"Intel Processor": Intel drops Celeron and Pentium branding

[Spotty]

Summary

 Intel has announced that starting in 2023 their new mobile chips will drop the Pentium and Celeron branding, will now be branded as "Intel Processor".

 

Quotes

Quote

  Today, Intel introduces a new processor for the essential product space: Intel Processor. The new offering will replace the Intel Pentium and Intel Celeron branding in the 2023 notebook product stack.

 

The new Intel Processor branding will simplify our offerings so users can focus on choosing the right processor for their needs." -Josh Newman, Intel vice president and interim general manager of Mobile Client Platforms

 

Intel Processor will serve as the brand name for multiple processor families, helping to simplify the product purchase experience for consumers. Intel will continue to deliver the same products and benefits within segments. The brand leaves unchanged Intel's current product offerings and Intel's product roadmap.

Quote

Intel announced today that its laptop chips will shed the Pentium and Celeron branding beginning in Q1 of 2023, to be replaced by "Intel Processor." The word "Processor" has a capital P so that you don't confuse an Intel Processor with an Intel processor.

 

My thoughts

The article only mentions this is for the notebook (mobile) processors, though it wouldn't surprise me if the branding also gets phased out for desktop CPUs later. The first Pentium branded CPU was released in 1993 so this would mark the end of a 3 decade run for the Pentium brand, through which time the product and meaning behind the Pentium name have changed. I remember when I first got in to PC building and Pentium was the chip to get, now it's considered the budget CPU in cheap laptops for schoolkids.

 

Calling the new branding "Processor" seems an odd choice. Trademarking that name would likely be difficult since it's a generic industry term.

 

Sources

 https://www.techpowerup.com/298952/intel-kills-celeron-and-pentium-branding-with-intel-processor-naming

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/09/the-new-intel-processor-will-replace-pentium-and-celeron-cpu-branding-in-2023/

 

Original press release from Intel:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/welcome-the-new-intel-processor.html#gs.cm8gb4

Edited September 16, 2022 by Spotty

[rcmaehl]

2 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Calling the new branding "Processor" seems an odd choice. Trademarking that name would likely be difficult since it's a generic industry term.

Never underestimate corporate lobbying. They'll likely get it unless/until someone complains.

[Needfuldoer]

Maybe they can whip up some deepfake ads starring Abbott and Costello.

 

"My new laptop has an Intel Processor!"
"What processor?"
"An Intel Processor!"

"No I mean which Intel processor?"
"Yeah, that's the one!"

"WHICH Intel processor?!"
"That one!"

[PDifolco]

Typical corporate stupidity.

Instead of an sub brand name carrying information and history (first Pentium was in the 90s) you got a stupid common name that don't mean anything...

Soon Apple will create the Computer

[starsmine]

Trademark point is pretty interesting. Pentium only came about because 586 was not trademarkable.
I suppose intel doesn't care THAT strongly on the trademarkability of their lowest end parts. Do you really want someone to use a slow as a turd computer with a celeron and have it strongly associated with your brand?

But then again. Now you cant even say its just a segment that is shit, you get to say intel processors are shit.

[SpicyWheatPeppers]

wait, what was the newest Pentium cpu 

[Haaselh0ff]

1 hour ago, Needfuldoer said:

Maybe they can whip up some deepfake ads starring Abbott and Costello.

 

"My new laptop has an Intel Processor!"
"What processor?"
"An Intel Processor!"

"No I mean which Intel processor?"
"Yeah, that's the one!"

"WHICH Intel processor?!"
"That one!"

"Okay fine, what generation is it!"

"uhhhhhh a first gen Intel Processor"

"Oh dang so it's an old computer!"

"Nah I just bought it"

[starsmine]

7 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

They doing this to obfuscate how product specs are labelled. Pentium and Celeron are old product names and is synonymous with lower performance, so better to make them harder for consumers to identify.

 

"It is true that my high performance PC with a new i7/i9 has an Intel Processor. So go get a computer with an Intel Processor it will surely perform just as well"

 

Dont overestimate people's intelligence

Wouldnt the association go the other way?
when I worked retail, the big sellers in laptops WERE The Pentiums and the i3s because of the price. (I would try hard to steer them away from Celeron, but my coworkers knew nothing(not a slight on them, not paid enough to care) so god help the consumers when I wasn't working)
But people may just associate intel with being slow rather then recognize it was a slower segment.

In the past you could say, oh its slow because it was a celeron/pentium. 
going forward, you would say, oh its slow because its intel.

That does not seem like the connection intel wants end users to make.

[porina]

12 hours ago, Spotty said:

Calling the new branding "Processor" seems an odd choice. Trademarking that name would likely be difficult since it's a generic industry term.

Not an expert in the field by any means, but the trademark would be "Intel Processor" not "Processor". It does not generally block anyone else from using "processor", unless your company name happened to be Imtel or something.

[Spotty]

42 minutes ago, porina said:

Not an expert in the field by any means, but the trademark would be "Intel Processor" not "Processor". It does not generally block anyone else from using "processor", unless your company name happened to be Imtel or something.

You're probably right. The "Core" branding is trademarked as "Intel Core". I had a quick look and there's currently no Trademark registered for "Intel Processor" (or any variation I could find). On another note a battery company in Florida attempted to trademark "Intel Outside" for solar panels/chargers but the trademark was abandoned.

 

2 hours ago, starsmine said:

In the past you could say, oh its slow because it was a celeron/pentium. 
going forward, you would say, oh its slow because its intel.

That does not seem like the connection intel wants end users to make.

Linus made the same argument on this week's WAN show. Branding their lowest end products as "Intel Processor" just means people are going to say "Ah don't buy that it's got an Intel Processor they're the slowest", and that could hurt Intel's reputation since most people don't know the difference between an Intel Processor and an Intel Core processor.

[jagdtigger]

Nice move, now "Processor" will be the definition of slow and hot instead of celeron/pentium....

[Spindel]

Pentium is a much better brand name than the bland ”Core” branding.

 

Also I’m so old so I have strong memories of Pentium being THE IBM compatible PC CPU to have.

[Sauron]

Not sure why they wouldn't just use a serial number at this point. Or make the whole lineup conform to the core i branding by launching the core i1, or just extend the i3 line down since there isn't that much difference between bottom of the barrel i3s and pentiums.

[Jito463]

5 hours ago, Sauron said:

Or make the whole lineup conform to the core i branding by launching the core i1

That's not a bad idea, really.  It would simplify so much.

[Kamina]

Imagine how confusing this would be for tech support.

[Middcore]

On 9/16/2022 at 3:07 PM, PDifolco said:

Typical corporate stupidity.

Instead of an sub brand name carrying information and history (first Pentium was in the 90s) you got a stupid common name that don't mean anything...

Soon Apple will create the Computer

Nah, Apple would prefer to not be thought of as a computer company at all. Computers are so old and lame.

 

 

[Senzelian]

The new Intel Processor processor, now with Intel Graphics Processor graphics processors and integrated Intel Cache cache.

 

I can't wait for the new Intel SSD SSDs.

[Dr_Whom]

15 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

The new Intel Processor processor, now with Intel Graphics Processor graphics processors and integrated Intel Cache cache.

 

I can't wait for the new Intel SSD SSDs.

I'm proactively starting a fan group of the Intel Fan fans. I'm calling it the Intel Fan fans fans group.

[aisle9]

Mobile Pentiums have been trash for a long time, and all Celerons have been trash since day one (with the exception of the late '90s overclockers). I'm not surprised by this at all, because there's really not much in terms of performance differentiating them from each other, or even from the old Atom lineup.
 

On the desktop side, I would anticipate the branding staying the same. There are real differences in performance and price on that platform. One possible change I could see there would be taking the discontinued "Pentium Silver" line from mobile CPUs and replacing the Celeron name with that on the desktop side to standardize things a bit. If it happens, it would be kind of sad to see the Celeron name lost to time, but OEMs would no doubt love it. They could slap the cheapest Celeron trash back into PCs and start labeling everything as a Pentium, a name that still carries a lot of value today.

[Kisai]

On 9/17/2022 at 11:52 AM, Sauron said:

Not sure why they wouldn't just use a serial number at this point. Or make the whole lineup conform to the core i branding by launching the core i1, or just extend the i3 line down since there isn't that much difference between bottom of the barrel i3s and pentiums.

 

They're more likely to drop the "core" branding at some point. Basically the reason why every chip generation doesn't have an official trademarked name is because it costs money to register, maintain and defend. Hence we get "Alder Lake", "Rocket Lake", but those are only used for a single chip generation, and are interchangeable with "12th gen intel processor" and "13th gen intel processor"

 

 

5 hours ago, aisle9 said:

Mobile Pentiums have been trash for a long time, and all Celerons have been trash since day one (with the exception of the late '90s overclockers). I'm not surprised by this at all, because there's really not much in terms of performance differentiating them from each other, or even from the old Atom lineup.
 

On the desktop side, I would anticipate the branding staying the same. There are real differences in performance and price on that platform. One possible change I could see there would be taking the discontinued "Pentium Silver" line from mobile CPUs and replacing the Celeron name with that on the desktop side to standardize things a bit. If it happens, it would be kind of sad to see the Celeron name lost to time, but OEMs would no doubt love it. They could slap the cheapest Celeron trash back into PCs and start labeling everything as a Pentium, a name that still carries a lot of value today.

 

I think we're seeing the same thing from nVidia, where they recently dropped the "Quadro" branding and the cards formerly known as Quadro's are just "RTX."

 

"Celeron" has historically been the "garbage" processor that you avoid buying. It's the chip that Intel cut the cache from entirely originally. Pentium stopped having any meaning when the chips after it became Pentium 2, and Pentium 3. With Pentium 4 not being related to the Pentium 3, but the Core Duo is. 

 

If I were Intel, I'd drop the Core branding, and take a cue from car branding and just call the cpu's what they are like how a Toyota and a Lexus vehicles are the exact same car, but the Lexus has the luxury trim levels.  Instead of cutting down a Lexus ES into a Toyota Camry, it's the other way around where the Camry is the "platform" and the Lexus is a trim level not marketed as Camry, but is still a camry, and anyone who sits in one knows it. The same was true with all of GM's vehicles before they dropped a bunch of old brands, where a Pontiac, GM, Buick would all be the same underlying vehicle, and sitting in one looked identical other than some color and trim options.

 

Intel should have dropped the Celeron and Pentium brands, along with the Atom brand years ago. It's confusing for customers, and leaves them at a disadvantage, marketing-wise. 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/history/virtual-vault/articles/end-user-marketing-intel-inside.html

 

So my thought here is that perhaps they're going to double down on the "Intel Processor" the brand for all the CPU's. Maybe start calling all of them "Intel Processor" and retiring the core i-series as a brand, since it's become far more confusing than it should be.

 

Back in the 286, 386, 486 era, we knew the first digit was the cpu gen, and things should have stayed that way. But then the Pentium brand came along, and competitors made "586" and "686" processors which threw confusion into the whole mess (586 chips fit on 486 motherboards, and 686 motherboards fit on third parties socket 7 pentium-chip boards)

 

Is that an AMD or a Cyrix or an Intel CPU? Nobody knows unless you take it apart. That was the situation right up to the end of the 486 era. Let's also not get started on the "IBM Compatible" branding which is what everyone was using until "Windows 95" became it's own platform. Windows 95 could also still run on a 386.

 

Which is then asking the question, how are they going to differentiate performance models? If everything is just "Intel Processor" like Apples "A-series", with no distinction anywhere between the models, that's going to create a lot of pissed off people when two people with "Intel Processor" laptops have dramatically different experiences.

 

I hope what they're doing is going to do a full rebrand of everything so you get something like

"Intel Processor" (everything that has at least 4 P cores)

"8-core Intel processor" (counting only P cores)

"32-core Intel processor" (counting only P cores)

 

But I think ultimately, this is going to be harmful, as people will start associating the "crap parts" with "Intel" if they do it this way without any specific brand segmentation. They should have stuck with a naming scheme like this:

 

mXX (Mobile/HTPC/embedded)

dXX (Desktop) 

wXX (Workstation/HPC)

hXX (Server)

 

With only using a two-digit designation. So d99 would be the highest performance chip, and d01 would be the lowest performing chip, think of the two-digit number as a relative percent performance. So d99 would be "99.99%" and "d01 would be  "1%" So if d99 is a 16-core part, then d24 is a quadcore part. If w99 is a 32 core part, w24 is an 8 core and w12 is a quadcore. 

 

At any rate, The Xeon branding has been extremely confusing, and the laptop branding has been terrible. You see a U/Y part and can't understand why this U part is a terrible performer despite the 5-digit model number being the same as a desktop, should have bought the H part, which is similar to the desktop part. This problem is even worse with laptop GPU's, where it feels like model number shrink rays, when the GPU in a laptop is marketed as the high end, but compared to the desktop it's not even equal to the bottom tier.

 

[X-System]

7 hours ago, Kisai said:

With only using a two-digit designation. So d99 would be the highest performance chip, and d01 would be the lowest performing chip, think of the two-digit number as a relative percent performance. So d99 would be "99.99%" and "d01 would be  "1%" So if d99 is a 16-core part, then d24 is a quadcore part. If w99 is a 32 core part, w24 is an 8 core and w12 is a quadcore.

To see with those who don't like mathematics to have their opinion on your idea