Intel Rebranding "Core i" Brand to "Core Ultra"

[da na]

Still waiting for the Core 3 CPUs. We got Core Solo/Duo, then Core 2 Duo/Quad, then...... Core i3/i5/i7?

[Curufinwe_wins]

7 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Not a fan of this, if they just end up replacing the i with Ultra.

"Ultra" is way more clunky to say than "i", so I think it will just make things harder to say. But it's not like it matters much anyway.

"Intel Ultra 5" 

 

  

Do they really? I don't get why people struggle so much with 5 digits.

I said gamers couldn't keep track of more than 4 numbers as a joke once and people didn't even realize I was joking and started saying things along the lines of "yeah they need to fix that, it's so hard".

 

I don't really get how someone can be confused by this:

7700

8700

9700

10700

11700

12700

13700

 

Just view them as separate sections and it makes perfect sense. First 7, then 8, then 9, then 10, 11, 12 and 13. 

Biggest reason why Intel's naming hasn't been a huge historic issue is that ARK (well and its current successor) is ludicrously comprehensive and fantastic. My only major complaint is that Intel still allows companies to get away with not telling consumers upfront the specific sku on prebuilts or laptops with the explicit intent to deceive on what the actual product performance is. Ultra is stupid and pointless, but I don't think a 5 digit number matters.

 

 

AMD however seems to love to obfuscate everything right now, instead of just owning up to their shitty generational naming.

[MageTank]

15 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I think rebranding their processors like this would have been better:

Intel Core i3 => Intel Bronze

Intel Core i5 => Intel Silver

Intel Core i7 => Intel Gold

Intel Core i9 => Intel Platinum

What should you do when your team is garbage and you can't reach Intel Diamond or Intel Masters?

 

In all seriousness, the biggest problem is the competing companies trying to win the "bigger number wars". Intel had the Zx70 chipsets, AMD releases the Xx70 chipsets. Intel makes Zx90 to counter in consumer. Same thing happened when Intel's HEDT chipset was X299, AMD release X399, lol. We see it on the graphics segment between AMD and Nvidia, and processor naming conventions was very similar during the Phenom II era when Nehalem launched. Intel launched Nehalem Core i7 940, AMD launches the Phenom II 940 Black Edition just 2 months later.

 

I'd prefer it if we wiped the slate clean across all product segments and started over. This time, we stop increasing generations by the thousands and start with the 100's annually. Much like people were confused when Nvidia went from the 780, to the 980, to the 1080 (100 increments) to jumping to the 2080 (thousand increments) going forward.

 

Bonus points if AMD and Intel agree to stop using similar chipset names/numbers to one-up each other. Imagine trying to buy a modern board with AMD and Intel both using LGA now and you personally don't know the difference based on names alone. Must be a nightmare for the newer folks getting into PC building;.

[RVRY]

6 hours ago, CommanderAlex said:

An example would be the Core Ultra 5 1003H.

I hate this with a burning passion. 

[CyberneticTitan]

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I don't really get how someone can be confused by this:

7700

8700

9700

10700

11700

12700

13700

 

Just view them as separate sections and it makes perfect sense. First 7, then 8, then 9, then 10, 11, 12 and 13. 

The point is to keep things fairly information dense. They've already moved their mobile naming schemes to four digits. i.e. 1260P.

[Kisai]

7 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

There is literally nothing but a screenshot...

Ultra could be for "U" processors. Ultra could be for more powerful iGPU configurations. I think we get some more information before this drops, but generally speaking, their current naming scheme was utter garbage at best. So maybe they will find a better and easier way.

 

Maybe it'll be for a SoC offering and not desktop processors. The existing names have always been unrepresentative of what they are.

 

7 hours ago, porina said:

If the worst thing you can do is moan about a name, they're not doing badly. The "Core i" naming has been around for 15 years now, and you can add a couple more years on that if you drop the i.

 

You forgot that the Core, Core2 and Core2Quad stuff before it. Going all the way back to I think 2006.  So that's 17, not 15.

 

 

Overall, I've always hated Intel's naming scheme because there are always too many numbers that don't mean anything, and the mobile end is even worse, with part names to indicate different graphics cores.

 

Just, Intel, get with the program, produce 4 chips and nothing else. 3,5,7,9 There was never any need to differentiate these with three-digit numbers and letters. Produce just the "best part" for those tiers, and make the 9 part de-facto core unlocked.

 

Those additional numbers have been absolutely no help in determining the clock speed or cpu cores or any other performance metric. Throw in GPU performance metrics, and you have this lovely problem where people never know what the heck they are buying.

 

 

[pas008]

i dont see problem here

dont understand what all the negative nancy comments are

i actually think they should change branding more

think consumers would actually benefit more if they did every few gens so core i  to ultra to xyz to 123 then consumers would easily see how old those cpus are in prebuilts

16 minutes ago, Kisai said:

 

Maybe it'll be for a SoC offering and not desktop processors. The existing names have always been unrepresentative of what they are.

 

 

You forgot that the Core, Core2 and Core2Quad stuff before it. Going all the way back to I think 2006.  So that's 17, not 15.

 

 

Overall, I've always hated Intel's naming scheme because there are always too many numbers that don't mean anything, and the mobile end is even worse, with part names to indicate different graphics cores.

 

Just, Intel, get with the program, produce 4 chips and nothing else. 3,5,7,9 There was never any need to differentiate these with three-digit numbers and letters. Produce just the "best part" for those tiers, and make the 9 part de-facto core unlocked.

 

Those additional numbers have been absolutely no help in determining the clock speed or cpu cores or any other performance metric. Throw in GPU performance metrics, and you have this lovely problem where people never know what the heck they are buying.

 

 

agreed

kinda wish they would just use yr and then have short model number like 2023 xyz

[Arika]

8 hours ago, CommanderAlex said:

Do they really want to confuse consumers more?

 

8 hours ago, soldier_ph said:

Great, way to go Intel. Now you're gonna confuse non Techies and especially Techies even more with your utterly Stupid naming schemes.

What's there to be confused about? It's a rebrand ffs. Companies don't just throw in a rebrand without telling anyone.

[Kisai]

12 minutes ago, pas008 said:

i dont see problem here

dont understand what all the negative nancy comments are

i actually think they should change branding more

think consumers would actually benefit more if they did every few gens so core i  to ultra to xyz to 123 then consumers would easily see how old those cpus are in prebuilts

agreed

kinda wish they would just use yr and then have short model number like 2023 xyz

 

Between Nvidia, Intel and AMD, they seem to have all unofficially adopted the same scheme, but the underlying numbers have no representative value.

 

For example Core i9-13900K is not the same as Ryzen 9-7950X. The core configuration is not even the same, despite producing similar benchmark figures in geekbench. Same with the GPU's a Nvidia 3090 part and a RX 6950 are with 3fps of each other.

 

Like the core configuration of a CPU is directly comparable to each other. A GPU's "cuda cores" is not. For GPU's we basically have to look at the memory bus width to see what tier of card it is really, because that matters more than the actual memory size.

 

[CommanderAlex]

9 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

There is literally nothing but a screenshot...

Ultra could be for "U" processors. Ultra could be for more powerful iGPU configurations. I think we get some more information before this drops, but generally speaking, their current naming scheme was utter garbage at best. So maybe they will find a better and easier way.

It has been confirmed. 

https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/intel-meteor-lake-cpus-rebranding-transition-to-core-ultra-confirmed.html

From Bernard Fernandes, Director of Global Communications, Intel.

Edited May 1, 2023 by CommanderAlex
Never ending Twitter feed removed.

[NumLock21]

Ultra should only be at the very top, naming everything with Ultra just defeats the meaning behind it. A Intel Celeron Ultra is nothing to be bragging about.

[sof006]

Why? Seems stupid to me to rename something which everyone already knows about. Thats like if McDonalds stopped putting Mc before burger names or changed the letters, just dumb. Makes no sense.

[CommanderAlex]

54 minutes ago, Arika S said:

What's there to be confused about? It's a rebrand ffs. Companies don't just throw in a rebrand without telling anyone.

IMO, I think for those that are not tech savvy and keep up to date on the current offerings of CPU in the markets, especially those that walk into a brick & mortar store, will not know what the hell someone is talking about until it's explained to them that i-series processors are just now Ultra-series processors. I can definitely see people over the age of 60 not knowing what an Ultra 5 processor is. 

[HenrySalayne]

25 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

Ultra should only be at the very top, naming everything with Ultra just defeats the meaning behind it. A Intel Celeron Ultra is nothing to be bragging about.

It's quite simple:

- ultra low-end -> lower low-end

- ultra mid-tier -> mid-mid-tier

- ultra high-end -> higher high-end

 

Ultra 3 Extreme would refer to the worst of the worst.

 

 

This honestly feels like primary school marketing agency combined with an ill-designed representative survey. The target audience hears the word "ultra" and is associating a top-of-the-line product like the 6800 Ultra, the M1 Ultra or the Ultra phones from Samsung. Somehow nobody noticed that the term "ultra" loses all of its power when it's put on everything. This works for one or two generations and then the term ultra is so worn, the entire industry can't use it for a decade.

[-rascal-]

4 hours ago, MageTank said:

I'd prefer it if we wiped the slate clean across all product segments and started over. This time, we stop increasing generations by the thousands and start with the 100's annually. Much like people were confused when Nvidia went from the 780, to the 980, to the 1080 (100 increments) to jumping to the 2080 (thousand increments) going forward.

 

 

The GTX 1600-series deviated off of that a bit, though.

 

Then again, I don't know how they would have solved that.

RTX 2060... GTX 2060...that would confused the market, too.

I doubt they would go back to the GTX naming, at all, moving forward.

[Arika]

1 hour ago, CommanderAlex said:

I can definitely see people over the age of 60 not knowing what an Ultra 5 processor is. 

I can definitely see people over the age of 60 not knowing what a core i5 processor is.

 

There is nothing in the rebrand that will confuse people any more than the current brand.

 

I get that people are on average, stupid, but it's a rebrand. You are both behaving like it's something only Intel has done.

If there is 2 laptops side by side and they ask the clerk what the difference is between the i5 and the ultra5, and the clerk says "the ultra5 is a newer i5 rebranded", 99% of people will know what that means. If they don't, they wouldn't even know what they are asking to begin with

[dcgreen2k]

I agree that once products start getting 5-digit product names, the names get pretty clunky.  They should find some new naming scheme to fix this, but "Ultra" is not it imo. Intel has done product renaming that worked well in the past, like going from Core 2 Duo, Quad, and Extreme to Core i3, i5, and i7. Though, the Core 2 naming scheme was more descriptive which helps people who are unfamiliar with Intel's product lineup. Adding "Ultra" while keeping the previous numbering does not help this at all.

[CommanderAlex]

35 minutes ago, Arika S said:

I can definitely see people over the age of 60 not knowing what a core i5 processor is.

 

There is nothing in the rebrand that will confuse people any more than the current brand.

 

I get that people are on average, stupid, but it's a rebrand. You are both behaving like it's something only Intel has done.

If there is 2 laptops side by side and they ask the clerk what the difference is between the i5 and the ultra5, and the clerk says "the ultra5 is a newer i5 rebranded", 99% of people will know what that means. If they don't, they wouldn't even know what they are asking to begin with

Yeah, you win. It's just in my eyes, I've grown up with just Core i-naming scheme and well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it is my mentality-> what's really wrong with the current "i" besides the numbers getting bigger as we're now approaching 14th gen.

 

Intel has had this going for 17 years now (according to those in this thread) and to essentially tear down their brand to transform into Core Ultra is pathetic. 

[Arika]

11 minutes ago, CommanderAlex said:

and to essentially tear down their brand to transform into Core Ultra is pathetic. 

OK, but why?

 

So Intel is never allowed to rebrand their stuff ever?

 

Was amd more or less pathetic when rebranding from athlon fx to fx and then fx to ryzen?

[starsmine]

15 minutes ago, CommanderAlex said:

Yeah, you win. It's just in my eyes, I've grown up with just Core i-naming scheme and well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it is my mentality-> what's really wrong with the current "i" besides the numbers getting bigger as we're now approaching 14th gen.

 

Intel has had this going for 17 years now (according to those in this thread) and to essentially tear down their brand to transform into Core Ultra is pathetic. 

there is a major problem with it being use for so long. Yes its easy to know how things scale inside any generation. but cross generation gets confusing for the layman.
People in businesses or schools are told reccomendations like "i5 or I7" for their laptop needs and people do go out and buy 4 generation old i5s thinking thats fine, when a new i3 is faster and not what was meant. 

[CommanderAlex]

30 minutes ago, Arika S said:

OK, but why?

 

So Intel is never allowed to rebrand their stuff ever?

 

Was amd more or less pathetic when rebranding from athlon fx to fx and then fx to ryzen?

If you're gonna change it, why half ass it? Rebrand the whole Core lineup then. 

 

See above.

 

See above...

[LAwLz]

6 hours ago, CommanderAlex said:

If you're gonna change it, why half ass it? Rebrand the whole Core lineup then. 

 

See above.

 

See above...

I feel like you and many other people are jumping to conclusions.

We barely know anything about this rebrand, and yet people are assuming it will be a certain way and saying that's a bad way of doing things. Maybe people should hold off on judgment until we actually know what the new naming looks like?

 

For all we know, they might be rebranding the whole core lineup.

I don't really think there is anything Intel, AMD, or Nvidia can do about people "recommending i7 processors" and then people buying the old products when the new i3 is better. That's just how advice works in the tech world. You can't look up old advice and think it is relevant today. You can't boil down a product into a single thing that consumers can look at. 

 

 

I also feel like a lot of people are acting just like the old people they always mock. We are talking about potentially calling something an Ultra 5 instead of an i5, and people are now screaming that they will feel completely lost? It's like hearing an old person say they can no longer find "the Internet", because their IE icon was moved on the desktop. Relearning and adapting shouldn't be that hard. 

[porina]

11 hours ago, Kisai said:

You forgot that the Core, Core2 and Core2Quad stuff before it. Going all the way back to I think 2006.  So that's 17, not 15.

I didn't forget. It's right there in the quote you used!

 

11 hours ago, Kisai said:

Just, Intel, get with the program, produce 4 chips and nothing else. 3,5,7,9 There was never any need to differentiate these with three-digit numbers and letters. Produce just the "best part" for those tiers, and make the 9 part de-facto core unlocked.

The reason we have higher and lower chips is to optimise manufacturing. Some % will make the top tier of a segment, but you can increase the usable % by using lower ones too. Does it mean we need as many parts as we get now? Possibly not.

[Kisai]

30 minutes ago, porina said:

I didn't forget. It's right there in the quote you used!

 

That's fine, I just wanted to make sure people in the thread knew the "Core" branding started in 2006 where as before they were still married to the Pentium and Xeon brands, which have been around since 1993 and 1998 respectively. 

 

The "Core" series used 4 digit numbers that weren't terribly meaningful, and that continued into the Core2's as well. 

 

30 minutes ago, porina said:

 

The reason we have higher and lower chips is to optimise manufacturing. Some % will make the top tier of a segment, but you can increase the usable % by using lower ones too. Does it mean we need as many parts as we get now? Possibly not.

 

I get it, but the person buying a desktop or laptop where the difference is an i5 or i7 doesn't know the difference between a i9-13900k or a i9-12900k any more than an i9-13900KF

Is cutting the iGPU from the part worth saving $25 dollars? No. Especially since you don't get the PCIe lanes back. There is a complete disconnect between the P cores being meaningful indicators of performance, and the part number.

Like you can see what features were axed as you go from i9 to i3 in the wikipedia page because they formatted it that way.

i9 has E-cores, Turbo Boost 3.0 and TVP. i7 loses TVP. i5 loses 2 P cores and TurboBoost 3.0, i3 loses all the eCores, half the P cores, Turboboost 3.0 and TVP. But half way through the i5 series you also get the i3's weaker iGPU and lose support for DDR5-5600. Nothing in the part name indicates that.

 

If anything the "i3" and "i5" brandings feel like they were after-thought's.  Why is there 10 SKU's for i5, some with only a quarter of the e-cores? Why does one i9 part not have TVP? Like this is what I mean. If you look at the last three digits what you see instead is 900, 700,600,500,400,100 , of which that first digit always matches the Core i value, but the i5 has at least three unique configurations within that.

 

Like in some ways I feel it would be fairer to just use the TDP base as the "part number", because that at least provides a meaningful comparison between different generation's of parts and different brands. The current offering is confusing, and if they're going to pull Apple's product naming scheme by calling parts "Pro" and "Ultra" that just makes it worse.

 

So making it "Core Ultra 5 1003H", uh... this seems like they want to expand that 3 digit "bin" number to four, and possibly juggle what numbers are meaningful. Because that looks very much like that letter-number soup we saw with the 11th gen. Where we now have HX, H, P, U, with H/HX reflecting the desktop parts.

 

So if we use Intel's existing naming scheme, perhaps "Ultra" is the equivalent of calling it an i10.

[porina]

5 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Like you can see what features were axed as you go from i9 to i3 in the wikipedia page because they formatted it that way.

A problem here is that you seem to want the model number to mean everything, and it's not going to happen unless you go towards a memory chip type arrangement which is going to be even less comprehensible to the random person on the street getting a new PC.

 

The model numbers work if you look at them for what they are: at most an indicative position within the stack of a generation. You don't need to know the exact specs but the current i9 will be generally "better" than a current i7. Yes, it gets complicated when you throw generations into the mix, but I don't think there's a good way around that.

 

If the model were to indicate performance in some way, quite simply you can't. Workloads are too varied. We'd have the userbenchmark (low thread bias) vs Cinebench (ideal thread scaling) arguments all over again.

 

Likewise on features. It's a model number, not a spec sheet. Limited suffixes like we have for F and k are tolerable.