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Intel, it's time to step away from the i's

I feel like Intel's iWhatever marketing is hurting their sales. A user thinks their old i7 laptop is getting slow, so they look at new laptops. But wait, they're still using i7s? That's not an upgrade at all! Might as well not bother.
 
Their naming scheme is okay for what it is. Comparing CPUs from different segments makes little sense anyhow. While there could be more of a differentiator between 2c4t parts and everything above, it really isn't an issue.

For mobile: celeron->pentium->i3->i5->i7. All 2 cores, last three 4 threads. Last two with Turbo Boost. i7 has larger caches, some extra features.

Mobile >28W: Only i5 and i7 matter. i5 is 4c4t, i7 is 4c8t. Done.

Desktop: Celeron + pentium = useless low-end sh*t. i3: 2c4t. i5: 4c4t. i7: 4c8t.

HEDT: All i7, all the way. They're all high-end anyway.

Will a 45W i5 kick the a** of a 15W i7? Of course it will. But you won't find a 15W i7 in anything claiming truly high performance. And anyone thinking an i7 ultrabook is comparable to a desktop i7 or even a high-performance laptop i7 deserves what they get. Keeping the same nomenclature across series makes sense in terms of branding, keeping things consistent. Making people understand that different types of PC have different base capabilities isn't really Intel's responsibility.
 
NTMBK said:
I feel like Intel's iWhatever marketing is hurting their sales. A user thinks their old i7 laptop is getting slow, so they look at new laptops. But wait, they're still using i7s? That's not an upgrade at all! Might as well not bother.
Click to expand...

Intel is now writing "7th Gen" on the stickers to differentiate old i7s from new ones.

That being said, I think the Core brand is lazy and uninspired (surpassed only by "A-series" from AMD in terms of laziness) and if Intel could come up with something cool, I'd be down with that. Time for something new. Pentium ("Pent" = five) and Celeron ("Celer" = greek root for "fast") were cool. Xeon is really cool. GeForce and Radeon are cool. I also really like Phenom and Athlon.

But, for all of my criticism, I can't come up with something better.
 
Intel's segmentation is one of the most annoying things when it comes PC building. I remember buying a 4770k to build an ESX cluster and it wouldn't work due to disabled VT-d support. I actually had to get a 4770 non-K version to make it work.. (which of course delayed my project by 3 days). Meanwhile I already had one running using the 2500K.. this arbitrary feature disabling and enabling makes their product line a complete mess.

And when you look at mobile CPUs you have no idea if the i7 is an actual quad with hyperthreading or an i3 with HT.. It's a complete mess.

Nvidia isn't much better with their 1060 3Gb with a binned cut down full 1060 chip.
 
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Valantar said:
Their naming scheme is okay for what it is. Comparing CPUs from different segments makes little sense anyhow. While there could be more of a differentiator between 2c4t parts and everything above, it really isn't an issue.

For mobile: celeron->pentium->i3->i5->i7. All 2 cores, last three 4 threads. Last two with Turbo Boost. i7 has larger caches, some extra features.

Mobile >28W: Only i5 and i7 matter. i5 is 4c4t, i7 is 4c8t. Done.

Desktop: Celeron + pentium = useless low-end sh*t. i3: 2c4t. i5: 4c4t. i7: 4c8t.

HEDT: All i7, all the way. They're all high-end anyway.

Will a 45W i5 kick the a** of a 15W i7? Of course it will. But you won't find a 15W i7 in anything claiming truly high performance. And anyone thinking an i7 ultrabook is comparable to a desktop i7 or even a high-performance laptop i7 deserves what they get. Keeping the same nomenclature across series makes sense in terms of branding, keeping things consistent. Making people understand that different types of PC have different base capabilities isn't really Intel's responsibility.
Click to expand...

It makes sense until they start calling 4.5W mobile chips i5 and i7. 🙄
 
I say that slapping "i7" onto a chip works in getting people to assume that such a chip is top-of-the-line and worth pissing money over without needing to use the word "Extreme" on many chips. And when they do use Extreme in the title, it makes the top dog consumer desktop chip really stand out. Especially since people don't really know how to understand the CPU spec sheet.
 
NTMBK said:
I feel like Intel's iWhatever marketing is hurting their sales. A user thinks their old i7 laptop is getting slow, so they look at new laptops. But wait, they're still using i7s? That's not an upgrade at all! Might as well not bother.
Click to expand...
I doubt they would prefer the "Duo" in a laptop chip making it obviously clear that it has less cores than a desktop Core 2 Quad, and thus, for some bright, creative minds, make a connection that laptop performance doesn't match a desktop.

Or, in the case of a Pentium M and its stunningly low clockspeed, be viewed as a small fry mobile chip that can't compete with them big 3+GHz Pentium 4s when in fact, a you are getting rather similar performance between desktop and laptop.

With "i7", you get that tunnel vision in which you don't compare outside that product type. "An i7 laptop! Omg, top of the line, my e-peen got hard, will piss extra dollars like its a luxury car". And that is why xoticpc is in business. Fact is, pc buying can involve a lot of "gut feeling" if disposable income is not an inhibiting factor.
 
NTMBK said:
I feel like Intel's iWhatever marketing is hurting their sales. A user thinks their old i7 laptop is getting slow, so they look at new laptops. But wait, they're still using i7s? That's not an upgrade at all! Might as well not bother.
Click to expand...
Well, to be fair, it's not. Now, the SSDs, higher-res screens, lighter weight and longer battery life might be selling points, but...
 
Maybe a new exciting naming scheme may matter, but the scheme is pretty easy to follow, except maybe the HEDT, but the price should make those clear. Changing the scheme would be more confusing to me, although it could refresh excitement.

i3 = 2c/4t - Good
i5 = 4c - Better
i7 = 4c/8t - Best

How is that difficult. The only part that can get confusing is the HEDT's also use i7. The numbers that follow make it clear what generation it is. A higher number means it's a newer version. The only exception is the ones with 1 less digit, which are all the first gen and not for sale anyway, so it's hard to get confused by something not sold anymore.

Given that there is so little improvements with the newer generation, if there are Haswell and Skylake CPU's for sale at the same time. i7 Haswell still remains better than an i5 Skylake,
 
Arachnotronic said:
That being said, I think the Core brand is lazy and uninspired (surpassed only by "A-series" from AMD in terms of laziness) and if Intel could come up with something cool, I'd be down with that. Time for something new. Pentium ("Pent" = five) and Celeron ("Celer" = greek root for "fast") were cool. Xeon is really cool. GeForce and Radeon are cool. I also really like Phenom and Athlon.
Click to expand...

Agree for all but Phenom, which still sounds stupid to me. Duron was really good too, and Voodoo sits somewhere between Geforce and Radeon (with Geforce being the more catchy name).
 
I saw a TV advert yesterday for laptops where they specifically mentioned 'Generation 7' with an associating graphic, so this should be good enough to distinguish between old and new (the generation is also denoted with the leading number).

i3, i5, and i7 is just a class of CPU.
 
NTMBK said:
I feel like Intel's iWhatever marketing is hurting their sales. A user thinks their old i7 laptop is getting slow, so they look at new laptops. But wait, they're still using i7s? That's not an upgrade at all! Might as well not bother.
Click to expand...
So you're saying they should ditch their branding every few generations simply so that people should "feel like they're getting an upgrade"? That's crazy.
 
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