News Leak Seemingly Confirms Core Ultra Branding is Meteor Lake Only

For example, what used to be known as the "Intel 14th-Generation Core i9-14900K Processor" would be known today as either "Intel Core Ultra 9 processor or "Intel Core 9 processor 14900K".

Please read the original source article again. There is a lot of confusing info here. Raptor Lake-S Refresh (Desktop) series won't use the ULTRA moniker.
  • Raptor Lake-S Refresh (Desktop) - 14th Gen "Core i" Branding
  • Raptor Lake-HX Refresh (Laptop) - 14th Gen "Core i" Branding
  • Meteor Lake-U/H (Laptop Client) - 1st Gen "Core Ultra" Branding
  • Raptor Lake-U/H Refresh (Laptop) - 1st Gen "Core" Branding'
The only distinction between the 1st Gen Meteor Lake and Raptor Lake H/U series will be the "Ultra" and "Non-Ultra" notifiers.

The Intel Meteor Lake U/H series will fall under the "Core Ultra" branding in the Core 5 Ultra, Core 7 Ultra & Core 9 Ultra series while the Raptor Lake U/H series will fall under the "Core" branding in Core 3, Core 5, and Core 7 series.

This got even a bit more complicated. It appears that the next gen RPL-refresh desktop would be named as Core i9 14900K instead. The NEW 3/5/7 branding will only apply to mobile low-power P/U-series in Raptor Lake refresh series.

And the "Core Ultra" branding will only be exclusive to the Meteor Lake/MTL chips, while Raptor Lake refresh will lack this branding. This is exactly what I said yesterday though. But it still confuses me.

Intel is opting the ULTRA naming scheme to deal with the overlap of a significantly newer architecture with an older gen architecture already being in the market.

So when Intel's Core Ultra branding takes effect, users will be able to tell "Meteor Lake/refresh" based SKUs apart from those based on "Raptor Lake," but looking for the Ultra brand. This might also help to transition the market between processor arch generations, and also to improve the inventory digestion.


Source:


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View: https://twitter.com/harukaze5719/status/1669640869702696961
 
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Also, for the 14th Gen series that utilizes the older naming scheme, Intel will have its current naming scheme intact.

The two families to utilize the naming scheme will be the Raptor Lake-S Refresh "Desktop" and Raptor Lake-HX "Refresh" Laptop" lineups. Both families aim for the mainstream and high-end segment with Raptor Lake-HX refresh specifically being an enthusiast laptop segment & utilizes the same die SKUs as the desktop family.

But, I'm still getting confused now. :tearsofjoy:

EDIT:

Appears to be named as Intel core i9 Processor 14900K.
 
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Missing some key points from that chart:
- Desktop CPUs (including Raptor Lake Refresh) will remain on the Core i[number] scheme, at least for now
- Desktop-replacement laptop CPUs (Raptor Lake HX) will also remain on the Core i[number] scheme for now
- Only thin&light laptop (ULP) CPUs will move to the new Core [number] scheme
- Both Meteor Lake and Raptor Lake U will be using the Core [number] naming scheme, but only some of the Meteor Lake CPUs will use the Core Ultra [number] scheme
 
i was already tons confused and seems like they are working really hard to make sure it is even worse.

if they could maybe stick to the ultra being the new tech and the reg being the last gen refresh, it might not be too bad. then throw in the 42 various models and i'm pretty sure it's never going to make any sense to anyone.

losing the "i" is not that big of a deal really so not concerned there. frankly i stopped looking at the 3,5,7,9 part of it as well. they never really meant enough to focus on to me.
 
if they could maybe stick to the ultra being the new tech and the reg being the last gen refresh, it might not be too bad. then throw in the 42 various models and i'm pretty sure it's never going to make any sense to anyone.
That would be absurdly poor branding, and rendered worthless the moment a second generation of CPUs is released.
"Ultra" is not a generation designator. Using "Ultra means current gen, non-Ultra means last gen" as a rule of thumb is only going to result in people confusing themselves because their imagined rule is not a rule at all.

"Ultra" is very simple, though some tech publications are doing their best to make it confusing: you have (for example) 8 different Core 7 chips of different CPU speeds and GPU core allocations. The top one or two chips in that lineup get the 'Core Ultra 7' moniker in place of the 'Core 7' moniker. That's it.
 
"Ultra" is very simple, though some tech publications are doing their best to make it confusing: you have (for example) 8 different Core 7 chips of different CPU speeds and GPU core allocations. The top one or two chips in that lineup get the 'Core Ultra 7' moniker in place of the 'Core 7' moniker. That's it.
In that case, 'Ultra' is ultra-dumb branding that will be encoded in the model number as the 2nd-to-last digit like it used to 10 years ago.
 
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So the $300 to $700 desktop & workstation laptop CPUs won’t be Ultra? That’s consistent. Make the $250 laptop CPUs look exclusive and the desktop CPUs have a totally different feature set.

I assume, for consumers, Ultra is mostly going to be tied to the silly AI NPU Intel will ship— as usual, later than Qualcomm, AMD, and Apple.

Seems obvious Intel 4 has flopped on its premiere. Last time Intel pulled this BS was when Intel 10nm (renamed Intel 7) had disastrous yields.

Just go back to 2019:

10nm laptops had weird “G” moniker. Dropped in 2 gens.
14nm laptops kept old branding.
14nm desktops kept old branding.

Then in 2021, 10nm desktop finally arrives in Alder Lake and Intel suddenly reverts to the old branding again.

A single major node took 2 years to roll out. IDM 2.0 must be going great. 😂

All their branding changes are user-hostile, to ensure customers don’t easily see the mess of Intel foundries. AMD is probably glad to see Intel copying their failures in branding: “See, it’s not just us!”
 
USB's nomenclature has been "ULTRA SUPER DUPER MEGA EXTREMELY" confusing to me. I never understood all these USB naming schemes. 😆🤔

The whole USB standard has always been a mess as far as the naming scheme goes with the likes of USB 3.0/3.1/3.2 and their several iterations (Gen 1, Gen 2, Gen 2x2) and now the same is true for USB4 which has reached its second variation instead of simply calling it USB5.

SpecificationSignaling Rate/LaneNumber of LanesAggregate Bandwidth
USB 3.2 Gen 1×15 Gbps (SuperSpeed)15 Gbps
USB 3.2 Gen 2×110 Gbps (SuperSpeed+)110 Gbps
USB 3.2 Gen 1×25 Gbps (SuperSpeed)210 Gbps
USB 3.2 Gen 2×210 Gbps (SuperSpeed+)220 Gbps

The USB4 Gen 2×2 specification (known by its marketing name, USB4 20Gbps) and USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 both offer 20 Gbps connection. USB4 Gen 3×2 (USB4 40Gbps) uses a different data encoding scheme to achieve 20 Gbps per lane and 40 Gbps when in dual lane mode.

SpecificationSignaling Rate/LaneNumber of LanesAggregate Bandwidth
USB4 Gen 2×210 Gbps220 Gbps
USB4 Gen 3×220 Gbps240 Gbps


Sorry to derail this Topic.
 
In that case, 'Ultra' is ultra-dumb branding that will be encoded in the model number as the 2nd-to-last digit like it used to 10 years ago.
The branding is not for people who look up model numbers in Arc. It's for when someone in a big box store asks "which laptop has DA BEST chip?" a random sales drone can point to the ones with "ultra" in the name rather than needing to explain model numbers from specsheets (or know what a specsheet is).
 
The branding is not for people who look up model numbers in Arc. It's for when someone in a big box store asks "which laptop has DA BEST chip?" a random sales drone can point to the ones with "ultra" in the name rather than needing to explain model numbers from specsheets (or know what a specsheet is).
Because "bigger model number is better" is such a hard concept to grasp.
 
Because "bigger model number is better" is such a hard concept to grasp.
If you need to tell the average person to compare two 5-digit numbers buried in a subscript, your branding has already failed.
And even then, "bigger number is better" isn't even true - e.g. a 13420H is slower than a 1370P despite being over 10,000 smaller!
 
Lets make branding less confusing... by introducing a single-generation branding scheme!

Yay?

Sounds like Intel's ~10 years trend of the right hand not knowing what the left foot is doing continues.

Hahah... yeah it looks like I definitely picked the right time to jump ship. "Ryzen" is a whole lot easier to say than "Intel iCore Ultra i9 Ultra Core 14900k" or whatever it is they are calling these new processors.

🤣🤣
 
you mean all the u, k, f, s, h wasn't easy to figure out on top of all the various numbering schemes??

throw in 250 different "___lake" names and it all made perfect sense :)

they could def add in some more info so i know what i am getting. maybe some more letters to tell me what plant it comes from, or maybe who was running the line that day.

if they try real hard we can get something like a car's VIN number to work with. so not only the model number but so much more i could consider when buying 😕
 
if they try real hard we can get something like a car's VIN number to work with. so not only the model number but so much more i could consider when buying 😕
The VIN is only a serial number. You need decoding databases to find out the make, model, year, etc. much like how you need to use Intel Ark to look up model details at least until you have memorized what is what.
 
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