Intel's New Brand Structure Explained

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
Intel spokesman Bill Calder has laid out the company’s new brand structure in this announcement, explaining what consumers can expect from Intel as they move forward. While most of you know this already, Calder says that the new Core i3 is an entry level part, Core i5 is a mid-level part and the Core i7 is its high-end part. Hit the link above for the complete rundown.


We are focusing our strategy around a primary 'hero' client brand which is Intel® Core™. Today the Intel Core brand has a mind boggling array of derivatives (such as Core™2 Duo and Core 2 Quad, etc). Over time those will go away and in its place will be a simplified family of Core processors spanning multiple levels: Intel® Core™ i3 processor, Intel® Core™ i5 processor, and Intel® Core™ i7 processors. Core i3 and Core i5 are new modifiers and join the previously announced Intel Core i7 to round out the family structure. It is important to note that these are not brands but modifiers to the Intel Core brand that signal different features and benefits. For example, upcoming processors such as Lynnfield (desktop) will carry the Intel Core brand, but will be available as either Intel Core i5 or Intel Core i7 depending upon the feature set and capability. Clarksfield (mobile) will have the Intel Core i7 name.
 
Last edited:
lol to simplify? they say that just about every year

so their new processor is already called a Intel® Core™ i7, how about just Intel® i7 ... make it even shorter.
 
From reading that, the summary I got is:

"Two divisions for the Core, Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad (with similar function sets) was too many and too confusing, so we're introducting three completely different chips with the i3, i5, and i7 names to makes things less confusing! Oh, BTW we'll still be using the Celeron, Pentium and Atom brands too"

And how does changing a "mind boggling array of derivatives" (err two?) into three with more differences between them make things less confusing for Joe Consumer?
 
In case you haven't figured it out, that's just a marketing line to cover their real objectives.
 
To call this marketing gobbledygook simplification shows that Intel does have a sense of humo, or that they've lost their minds; laughs for us either way!
 
its easier to rip off average consumers when the nomenclature is byzantine.
 
They must have studied Microsoft Licensing 6 documentation...
 
i3?

Will this line be dumb down version of the i5 and i7?

Wonder how it will OC, and if it will blend?
 
Looks like they are just dying to open the door back up for AMD. I can already see the AMD marketing sloagan:

AMD - Simple, Fast, Best Value
 
Looks like the core i3 is a 32nm dual core version of i5, to be released beginning of next year I guess. Of course, that doesn't tell us the clock rates and cache and TDP and if any features of the cpu are disabled. Does it have integrated graphics? I dunno. Intel hasn't even put the i5,i3, or new i7's up on their charts yet. Who knows what you're buying nowdays.
 
I don't want to sound like an anti-Intel jerk, which is what I am, but what is the deal with that many different active sockets? Do they matter that much for OEMs, significant money to be saved i3 VS i5 or are there just more rebates or another grand money making scheme? Dual vs triple channel memory is one thing for us home consumer types for the i5 vs i7 equation but then you have the 920 phasing out and the upcoming i7s being $500+. Over on the forums here in Sweden I see a few people happily planning purchases of those to their i7 boards, but many, many (we're a cheap people, hence IKEA) angry that they're essentially stuck with their purchase unless they're prepared to spend a huge amount on just a new processor.

AM2+'s being phased out slowly leaving only AM3 for everything from budget to high performance on the AMD side, which is a very nice thing that I guess more and more will appreciate from now.
 
New intel naming scheme!

"Core i"(2k+1) where k is a natural number.
 
Looks like they are just dying to open the door back up for AMD. I can already see the AMD marketing sloagan:

AMD - Simple, Fast, Best Value

I would say more like "AMD, because the graphics card is the bottleneck anyway, you might as well spend your money on that." and "AMD, that's why we purchased ATI" :p
 
As long as they are not renaming their old products as Core i3, Core i2, Core i1, I don't think that it is confusing.
 
Core brand has a mind boggling array of derivatives (such as Core™2 Duo and Core 2 Quad, etc).
How is that confusing? The "2" lets us know it's the second release under the "Core" brand name, and the "Duo/Quad" lets us know how many cores. Why not just have a Core 3 Quad? How on earth is i3 or i5 more informative?
 
I don't want to sound like an anti-Intel jerk, which is what I am, but what is the deal with that many different active sockets?
As far as consumer platforms are concerned, there's only two desktop sockets; 1366 for the i7, 1156 for everything else.
 
Where are the $300 processors going? That's not mid range but everyone would have me believe i7 is getting much more expensive processors.
 
Clarkies will be too slow. I7's are generally 30% faster clock for clock, so take a 2.53 Quad extreme now and work that out you'd need a Clarkie @ 1.95 just to keep up. Aside from the added memory bandwidth, why would you get a Clarkie that was no faster than the old gen?
 
Sounds like they just want to milk us for all we have by having varying sockets for each line.

I remember throughout the years intel has always done that. Changing sockets like if everyone were billionaires. They haven't really cared about backwards compatibility much either.
 
What do you mean by this?

Almost every new standard that has came out they've just switched over and completely forgot about the people still running on older ram or using agp i remember. There weren't any options for in between upgrades. There wasn't ever any middle ground with intel.
 
Hardware isn't like software. Making systems 100% backwards compatible would be cost prohibitive and/or cripple new technology thereby invalidating it's cause to even exist. That being said, there are motherboards that accept ddr1/ddr2, and ddr2/ddr3. New motherboards don't need floppy controllers but they still are there, or ide controllers, but they still are there. You can still use previous generation USB/SATA/IDE with newer generation controllers. I think they have done a pretty good job at compatibility.
 
Almost every new standard that has came out they've just switched over and completely forgot about the people still running on older ram or using agp i remember. There weren't any options for in between upgrades. There wasn't ever any middle ground with intel.
Yeah, platforms are ever-evolving. This is the case with other companies, as well. Aside from that, but still on compatibility, Intel has maintained that code created for a given processor will work on future ones. :)
 
Clarkies will be too slow. I7's are generally 30% faster clock for clock, so take a 2.53 Quad extreme now and work that out you'd need a Clarkie @ 1.95 just to keep up. Aside from the added memory bandwidth, why would you get a Clarkie that was no faster than the old gen?

Wut? I hope you mean a i7 compared to a q9xxx, cause i5's and i7's are nearly identical clock for clock.
 
I don't really like this, but this will be remained to be seen what branding different cpus will get. Hopefully they just don't brand cpu's the same if they got different sockets, like s1156 Lynnfield and s1366 Bloomfield? Though, Intel have usually been pretty good in naming and keeping it clear with their most common processors. I hate how AMD is nowadays naming their products, can't anymore keep up with all their stuff without double checking it.
 
How is that confusing? The "2" lets us know it's the second release under the "Core" brand name, and the "Duo/Quad" lets us know how many cores. Why not just have a Core 3 Quad? How on earth is i3 or i5 more informative?

QFT
 

That tech report article was written on June 2, 2009, this recent intel press release was written on June 17, 2009. Intel loves to lie to people about their product roadmap. For example, Intel didn't even admit they were working on the core series CPU's till they were nearly out. They were trying to make people think that they were sticking with Pentium 4 for years to come. Of course some people knew better, but the official word is all that matters to some people. Intel is like the US government denying the existence of a base at area 51 while you are standing right in front of the entrance to the base watching unmarked aircraft land there. Silly.
 
The real reason is because intel is afraid of the devil, they had to call anything with 666 mhz, "667" and they dont want to have a "core 2 hex" when the 6 core version comes out.
 
"I hate how AMD is nowadays naming their products, can't anymore keep up with all their stuff without double checking it."

Yeah I hear it can be real difficult when you're suffering from a really, really bad case of dyslexia. What are you on about? Are the following four examples of their current processor lineup confusing or difficult to understand?

Athlon II X2 550
Phenom II X3 720
Phenom II X4 810
Phenom II X4 955

:confused:
 
So...for some people Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7...is confusing ?

I don't get how that's confusing at all...it's extremely simple actually...
 
Back
Top