesn't do anything. Mozilla rebranding to Firefox was a legal necessity, but they could have chosen a lot of other names and gotten the same situation. Mac OS to OS X and back again did basically nothing. I'm sure they thought a new name would be good at indicating that they were now using NeXTStep, but if they had just called it Mac OS 10, people would have figured it out. I don't object to name changes, but I question whether the people who spend a lot of time and effort thinking of names before coming up with something rather obvious are very useful to the company or to the customers.

[Dave K]

Re: Marketing: why do we need it again

It's a tough one. There have been changes in the past which haven't been negative, for example Intel relegating "Pentium" to lower-end CPUs and introducing the "Core" brand back in 2006.

The main point I've noticed is that it only tends to work if the new product is a significant improvement over the old one. Core 2 Duo was a huge step forwards from the Pentium 4, so people didn't care about the rebrand. On the flip side, AMD relegating "Athlon" when they introduced "Phenom" wasn't exactly a success - especially as Phenoms didn't exactly deliver the "Phenomenal" performance they were named after.

If Intel's next range of CPUs are significant developments, many people won't care about the name change. If they're not that much of an improvement, it'll be seen more negatively as an empty marketing ploy.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Marketing: why do we need it again

There have been changes in the past which haven't been negative, for example Intel relegating "Pentium" to lower-end CPUs and introducing the "Core" brand back in 2006.

And who exactly cared about the rebranding? Is there any reliable evidence to suggest Intel sold more product because of it?

[Yorick Hunt]

Re: Marketing: why do we need it again

The Golgafrinchans were right.

Time to build an ark, hence!

[Terje]

Re: Marketing: why do we need it again

Just make sure to keep some phone cleaners around!

[katrinab]

Re: Marketing: why do we need it again

It is still Intel though.

And it is communicating that this is the shiny new product, and Core was yesterday's technology, much like Pentium? Pentium was their flagship line about 20 years ago and is now found in budget builds.

[jake]

Re: Marketing: why do we need it again

"And it is communicating that this is the shiny new product"

Of course. And the Industry Press is gobbling it up, regurgitating it where we all read it and discuss it. Basically, ElReg and us commentards are doing the Intel marketing department's job for them ... getting the word out that Intel has new kit.

[the spectacularly refined chap]

Re: Marketing: why do we need it again

The constant reading of the i3, i5 monikers is confusing though, you can't look at at two model numbers at compare them without reference to generations, benchmarks etc. You knew a 486 was better than a 386, ore a Pentium 3 better than a Pentium 2. The I series have been reused so much you never really know.

I have better things to do than memorise comparison scores of every chip on the market and keep that updated every few months. Even the gamers can't tell - I used to work in insurance claims and one of the perrenial disputes was yes, that current i3 really is faster than your five year old i5, so no, we're not paying for today's i5.

[b0llchit]

"Intel Core Ultra 5 1003H"

They were on a silver surfer. Now the age of ultron has arrived. The following downfall will be inevitable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ultra Max Super

It always perplexes me that they'll spend millions of dollars promoting a rebrand, but seem to only spend $50 on actually coming up with the name.

EA decided that the FIFA name wasn't worth the money, so they splurged on... EA Sports FC. Just rolls off the tongue like cold muesli.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: Ultra Max Super

"Ultra" strikes me as one of those generic words, like Super or Extra, that would be very difficult to trademark.

[jake]

Re: Ultra Max Super

My Wife, glancing over my shoulder just now, saw "Ultra Max Super" and wondered why the denizens of ElReg were talking about tampons/pads or makeup.

[iron]

Re: Ultra Max Super

No, the FIFA decided they wanted a fuckton more money from EA plus more control so EA told them to beat it.

[Detective Emil]

Sounds great!

This means I can run Windows on my Apple M1 Ultra.

Oh, wait …

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: Sounds great!

Clearly making way for Intel branded phones, tablets and an online music store.

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel continues their ancient and venerable tradition of shooting themselves in the foot at every opportunity. I'm sure AMD will continue to laugh all the way to the bank :)

[Steve Davies 3]

Fiddling while...

Intel burns.

Sorry Intel, you are in a downward spiral and as far as I'm concerned... you can crash and burn. I stopped buying Intel pre-Covid.

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: Fiddling while...

Almost all Intel with just enough AMD to avoid antitrust laws was bad. I would expect almost all AMD to grow just as bad. 50:50 would be better. If wishes were horses I would have a shire, an Arabian, a thoroughbred and a few pit ponies with the same for GPUs and hard disks. Even so I can understand your feelings for Intel. They did work hard at getting to where they are today. I would be just as happy with a customer friendly Intel as with Intel getting sold off in pieces and some of those pieces becoming competitive with AMD.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Fiddling while...

I do like a well mixed metaphor.

[jake]

Re: Fiddling while...

Horses for courses has long been a mantra around these parts.

[mark l 2]

I would much rather instead of just releasing yet another i5 or i7 part with a long list of numbers and letters after it, if the next gen are a big move away from the previous ones because of switching to a chiplet design, maybe its time to call them a new model number like i8 to show they are a long way removed from the original i7 which is now 15 years old.

[doublelayer]

What would that accomplish? Unless the actual performance is radically different, it will still mean the same thing to the user who's going to buy one of them. The I3/I5/I7 range has always translated to cheap/medium/faster, with the I9 representing basically just desktops and quite fast. The basic information can be quickly read in that two-character summary of where this is in the range, the generation number, and the suffix denoting how much power it's using. Why should changing the structure of the chip change this method of informing the buyer how it compares to the others? Most buyers don't care in the slightest how the thing is manufactured; either they want a CPU that's good enough, or they look at benchmark numbers and power usage information. Either way, the structure only matters as it changes those values.

[Ball boy]

Need to get away from these names

So what comes after 'ultra'? 'Super Ultra'? 'Mega Turbo Nitrous'? At this rate, the die will have to increase just to have enough space for the chip's name.

The benefit of a numbering sequence is that, at a glance, you can see that the 15-series is newer than the 13-series. I admit, it doesn't help when there's performance, economy and other internal differences within a single family - but surely calling a generic range 'Ultra' is short sighted at best.

Same goes for Operating Systems please (although, to be fair to the *nix set, at least they seem use sequential letters: 'Hairy Hippo' is newer than 'Ancient Arsehole' or whatever insane names got used for those releases so they makes a tad more sense).

[Freddellmeister]

Re: Need to get away from these names

In Sun terminology it started with SPARC, then SuperSPARC, microSPARC, TurboSPARC, HyperSPARC and UltraSPARC.

After Ultra they smarted smoking "Rock" and when Terminator 2 could not save them, despite a M rebranding, it headed south. Lets hope the historry does not repeat for Intel.

[iron]

Re: Need to get away from these names

Intel's numbering scheme is ridiculous. I've been unable to tell the difference between Intel cihps since the they moved to this stuipid scheme.

Sure I can tell the difference between an i3 / i5 / i7 / i9 but I've no idea if the stupid model number makes a chip this year's, last year's or 10 years old. Or if its faster or slower than another.

God knows how you figure out if a given Intel chip actually has all the features enabled or if its one of their crippled chips that can't run emulation or other supposedly premium features.

[doublelayer]

Re: Need to get away from these names

Intel runs a database that lists all the devices and gives you information on when it was released and what features are supported, so if you want to find those things out, you can always go there. I think the generation numbers have been generally easy to parse from the model number. It's the first digit or two digits, and they didn't have a 1 generation of these chips because they skipped from 0 to 2, so if it has a 1 as the first digit, read the first two digits. It could be better, but this is marketing, so it probably won't be. Of course, now they have a chance to start over and confuse things again.

[mevets]

Re: Need to get away from these names

` We are confused so that you don't have to be `.

[doublelayer]

Re: Need to get away from these names

I explained so you don't have to be, at least for now. The algorithm is as follows:

Check first digit. If it's not a 1, that is the generation number. If it's a 1, append the next digit, and that is the generation number.

Parsing the rest of the digits is much worse, but I never said I could understand those digits. Basically, the best answer I can give you is that bigger number beats smaller number, something I can't say of AMD where the most important digit is the third because it represents the type of cores you'll get, but not the number of cores, so you pretty much have to go to benchmarks to figure out where you stand. Intel could certainly improve this, but I'm expecting they'll just create a new arbitrary system and the small amount I've managed to learn about their system will become obsolete.

[Chz]

Re: Need to get away from these names

Unless it's first generation i3/5/7. Identified by a 3 digit moniker instead of 4 (and now 5). My i5-750 lasted quite a long time.

[david1024]

Re: Need to get away from these names

Look at the first 2 digits of the model numbers, they tell the generation. Pretty simple. When it gets shortened to the sticker is when most folks have issues and they drop that info... So you have to boot it up to see the number or take it apart... Not much different than the 486 days, as there were low power 486 that were the same speed as the fast 386.. and some fast 486 were faster than the following pentiums. And then there was the Celeron 300.... :) Ohh the days.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Need to get away from these names

In the radio frequency bands, Super is after Ultra. Ultra High Frequency is 300MHz to 3GHz, so new CPUs possibly fit towards the higher end of that. Super High frequency is 3GHz to 30GHz, which a lot of CPUs are already in.

I'm looking forward to getting a Tremendously High Frequency CPU though.

[Down not across]

Re: Need to get away from these names

Too slow. What you want is Ludicrous.

[Freddellmeister]

It is fascinating that Intel Decides to do an Ultra 5, 20 years after Sun Microsystems. maybe Oracle can sue Intel over trademark infringement?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01lp3vQ2VLs

[Mostly Irrelevant]

Ryzen worked for AMD, let's just copy their idea!

Intel's marketing department has always been brain dead and it looks like that hasn't changed.

[Richard Tobin]

Elements

I think they should return to names that are chemical elements with a letter missing, like Xeon and Itanium. There are plenty of possibilities: Ron, God, Odium, Geranium, ...

[Doctor Syntax]

Bingo!

"We are making brand changes as we're at an inflection point in our client roadmap in preparation for the upcoming launch of our Meteor Lake processors."

"We will provide more details regarding these exciting changes in the coming weeks."

I'm not sure about Patel's point, however. i5, 10th Gen (which is what the label stuck on this laptop says) is probably just a meaningless cluster of letters and numbers to the general computer-buying public. Their concerns, at least regarding laptops, are more likely to be "What's the screen size?", "What does it weight and how thin is it?" and above all "How much is it?". Personally I'll admit to the first and last of these along with "Can I buy it without Windows?".

[iron]

> Will chipletized Intel CPUs see you revisit PC purchasing plans?

My main machine is Ryzen 7 Zen 2 CPU powered so I'm already there and have been for years. Intel catyching up makes no diffreence to me since I don't buy their overpriced crap.

[jake]

"since I don't buy their overpriced crap."

How much extra per day does Intel cost for similar performance?

_{My machines typically last 10 years or more before replacement ... This laptop is nearing 20. YMMV.}

[StrangerHereMyself]

Downhill

Intel is on a downward spiral and I'm glad for it. I warned them I would stop purchasing their wares if they didn't remove the Intel spy CPU (Intel Management Engine) from their processors.

I've only purchased AMD Ryzen processors since. And from the looks of it I'm not the only one.

Rebranding and renaming will not stop the bleeding.

[jake]

Re: Downhill

"I warned them I would stop purchasing their wares if they didn't remove the Intel spy CPU (Intel Management Engine) from their processors."

Unless you control a significant percentage of total CPUs purchased world-wide, I seriously doubt Intel gives a fuck. The couple dozen (maybe!) processors you purchase in your lifetime will be far, far less than the amount Intel spends re-striping the visitor's parking lot every year.

"I've only purchased AMD Ryzen processors since."

Because AMD's Platform Security Processor doesn't exist in your world, presumably. What an absolutely brilliant plan.

_{Lest anybody wonders, no, I'm not particularly enthralled with the idea of Intel's IME or AMD's PSP ... but I have a stateful firewall analyzing traffic coming out of my machines to the world at large. Near as I can tell, neither Intel nor AMD based systems have ever tried to call home out of any of the networks that I control. Possibly because I'm not important enough (nobody reading this is, IMO), or maybe because they don't do that, or maybe a bit of both. Who knows? But at the moment I'm not too worried ... Obviously, YMMV. Have a beer.}

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: Downhill

They DO care, because they'll be asking themselves why their sales are going South. The Hive Mind has determined they don't want a spying processor in their processors and through synchronicity they've all migrated towards AMD processors.

And no, AMD's offering isn't comparable to Intel's IME since you can actually shut it off.

[Paul Hovnanian]

Re: Downhill

You aren't really their customer. The outfits that cobble together beige boxes and laptops are.

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking forward to

The ultra3 non-backdoored. The ultra5 securecache and ulta9 rowhammersafe. i5 5th gen was my last Intel.

[hob_bes]

Overpriced Marketing

Intel probably hired the same marketing firm that was hired by Microsoft to rename Yammer to "Viva Engage". Folks in marketing these days need to take a step back and work on re-honing their skills.

[Ian Mason]

Re: Overpriced Marketing

Well, I think that's more "acquire some skills", beyond obviously the application of creative writing to expense claims.

[KSM-AZ]

Don't forget the sockets

Don't forget the sockets. Intel has pretty much comes up with an incompatible socket every 6 months. Some even have the same pin-count/name, but the chip does not work. One of the main reasons I avoid INTEL motherboards.

[david1024]

Re: Don't forget the sockets

I just surrendered. I replace the MB and processor as a pair.. often the tam tech changes.. so it ends up a bare bones buy.

[localzuk]

Too many SKUs

Intel needs to rationalise its product line-up.

The number of products to choose from is ridiculous.

Intel Atom, Intel Process, Intel Core, Intel Xeon, Intel Xeon Scalable.

Atom is then split into Atom C and Atom P. There are 43 Atom C lines listed on their site, and 11 Atom P. There are 6 Intel Processor chips, split into N and U lines.

The Core range is split into i3, i5, i7 and i9, with the i9 being split into normal and X series. There's 44 i9 products, 104 i7 products, 124 i5 products, and 51 i3 products listed on their site.

Xeon is split into Xeon E, W and D. Plus their Max and Scalable branding. Totalling 390 listed current CPUs on their product pages.

That's 1163 different processor products listed on their site as Launched/current. Sure, some are now being listed at "end of servicing life", so are due to disappear from the list soon, but they will be replaced with the Meteor Lake models instead.

1163 CPUs! Insanity.

[doublelayer]

Re: Too many SKUs

You're including a lot of generations in your count. They don't release anywhere near that number every year, so while you can still choose last year's chip, you don't have to go through that choice if you're planning to build with the most modern parts available. They also need to have chips for a wide range of devices with CPUs, from handheld units to servers more powerful than the average server, so they need to have a lot of options just for power and performance. When you add in that people often don't need the most performance for their power situation that can be achieved, it makes sense that they also add in versions of most ranges that are cheaper and less performant.

These factors mean that you don't really have to look at all those models when choosing something. If you're building a desktop right now, you can eliminate the chips that are too expensive for your use, likely most of the Xeons, and you can eliminate those intended for laptops or low-end devices like the Processor range*. Furthermore, you can eliminate many of the older generations unless you're buying used or recycling because, even though the 9th generation is still fully supported and is perfectly good, it's not sold very often by retail providers of CPUs. There will still be many choices, but not hundreds of them.

* The Intel Processor range: it still sounds stupid when I say this. I would have preferred them to stick to calling them Celerons or Pentiums. They could eliminate one of the names and consolidated, but eliminating both of them just makes a mess.

[localzuk]

Re: Too many SKUs

I included all the products Intel list on their current website as current products. Intel consider them current, so I consider them current... What they release every year is somewhat irrelevant. They still sell those products.

[Downeaster]

Keep it Simple

Intel should keep their processors as i3, i5, etc. and keep the generation after it. So maybe an i5 14th generation and the speed. Also maybe include how many cores. Ulta as a name reminds me of credit cards and "supposes" status. You may have a "gold" credit card but I have a "platinum" one. Like someone mentioned that the days of 286, 386, and 486 were easier. The 386 and 486 still did have their SX (16 bit) and DX (32 Bit) versions. Keep it simple Intel. I don't need my custom, deluxe, limited, GT, Brougham, Intel processor, with the stuffed vinyl roof! Happily writing this on my Core 2 Duo from 2009! Talk about confusing!

[Big_Boomer]

An onion by any other name still makes you cry

I remember back in the early 1990s Ford got together a focus group to come up with some names for their forthcoming new cars. The names they came up with were Focus and Ka. <LOL> Almost as imaginative as calling their first "worldwide model" the Mondeo. Their marketing people do seem to be determined to ruin their existing brands as well. The Mustang Mach-e is a prime example. Lets take an otherwise forgettable electric crossover and glue a huge tablet to the middle of the dashboard and call it a "Mustang" because that will convince idiots that it is a snorting performance thoroughbred. What actually happens is that people stop buying real Mustangs because they are now forever tarred with the fat-arsed e-SUV image.

[aerogems]

Even worse

IMO, what's worse is all the different variations Intel has on its different chips. It's not like there's just one i5, there's the K, U, S, T, TE, KF, and probably plenty of others.

I don't really give a toss if they want to dump the "i" part and go with something like IBM did with the Power 5 and Power 6. Most people will just look at it and assume the bigger number means a better CPU, which will probably be largely true. They survived demoting their previous premium brand of Pentium to their low end tier, so they'll probably survive this as well, but it does sort of reek of desperation. Just like when they dumped Pentium in favor of Core because the Pentium 4 ended up doing a lot of damage to the company's image.

[David Austin]

The current system works

for nigh on a decade, my simple advice for people that wanted an intel system was "Buy something with an i3 or i5" for a standard PC, or "Buy something with an i5 or i7" for performance PC's.

It's so simple and straightforward; buy the current Gen i3 for decent entry level, buy the current gen i5 for standard business use, buy the current gen i7 for gamers and content creation.

And I just know whatever bollocks Intel are cooking up is going to needlessly complicate that system.

[Skiver]

I'm wondering how much money Intel spent engaging a branding company for this nonsense.