Simplifying Intel’s Processor Naming Scheme

If there’s one thing manufacturers are starting to clue into, it’s the fact that product naming schemes are far too confusing for the regular consumer. Take, for example, the ATI Radeon 9800 PRO and the NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+. One is vastly superior to the other, but a regular consumer wouldn’t know it right off. NVIDIA is one company in particular that has vowed for better naming schemes, but now Intel has come clean about their own structure as well.

Bill Calder, Intel’s Corporate Communications Manager, has made a blog post outlining the company’s goals, and in doing so has revealed some information about their upcoming product lines. Up to this point, it’s been common belief that Lynnfield was going to be placed under the Core i5 moniker, but that’s not entirely the case. According to the posting, chances are Lynnfield will be both Core i5 and Core i7, depending of course on the feature-set.

The question to ask is… what’s going to lack on the processor to have it become a Core i5? It’s very unlikely that Core i5 is going to be reserved for Dual-Cores, because at this point in time, Quad-Cores are quickly becoming the norm. I could be wrong, however. The post further talks about Core i3, which would be dedicated to the lower-end of the spectrum, which would likely be Dual-Cores. Brands like Atom, Celeron and Pentium would not become Core i3, but rather their branding would remain in tact.

Let the speculation begin!

So the key here is there will be a range of features and capabilities within the Intel Core family – our flagship brand representing the highest performance and the latest technology – but simplified into entry-level (Intel Core i3), mid-level (Intel Core i5), and high-level (Intel Core i7). We will still have Celeron for entry-level computing at affordable price points, Pentium for basic computing, and of course the Intel Atom processor for all these new devices ranging from netbooks to smartphones.