4 ms·

Even within one vendor it's super confusing. i3? i5? i7? Y series? U series? I think 12th gen Intel may even use different naming conventions already... A Y s

by IE6 5y ago

Even within one vendor it's super confusing. i3? i5? i7? Y series? U series? I think 12th gen Intel may even use different naming conventions already... A Y series i7 of olde delivered a significantly different experience than an i3 U series (literally the difference between being able to run some workloads comfortably vs. locking the machine up). And then marketing materials make it harder because they will drop the CPU model name for the nondescript "i5 CPU". I think it's probably somewhat intentional.

paulmd 5y ago
if they don't call out mobile/ULV processors with their own series (Y and U series) then people whine that they're trying to "sneak lower-performing processors into the lineup using the same numbering". similarly, marketing a processor as being a "5700U" or "5700G" despite it being slower than a desktop 5700X could be seen as equally deceptive. That's not really any better than "i7" vs "m7" or whatever. unfortunately you're just going to have to learn the naming convention, there really isn't a good solution for that, given the wide range of applications that a given series might be applied to. You just happen to think that AMD's naming convention is worth taking the time to learn while throwing your hands up at the Intel naming. Same with people who think Intel is just awful for internally codenaming all their products after Lakes and Coves while eagerly memorizing every single painter and city name that AMD uses in their codenames - says more about your priorities than their naming scheme.
- IE6 5y ago
  > You just happen to think that AMD's naming convention is worth taking the time to learn while throwing your hands up at the Intel naming. Same with people who think Intel is just awful for internally codenaming all their products after Lakes and Coves while eagerly memorizing every single painter and city name that AMD uses in their codenames - says more about your priorities than their naming scheme. Who are you talking to?
  - paulmd 5y ago
    The person who was saying they didn't understand the Intel naming convention because U and Y SKUs were too complex to understand. That's normal. Mobile and ULV SKUs are usually coded differently. AMD calls them "U" and "H" skus I believe. The person in question just doesn't understand the Intel naming convention, which is fine, but AMD and every other company does the exact same thing. It's not that Intel is uniquely confusing, it's that the individual here doesn't feel that Intel's naming convention is worth the brain space. Which is also fine, but it's not a problem with the naming convention. As a tangential observation (people do make those in discussions!) architecture/product codenames are another place this comes up. There are many enthusiasts who will eagerly memorize that Rembrandt > Renoir but think the idea that Rocket Lake > Coffee Lake is perplexing and confusing. Or at least that's a repeated theme in many of these naming discussions. I'm doing my best here to say this politely, but a lot of people clearly just don't value those two bits of knowledge equally. And dipping into rhetorical "who are you even responding to!?" doesn't really further the discussion either. Naming isn't hard and naming discussions aren't interesting.
    - IE6 5y ago
      As someone who understands the intel naming convention quite well and could understand the AMD naming convention if I had a reason to I can still empathize with random-consumer-x who does not need to have that any practical understanding of the naming convention and could be confused as to what they are really purchasing...
      - paulmd 5y ago
        Well, sadly, there is more than one use-case for computers so we need multiple power brackets, so U and Y SKUs are going to continue to exist. It's appropriate to call it out with the naming scheme, but that's exactly what AMD and Intel have done here. There is no solution which is going to be 100% intuitive to someone who specifically doesn't know anything about what they're looking for. If you move those products out to their own separate series, that's what Intel did with the Y series ("m7-xxxY" line - contrast to "i7"). You specifically don't like that. If you mark them within the existing series, that's what Intel and AMD do with the U series. You specifically don't like that either. If you move them into a single series, you end up with something like the Intel Ice Lake/Tiger Lake naming convention, where there is some part of the name that means "cores" and some part of the name that means "power" and part that means "graphics". Other people really didn't like that, because now you have one name that means 5 different things. (And this is what I mean about the naming discussion being dumb and boring - whatever you think is how it should be done, someone else hates that, and thinks it is too complex and requires too much knowledge on the part of buyers. It's bikeshedding, product naming is low-stakes so everyone has an opinion on it and is very upset that AMD and Intel are ignoring their urgent forums posts. At the end of the day it's just not that interesting, nor are any of these naming schemes that difficult if you bother to learn what they mean.) Anyway, it's unfortunate that there are features and distinctions which laymen may not understand, but that's a fact of life, there's things car people really care about that a Camry Buyer doesn't know, and that's fine. Someone who bought an expensive truck with a base-model trim might be upset that a Camry with a top trim is "nicer", because they didn't understand what a "trim" is before they laid down their money, and that's unfortunate but it's not exactly hidden either, nor should we call to get rid of trim levels because one person didn't understand. Someone else might be really upset that their SUV doesn't tow like a truck even though they got the nicest trim level on the SUV. Again, sorry if this seems frustrated, but this is a topic that has been bikeshedded endlessly. The stakes are low, there's multiple reasonable options available, and there's a whole lot of people who are all really upset that AMD and Intel aren't taking their forums posts on the topic seriously. Naming conventions are fine, they're good enough to not matter.

by IE6 5y ago

paulmd 5y ago

if they don't call out mobile/ULV processors with their own series (Y and U series) then people whine that they're trying to "sneak lower-performing processors into the lineup using the same numbering". similarly, marketing a processor as being a "5700U" or "5700G" despite it being slower than a desktop 5700X could be seen as equally deceptive. That's not really any better than "i7" vs "m7" or whatever. unfortunately you're just going to have to learn the naming convention, there really isn't a good solution for that, given the wide range of applications that a given series might be applied to. You just happen to think that AMD's naming convention is worth taking the time to learn while throwing your hands up at the Intel naming. Same with people who think Intel is just awful for internally codenaming all their products after Lakes and Coves while eagerly memorizing every single painter and city name that AMD uses in their codenames - says more about your priorities than their naming scheme.

IE6 5y ago
> You just happen to think that AMD's naming convention is worth taking the time to learn while throwing your hands up at the Intel naming. Same with people who think Intel is just awful for internally codenaming all their products after Lakes and Coves while eagerly memorizing every single painter and city name that AMD uses in their codenames - says more about your priorities than their naming scheme. Who are you talking to?
- paulmd 5y ago
  The person who was saying they didn't understand the Intel naming convention because U and Y SKUs were too complex to understand. That's normal. Mobile and ULV SKUs are usually coded differently. AMD calls them "U" and "H" skus I believe. The person in question just doesn't understand the Intel naming convention, which is fine, but AMD and every other company does the exact same thing. It's not that Intel is uniquely confusing, it's that the individual here doesn't feel that Intel's naming convention is worth the brain space. Which is also fine, but it's not a problem with the naming convention. As a tangential observation (people do make those in discussions!) architecture/product codenames are another place this comes up. There are many enthusiasts who will eagerly memorize that Rembrandt > Renoir but think the idea that Rocket Lake > Coffee Lake is perplexing and confusing. Or at least that's a repeated theme in many of these naming discussions. I'm doing my best here to say this politely, but a lot of people clearly just don't value those two bits of knowledge equally. And dipping into rhetorical "who are you even responding to!?" doesn't really further the discussion either. Naming isn't hard and naming discussions aren't interesting.
  - IE6 5y ago
    As someone who understands the intel naming convention quite well and could understand the AMD naming convention if I had a reason to I can still empathize with random-consumer-x who does not need to have that any practical understanding of the naming convention and could be confused as to what they are really purchasing...
    - paulmd 5y ago
      Well, sadly, there is more than one use-case for computers so we need multiple power brackets, so U and Y SKUs are going to continue to exist. It's appropriate to call it out with the naming scheme, but that's exactly what AMD and Intel have done here. There is no solution which is going to be 100% intuitive to someone who specifically doesn't know anything about what they're looking for. If you move those products out to their own separate series, that's what Intel did with the Y series ("m7-xxxY" line - contrast to "i7"). You specifically don't like that. If you mark them within the existing series, that's what Intel and AMD do with the U series. You specifically don't like that either. If you move them into a single series, you end up with something like the Intel Ice Lake/Tiger Lake naming convention, where there is some part of the name that means "cores" and some part of the name that means "power" and part that means "graphics". Other people really didn't like that, because now you have one name that means 5 different things. (And this is what I mean about the naming discussion being dumb and boring - whatever you think is how it should be done, someone else hates that, and thinks it is too complex and requires too much knowledge on the part of buyers. It's bikeshedding, product naming is low-stakes so everyone has an opinion on it and is very upset that AMD and Intel are ignoring their urgent forums posts. At the end of the day it's just not that interesting, nor are any of these naming schemes that difficult if you bother to learn what they mean.) Anyway, it's unfortunate that there are features and distinctions which laymen may not understand, but that's a fact of life, there's things car people really care about that a Camry Buyer doesn't know, and that's fine. Someone who bought an expensive truck with a base-model trim might be upset that a Camry with a top trim is "nicer", because they didn't understand what a "trim" is before they laid down their money, and that's unfortunate but it's not exactly hidden either, nor should we call to get rid of trim levels because one person didn't understand. Someone else might be really upset that their SUV doesn't tow like a truck even though they got the nicest trim level on the SUV. Again, sorry if this seems frustrated, but this is a topic that has been bikeshedded endlessly. The stakes are low, there's multiple reasonable options available, and there's a whole lot of people who are all really upset that AMD and Intel aren't taking their forums posts on the topic seriously. Naming conventions are fine, they're good enough to not matter.