Intel Confirms "Core i-" Getting Replaced by "Core Ultra" For Upcoming Meteor Lake Processors

[T0@st]

Intel has made it official that its upcoming Meteor Lake CPU lineup will proudly sport a new branding scheme - as reported on TPU much earlier today, rumors indicated that Intel would be rolling out "Core Ultra" brand extensions across a range of SKUs. The "i" in some model identifiers such as i3, i5, i7, and i9 are now confirmed to be (in part) replaced with "Ultra" - an Ashes of the Singularity benchmark leak identified a CPU called "Core Ultra 5 1003H" early on last week, and that information soon spread across many online hardware news outlets and communities.

Bernard Fernandes, director of global communications at Intel Corp. today addressed the rumors and leaks via Twitter and confirms that a new branding scheme is incoming: "Yes, 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!" He makes sure to not directly mention the "Ultra Core" branding in his tweet, but it is heavily implied that he's referring to the discardation and eventual replacement of Intel's classic "i" labelling system.



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[Squared]

I'm probably the last person to accept a new thing so take what I say with a grain of salt, but somehow "Core i5" seems more interesting to me than "Core Ultra 5". But I understand wanting to shake up the names for Meteor Lake.

 

[agent_x007]

Intel : How to make things more confusing for clients ?
Marketing guy : Let's use Ultra, High, Medium, Low instead of "i" before number !
Intel : Excellent idea !

Now we only have to wait for "Intel Core High 3 1060x", or "Core Low 7 1150h" to be announced.
I REALLY hate those new names if it wasn't obvious...

 

[P4-630]

Why make things more complicated.....

 

[BArms]

I think Apple is forcing Intel to do this. Apple's Base/Pro/Max/Ultra scheme is easy to understand and in laptops Apple silicon is shockingly competitive in performance considering how little electricity they use and in laptops how insanely long the battery life is, up to 22 hours in a MBP at full performance, while fairly silent.

I do really want to see a high end intel laptop that can get at least half the battery life of a MBP, currently they're abysmal at like 4-6 hours with casual usage, gaming maybe 1.5 hours, but I'm not going to get my hopes up anytime soon.

 

[Denver]

Ok, Seriously... a multi-billion dollar company could think of a less pompous name...

 

[dllm]

I think Apple is forcing Intel to do this. Apple's Base/Pro/Max/Ultra scheme is easy to understand and in laptops Apple silicon is shockingly competitive in performance considering how little electricity they use and in laptops how insanely long the battery life is, up to 22 hours in a MBP at full performance, while fairly silent.

I do really want to see a high end intel laptop that can get at least half the battery life of a MBP, currently they're abysmal at like 4-6 hours with casual usage, gaming maybe 1.5 hours, but I'm not going to get my hopes up anytime soon.

3,5,7,9 is definitely easier

 

[ZoneDymo]

Why make things more complicated.....

So people can sound even more nerdy when they actually know all of this, I know I have to look up a LOT more these days....

 

[z1tu]

I think Apple is forcing Intel to do this. Apple's Base/Pro/Max/Ultra scheme is easy to understand and in laptops Apple silicon is shockingly competitive in performance considering how little electricity they use and in laptops how insanely long the battery life is, up to 22 hours in a MBP at full performance, while fairly silent.

I do really want to see a high end intel laptop that can get at least half the battery life of a MBP, currently they're abysmal at like 4-6 hours with casual usage, gaming maybe 1.5 hours, but I'm not going to get my hopes up anytime soon.

How is Max/Ultra more easier to understand than numbers?

 

[Vayra86]

I think Apple is forcing Intel to do this. Apple's Base/Pro/Max/Ultra scheme is easy to understand and in laptops Apple silicon is shockingly competitive in performance considering how little electricity they use and in laptops how insanely long the battery life is, up to 22 hours in a MBP at full performance, while fairly silent.

I do really want to see a high end intel laptop that can get at least half the battery life of a MBP, currently they're abysmal at like 4-6 hours with casual usage, gaming maybe 1.5 hours, but I'm not going to get my hopes up anytime soon.

Wait.

Base/Pro/Max/Ultra is easy to understand?!

The four terms have no real connection, you just know that Base is le poor man's POS and everyone else gets to feel like a winner. Also do tell me how Max differentiates from Ultra. So Ultra is beyond Max, so in fact 'Maximum' was a straight up lie? Or you get 110% of phone with Ultra? And if you carry a Base, Max or Ultra, you're definitely an amateur, not a pro? I mean seriously, I'm trying to bring reason to this madness, help me.

So now here comes Intel, where even the lowliest piece of crap i3 is now as 'Ultra' as an i9 monstrosity sucking north of 200W?

I guess thát's easy to understand: you know for damn sure you haven't got a clue what it means, but it sure sounds flashy and everyone can feel special and warm & fuzzy inside.

How is Max/Ultra more easier to understand than numbers?

That makes it even more peculiar doesn't it. The numbers are staying.

 

[Arco]

Explode it. No more. Before we get I don't know like, Core 1030 PRO +++ SE

 

[Dristun]

Maybe it's my sports background but to this day I don't understand why 9 is better than 1 in marketing. The 1 part should be the best! Those guys at Canon got it right.

 

[Arco]

Bigger number. The 420 tube is better than the 210 tube.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Why make things more complicated.....

Because keeping with the current namesake is getting long in the tooth. What do we want? Intel 20th Gen with an i9 20900k?

 

[Vayra86]

Maybe it's my sports background but to this day I don't understand why 9 is better than 1 in marketing. The 1 part should be the best! Those guys at Canon got it right.

Because things can go to 11, and power level can reach over 9999.

Go check out Goku powering up to level 1, that ain't fun at all.

Also... Intel i1?!

Ok, Seriously... a multi-billion dollar company could think of a less pompous name...

Well the architecture is starting to feel like it's from the nineties, so maybe they went full retro on this one, and SUPER was already taken.

Because keeping with the current namesake is getting long in the tooth. What do we want? Intel 20th Gen with an i9 20900k?

That's due to the Core prefix, so you'll still get 20th gen Core whether you want it or not

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

That's due to the Core prefix, so you'll still get 20th gen Core whether you want it or not

We had C(ore)2D(uo) and C(ore)2Q(uad). They can come up with a new damn naming scheme already.

 

[unwind-protect]

Why make things more complicated.....

It is Intel's hobby.

 

[BArms]

How is Max/Ultra more easier to understand than numbers?

I would argue it's pretty easy to understand for a technologist but that wasn't really my point, though I guess I didn't make it that well.

My point was Apple is using that scheme and their M1 Ultra is a pretty killer product. Apple gave "Ultra" a very premium feeling. IMO Intel is adopting that for their SKU naming strategy to muddy the waters for Apple and try to capitalize on Apple's marketing. Kind of like when AMD adopted their "Rating" system that was similar to Intel's MHz ratings back when AMD wasn't competing with Intel on clock frequency, so AMD adopted a naming scheme that shifted consumer's attention. I think Intel is the one doing that now, but with Apple's vastly superior silicon (in some metrics).

Or I could be wrong.

 

[Dr. Dro]

I hate the new name and it's even worse than the rumor I heard yesterday about Max/Ultra/Extreme

There's absolutely nothing ultra about a Core i3

 

[thelawnet]

I would argue it's pretty easy to understand for a technologist but that wasn't really my point, though I guess I didn't make it that well.

My point was Apple is using that scheme and their M1 Ultra is a pretty killer product. Apple gave "Ultra" a very premium feeling. IMO Intel is adopting that for their SKU naming strategy to muddy the waters for Apple and try to capitalize on Apple's marketing. Kind of like when AMD adopted their "Rating" system that was similar to Intel's MHz ratings back when AMD wasn't competing with Intel on clock frequency, so AMD adopted a naming scheme that shifted consumer's attention. I think Intel is the one doing that now, but with Apple's vastly superior silicon (in some metrics).

Or I could be wrong.

I have no interest in Apple products, and have no idea what the difference is between their CPUs. For all I know they are different power envelopes or whatever.

3/5/7/9 is pretty clear as being about the performance only....

 

[pressing on]

If is interesting to note from the second graphic that this particular Meteor Lake mobile CPU has 18 physical cores. How can that be? Intel has published a diagram of a Meteor Lake (ML) processor as part of the patent application for its L4 (Adamantine) cache. As this diagram (source: Intel plus annotations) shows the L4 cache will be located on the passive (silicon) interposer. The ML tiles or dies as they are called here will be positioned on top of the interposer.

This a 2P + 8E chip. Notice that that are two cores in the SOC, marked as SOC-Cores. These are likely to be the Low Power Efficient (LPE) cores that have been rumoured. So to get 18 cores there are 2 cores on the SOC. That leaves 16. The CPU in the diagram has a 64 EU graphics unit, but the 18 core unit has 192 EUs. This suggests a premium unit, so I think the remaining 16 cores would be configured as 8P + 8E.

The other feature to note is the VPU2.7 - this is Intel's AI Engine. It will face competition from Apple's Neural Engine and AMD's shortly to be introduced Dedicated AI Engine on the 7040 Phoenix processor.

 

[BorisDG]

They just want to sound/look cool. Like M1 Ultra, Apple Watch Ultra...

 

[agent_x007]

They just want to sound/look cool. Like M1 Ultra, Apple Watch Ultra...

And "Intel Ultra i3/i5/i7 series" or "Intel Ultimate 3/5/7/9" series both sound fine to me, but I guess dropping "Core" is too hard at this point

 

[pressing on]

They just want to sound/look cool. Like M1 Ultra, Apple Watch Ultra...

Maybe. It's possible that Ultra is a rebrand of the HX range as apart from being the top performance band of Intel mobile CPUs it is otherwise meaningless. If this was the case it wouldn't be applied to the lower performance U, P and H ranges of mobile chips. The current Raptor Lake HX chips includes 6P + 8E, 8P + 8E, and 8P + 16E parts with hyperthreading on the P cores only. Add in the SOC-Cores and that would tie in with the "Core Ultra" having 18 physical cores. This particular processor is shown as 18 logical cores, which suggests no hyperthreading, it might be an engineering sample.

 

[mechtech]

I’ll wait for the Extreme Edition Core Ultra.