Intel Changes Meteor Lake Naming: "i" Removed From "i9", new Core "Ultra" Brand

[AusWolf]

Another change for its own sake. Not just completely pointless, but the new name sounds stupid as well.

 

[dyonoctis]

This. Anyone saying ultra is an idiot I'd immediately follow up on that with an overemphasized ULTRA muhahaha

Until we get replaced by kids growing up with Ultra. There's going to be a generational war at some point in forums haha

Another change for its own sake. Not just completely pointless, but the new name sounds stupid as well.

From a branding perspective, I understand why they did that. MTL is a big change in packaging design for Intel, Arc is going to be used everywhere, and they are joining Apple in the "SOC with accelerators" approach. They already changed their branding when nehalem integrated the memory controller on the CPU. It's just that Core i has been around for so long that it became really familiar to us. It stayed around even longer than Pentium did as a main branding. (Although pentium lost a bit in superb after what happened with P4, so the core rebranding was actually a smart thing to do.)

I would just argue that Core i started to be associated with complacency by some people since skylake, so the current branding is not pristine either

 

[LabRat 891]

More evidence of smaller gaps between releases, 6 month release schedules with overlapping stock, its easier for consumers to make mistakes when ordering with these changes.

I can still recall getting GLARING and FLAMING 'feedback' to my supposition on this, but regarding AMD.

No body is much talking about it, but this seems like an 'industry-market adaptation', not a brand-specific policy. (Also, my memory tells me both brands used to do this regularly.

*cough*S478/T*cough* *gurgle*S754/939*gasp*
Sorry, guess I need some expectorant

 

[chrcoluk]

Well its already common in the portable electronics sector.

 

[Fourstaff]

Why don't they just drop the 3/5/7/9 while they are at it? I think its simpler to do Intel Core 13-900K or 13-500F, or 13-100. For mobile processors, they can just do 13M-45U or something like that.

 

[bubbleawsome]

They saw the Apple M “Ultra” branding and an MBA or clueless C-suite crapped their pants and said “wow we need that”.

Why even bother having an ultra 5. What’s ultra about that?

 

[LabRat 891]

Why don't they just drop the 3/5/7/9 while they are at it? I think its simpler to do Intel Core 13-900K or 13-500F, or 13-100. For mobile processors, they can just do 13M-45U or something like that.

Simpler, yes; if you're used to hyper-utilitarian part/model numbers in a technical-profession.
It also looks kinda cool IMO. Probably because it reminds me of DoD/NATO designations for standards and equipment

To many customers (incl. 'purchasers' at sm.-lg. businesses), I think that might look like an easily-confused mass o' numbers.
It's worth mentioning, that Intel's current naming scheme already uses a laughable amount of digits and prefix/suffix(es.)

TBF, there's no naming scheme (that I can imagine) that would satisfy the needs of marketing, consumers, and "Pros" altogether. Each of those parties have highly-divergent values to the other.
I wouldn't want to be anywhere-involved in 'branding and marketing' these days... It's become a sort of no-win scenario, even for the most pragmatic.
Somebody will be pissed, confused, or otherwise-displeased, "no matter what" (and, it's actually "of consequence").


The prompt/motivation for this seemingly-sudden change, is more intriguing IMO

They saw the Apple M “Ultra” branding and an MBA or clueless C-suite crapped their pants and said “wow we need that”.

Why even bother having an ultra 5. What’s ultra about that?

Probably, not far-off there.

 

[AusWolf]

Until we get replaced by kids growing up with Ultra. There's going to be a generational war at some point in forums haha


From a branding perspective, I understand why they did that. MTL is a big change in packaging design for Intel, Arc is going to be used everywhere, and they are joining Apple in the "SOC with accelerators" approach. They already changed their branding when nehalem integrated the memory controller on the CPU. It's just that Core i has been around for so long that it became really familiar to us. It stayed around even longer than Pentium did as a main branding. (Although pentium lost a bit in superb after what happened with P4, so the core rebranding was actually a smart thing to do.)

I would just argue that Core i started to be associated with complacency by some people since skylake, so the current branding is not pristine either

In my opinion, they should have started a completely new naming system after 9th gen. Five numbers aren't very nice to pronounce, not to mention the ones that have letters stuck in the middle, like the 1165g7 or what the hell it's called. No one remembers that.

Switching to a heterogenous architecture with 12th gen was probably a bigger leap than whatever Meteor Lake has in store, which would've been another great chance to start over. Why now, doesn't make sense, imo. Not restarting the naming, just replacing the "i" with Ultra doesn't make sense, either.

 

[Vayra86]

In my opinion, they should have started a completely new naming system after 9th gen. Five numbers aren't very nice to pronounce, not to mention the ones that have letters stuck in the middle, like the 1165g7 or what the hell it's called. No one remembers that.

Switching to a heterogenous architecture with 12th gen was probably a bigger leap than whatever Meteor Lake has in store, which would've been another great chance to start over. Why now, doesn't make sense, imo. Not restarting the naming, just replacing the "i" with Ultra doesn't make sense, either.

All Intel has been doing lately is trying to carve out a bit of new mindshare with us that they're doing something radically new. That its better than anything we've ever had since sliced bread too. Suddenly, ULTRA is the only way to go from there, I mean, they were already Extreme a long time ago and Nvidia already claimed SUPER while AMD has monopolized the use of X and probably Y and Z too. I'm not sure what word they'll escalate to next. 'Extinct' ?

I'm only 35,7% joking too, it probably went quite like that @ the marketing dept, they even already had the 9 in there, desperate faces were seen.

I would have been throwing money at my screen if they had used the new word 'Hard'. I mean. Hard Core. Would've been perfect after those Meltdown and Spectre mitigations were in place...

 

[AusWolf]

All Intel has been doing lately is trying to carve out a bit of new mindshare with us that they're doing something radically new. That its better than anything we've ever had since sliced bread too. Suddenly, ULTRA is the only way to go from there, I mean, they were already Extreme a long time ago and Nvidia already claimed SUPER while AMD has monopolized the use of X and probably Y and Z too. I'm not sure what word they'll escalate to next. 'Extinct' ?

I'm only 35,7% joking too, it probably went quite like that @ the marketing dept, they even already had the 9 in there, desperate faces were seen.

I would have been throwing money at my screen if they had used the new word 'Hard'. I mean. Hard Core. Would've been perfect after those Meltdown and Spectre mitigations were in place...

Extreme was different, as it was really extreme in everything. Top of the line, most power, most heat, most expensive, etc. Ultra is just a name. Even the basic i3 in your £200 browser machine will be called Ultra, followed by a bazillion numbers. It doesn't make any sense.

 

[JoeTheDestroyer]

Honestly wish they'd drop the "product tier" component completely.

The only thing this changes is I will go from hearing "I have an i7" from people, to "I have an ULTRA 7", and I will still have to explain to them that this tells me almost nothing.

 

[dyonoctis]

Extreme was different, as it was really extreme in everything. Top of the line, most power, most heat, most expensive, etc. Ultra is just a name. Even the basic i3 in your £200 browser machine will be called Ultra, followed by a bazillion numbers. It doesn't make any sense.

Honestly wish they'd drop the "product tier" component completely.

The only thing this changes is I will go from hearing "I have an i7" from people, to "I have an ULTRA 7", and I will still have to explain to them that this tells me almost nothing.

To be fair, there won't be a ultra 3, it's reserved for 5,7 and 9. We have yet to see how the ultra CPU will look like. If the core ultra laptop can compete with H/HX, then it's all good, since those are the performance focused CPUs. It might even be clearer on the laptop side :

There's currently a 2 P-core i7 that's not performance oriented, you have to look at the model number and suffix to see that it is a low power part (U).
With the new branding, it would be called a core 7, so you already know that it's low power without having to look at the model number.
Meanwhile, if you buy an ultra core 7 laptops, you know that you are getting a performance CPU.

-Intel core = low power and i3 laptop/desktop
-Intel core ultra = H/HX, every desktop above i3

So unless they fucked that up somehow, there's the potential to finally clean up the whole :"your i7 can either be high end or low end. Without the full model number and suffix, I can't tell which it is"

 

[AusWolf]

To be fair, there won't be a ultra 3, it's reserved for 5,7 and 9. We have yet to see how the ultra CPU will look like. If the core ultra laptop can compete with H/HX, then it's all good, since those are the performance focused CPUs. It might even be clearer on the laptop side :

There's currently a 2 P-core i7 that's not performance oriented, you have to look at the model number and suffix to see that it is a low power part (U).
With the new branding, it would be called a core 7, so you already know that it's low power without having to look at the model number.
Meanwhile, if you buy an ultra core 7 laptops, you know that you are getting a performance CPU.

-Intel core = low power and i3 laptop/desktop
-Intel core ultra = H/HX, every desktop above i3

So unless they fucked that up somehow, there's the potential to finally clean up the whole :"your i7 can either be high end or low end. Without the full model number and suffix, I can't tell which it is"

Somehow I doubt it'll be that simple, not to mention "Core 7" will still tell you nothing about where the product sits.

 

[JoeTheDestroyer]

So unless they fucked that up somehow, there's the potential to finally clean up the whole :"your i7 can either be high end or low end. Without the full model number and suffix, I can't tell which it is"

The problem I have is that it's carried from generation to generation. Someone telling me they have an i7 could me something recent, or something half a decade old, so it's a pretty useless piece of information. And yet, being the first part of the model name encourages common folk to remember only that part and assume that the actual model number is just less relevant details.

 

[dyonoctis]

Somehow I doubt it'll be that simple, not to mention "Core 7" will still tell you nothing about where the product sits.

You're right, I just saw that leak, and intel learned nothing... meteor lake U will be ultra as well. So what is core supposed to represent in the future ? The previous gen ? Do they plan to always overlap a refresh of the old gen when they launch a new arch ? Or Is it just an exception ? Why not make RPL R U a part of 14th gen as well since Laptops are also getting HX refresh ? Damn it Intel, you had the opportunity to do better... what a clusterfuck.

The problem I have is that it's carried from generation to generation. Someone telling me they have an i7 could me something recent, or something half a decade old, so it's a pretty useless piece of information. And yet, being the first part of the model name encourages common folk to remember only that part and assume that the actual model number is just less relevant details.

I see, yea in theory we could use the same naming model as GPUs, there's just so many CPUs releasing each generation... and the need to explain what's the difference between a 13700/13700K and 13700HX/13700H

 

[AusWolf]

You're right, I just saw that leak, and intel learned nothing... meteor lake U will be ultra as well. So what is core supposed to represent in the future ? The previous gen ? Do they plan to always overlap a refresh of the old gen when they launch a new arch ? Or Is it just an exception ? Why not make RPL R U a part of 14th gen as well since Laptops are also getting HX refresh ? Damn it Intel, you had the opportunity to do better... what a clusterfuck.
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I see, yea in theory we could use the same naming model as GPUs, there's just so many CPUs releasing each generation... and the need to explain what's the difference between a 13700/13700K and 13700HX/13700H

Yeah. Not to mention, most people still think that any i7 is automatically better than any i5 just because it's two numbers higher. Explaining to those people won't be any easier with the new names.

 

[trparky]

So, instead of doing the hard thing and making a new architecture from the ground up like they should be doing, they're just renaming it. Got it.