5 ms·

Intel's entire numbering & naming scheme is a disaster. It's time for a clean-slate marketing department.

fortran77 5y ago
I had the same thought. "M1" sounds fresh. The Intel names and numbers seem like a relic from the 90s. The should start fresh. The "Intel One"
- infogulch 5y ago
  Not that I disagree, but that only works if you have a lean product line. Intel's whole pricing strategy relies on micro-segmentation of each 'product' to extract every last cent out of customers. You can't do that if you only have a handful of very distinct products.
- yunohn 5y ago
  Which specific processor would be the “Intel One”? And how would you name the rest of them? Apple can do this because there’s literally only one processor, the M1.
- pavlov 5y ago
  Intel did start fresh at Apple's insistence back in 2006. They mostly dropped the extra brands and went with "Intel Core". Apple didn't want to ship anything with a Pentium inside.
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    I never thought of that...it's an Apple...with a Core inside!
gpderetta 5y ago
These are internal codenames I think, not the marketing names. Of course the fact that the codenames are used more often than the marketing names is itself a marketing failure.
- toast0 5y ago
  The marketting names are useless though. You see people saying 'I've got an i7, it's faster than an i3' when the i7 is a quad core from 2008 and the i3 is a quad core from last year. And the Nth generation they're doing know where the last three generations are damn near the same doesn't help. You really need the architecture name to compare processors, and AMD currently has more usable architecture names; even if their processor number are still a disaster, zen 1 vs zen 3 is clear.
  - HappyTypist 5y ago
    Reset it with a change to the Core prefix. It used to be Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, etc until the current past decade. Name it something like "Intel Smart Core i3" with the introduction of little.BIG architecture. If those live up to the battery life hype, then the naming would even be justified.
- usrusr 5y ago
  Back in the day of late Pentiums and early Cores those internal names worked quite well, they were used and understood everywhere in computer tech media. Today there just isn't so much buzz (or maybe I'm just getting old and do not fall for it so much anymore, but I'd wager that it's both), the portfolios are so wide that none of the many niches can get much attention and the entirety of x86 has to share the stage with mobile (or in-betweens), more than it had to share the stage with workstation CPU news in early Pentium age and before.
  - fredoralive 5y ago
    I think some of the issue is we now seem to have seperate (publicly known) codenames for the microarchitectures / cores and the CPUs chips themselves. Leading to word salads like the article titles. Before we just had one that covered both.
derefr 5y ago
AFIACT, their micro-architecture naming scheme is intended for internal consumption (naming projects in burn-down charts, etc.). The closest they get to “marketing” naming is the UPC-code-like numbers their processors get; and these, I believe, are optimized for the needs of enterprise buyers, who actually understand the ‘meaning’ of the parts of the number, since it’s pretty easy to see when you’re staring at it as one row among many of a spreadsheet of all the part-buy options they’re selling. In this sense, they’re just retaining the very classical electronics parts-numbering tradition — see the naming of pretty much everything in this list (https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/silicon-revolution/25-microchips-that-shook-the-world https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/silicon-revolution/25...). They’re all just random codes, because parts buying on an industrial scale was always about vendors sending you these long sheets of different possible configurations each chip can be made in, and the buyer ticking off the ones they want as if they’re placing a dim-sum order. I believe Intel still gets the majority of its business from enterprise buyers (OEMs, but these days also IaaSes doing their own integration), so this part-code is still the leading number for their products. Even though it’s mystifying to the average consumer. Of course, they do try to hand their downstream integrators a bone by coming up with random marketing terms that apply to some of these processors but not others (i3/5/7/9, etc.) so that they can have something to badge a computer with. I do get the sense that this isn’t something Intel themselves think is very important, though; in about the same way that Nvidia thought “Max Q” was kind of silly (and first tried fixing that by enforcing a specific meaning to it, before just explicitly renouncing it, letting vendors use it however they like as pure marketing buzzspeak.)
drewg123 5y ago
The roadmap code names (lake, cove, etc) are confusing. I have access to roadmaps, etc, via my employer and I can personally only recall the code names for a few generations ahead and behind. The marketing names aren't much better. They sound like a frequent flier program (bronze, silver, gold, platinum) with seemingly meaningless numbers added. You'd think with so many generations and so many configurations, they could come up with a scheme that made sense. I'd name things like: $GENERATION-$SOCKETS-$CORES-$FREQ So for a 7th generation Xeon supporting 2 sockets worth of UPI, with 32 cores and a 2.9Ghz clock speed, you'd call it: Xeon 7-2-32-29 Please Intel? Please?
- pavlov 5y ago
  "> Xeon 7-2-32-29" Sounds too much like a bingo announcer to me...
  - drewg123 5y ago
    Brings new meaning to the term "silcon lottery" :)
- ksec 5y ago
  Some of the Codename and Marketing numbers were changed because of the 10nm fiasco. They had to rethink everything ( that stupid (bronze, silver, gold, platinum) thing ) so every code name and product naming sound "new" and at the same time confusing. Something I hope Pat Gelsinger will change it back to his Intel's days.
- nine_k 5y ago
  There are many important parameters that are not reflected in this scheme: cache sizes, supported memory timings, TDP, core revisions adding minor features and fixing problems, etc. Not every combination of them makes sense, too. So I suppose some kind of opaque numbering, like "I7400" is shortest. I wish they adopted some position-coded scheme which would be easier to decipher, though. Something like architecture-revision-cores-sockets-cache-RAM-frequently-TDP kind, one letter each. Some Intel KCG2MDTM which would be hard to pronounce, but easy to look up, and easy to compare.
lloydatkinson 5y ago
The title is basically a word salad

I had the same thought. "M1" sounds fresh. The Intel names and numbers seem like a relic from the 90s. The should start fresh. The "Intel One"

infogulch 5y ago
Not that I disagree, but that only works if you have a lean product line. Intel's whole pricing strategy relies on micro-segmentation of each 'product' to extract every last cent out of customers. You can't do that if you only have a handful of very distinct products.
yunohn 5y ago
Which specific processor would be the “Intel One”? And how would you name the rest of them? Apple can do this because there’s literally only one processor, the M1.
pavlov 5y ago
Intel did start fresh at Apple's insistence back in 2006. They mostly dropped the extra brands and went with "Intel Core". Apple didn't want to ship anything with a Pentium inside.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  I never thought of that...it's an Apple...with a Core inside!

gpderetta 5y ago

These are internal codenames I think, not the marketing names. Of course the fact that the codenames are used more often than the marketing names is itself a marketing failure.

toast0 5y ago
The marketting names are useless though. You see people saying 'I've got an i7, it's faster than an i3' when the i7 is a quad core from 2008 and the i3 is a quad core from last year. And the Nth generation they're doing know where the last three generations are damn near the same doesn't help. You really need the architecture name to compare processors, and AMD currently has more usable architecture names; even if their processor number are still a disaster, zen 1 vs zen 3 is clear.
- HappyTypist 5y ago
  Reset it with a change to the Core prefix. It used to be Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, etc until the current past decade. Name it something like "Intel Smart Core i3" with the introduction of little.BIG architecture. If those live up to the battery life hype, then the naming would even be justified.
usrusr 5y ago
Back in the day of late Pentiums and early Cores those internal names worked quite well, they were used and understood everywhere in computer tech media. Today there just isn't so much buzz (or maybe I'm just getting old and do not fall for it so much anymore, but I'd wager that it's both), the portfolios are so wide that none of the many niches can get much attention and the entirety of x86 has to share the stage with mobile (or in-betweens), more than it had to share the stage with workstation CPU news in early Pentium age and before.
- fredoralive 5y ago
  I think some of the issue is we now seem to have seperate (publicly known) codenames for the microarchitectures / cores and the CPUs chips themselves. Leading to word salads like the article titles. Before we just had one that covered both.

derefr 5y ago

AFIACT, their micro-architecture naming scheme is intended for internal consumption (naming projects in burn-down charts, etc.). The closest they get to “marketing” naming is the UPC-code-like numbers their processors get; and these, I believe, are optimized for the needs of enterprise buyers, who actually understand the ‘meaning’ of the parts of the number, since it’s pretty easy to see when you’re staring at it as one row among many of a spreadsheet of all the part-buy options they’re selling. In this sense, they’re just retaining the very classical electronics parts-numbering tradition — see the naming of pretty much everything in this list (https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/silicon-revolution/25-microchips-that-shook-the-world https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/silicon-revolution/25...). They’re all just random codes, because parts buying on an industrial scale was always about vendors sending you these long sheets of different possible configurations each chip can be made in, and the buyer ticking off the ones they want as if they’re placing a dim-sum order. I believe Intel still gets the majority of its business from enterprise buyers (OEMs, but these days also IaaSes doing their own integration), so this part-code is still the leading number for their products. Even though it’s mystifying to the average consumer. Of course, they do try to hand their downstream integrators a bone by coming up with random marketing terms that apply to some of these processors but not others (i3/5/7/9, etc.) so that they can have something to badge a computer with. I do get the sense that this isn’t something Intel themselves think is very important, though; in about the same way that Nvidia thought “Max Q” was kind of silly (and first tried fixing that by enforcing a specific meaning to it, before just explicitly renouncing it, letting vendors use it however they like as pure marketing buzzspeak.)

drewg123 5y ago

The roadmap code names (lake, cove, etc) are confusing. I have access to roadmaps, etc, via my employer and I can personally only recall the code names for a few generations ahead and behind. The marketing names aren't much better. They sound like a frequent flier program (bronze, silver, gold, platinum) with seemingly meaningless numbers added. You'd think with so many generations and so many configurations, they could come up with a scheme that made sense. I'd name things like: $GENERATION-$SOCKETS-$CORES-$FREQ So for a 7th generation Xeon supporting 2 sockets worth of UPI, with 32 cores and a 2.9Ghz clock speed, you'd call it: Xeon 7-2-32-29 Please Intel? Please?

pavlov 5y ago
"> Xeon 7-2-32-29" Sounds too much like a bingo announcer to me...
- drewg123 5y ago
  Brings new meaning to the term "silcon lottery" :)
ksec 5y ago
Some of the Codename and Marketing numbers were changed because of the 10nm fiasco. They had to rethink everything ( that stupid (bronze, silver, gold, platinum) thing ) so every code name and product naming sound "new" and at the same time confusing. Something I hope Pat Gelsinger will change it back to his Intel's days.
nine_k 5y ago
There are many important parameters that are not reflected in this scheme: cache sizes, supported memory timings, TDP, core revisions adding minor features and fixing problems, etc. Not every combination of them makes sense, too. So I suppose some kind of opaque numbering, like "I7400" is shortest. I wish they adopted some position-coded scheme which would be easier to decipher, though. Something like architecture-revision-cores-sockets-cache-RAM-frequently-TDP kind, one letter each. Some Intel KCG2MDTM which would be hard to pronounce, but easy to look up, and easy to compare.

lloydatkinson 5y ago

The title is basically a word salad