Intel wants chips with sleeker names aka BMW...

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Lifer
Jan 7, 2002
12,755
3
0
Think of the Pentium as the BMW of computer chips.

Intel executives may hope you do now that they're naming their microprocessors after the Ultimate Driving Machine. Consumer-unfriendly clunkers like the Pentium 4 processor with HT Technology Extreme Edition 3.40 GHz will be traded in for the much sleeker 300, 500 or 700 series.

After years of driving the personal-computer market by promoting the ever-increasing speed of its microprocessors, the Santa Clara chip giant said Friday that new chips will bear names that denote features rather than ``clock speed.''

Much like teenage boys boasting about the horsepower of their hot rods, Intel engineers staked bragging rights on how much gigahertz their microprocessors packed.

But speed doesn't always equal performance and Intel executives said they also want to promote their chips' other abilities, such as prolonging laptop battery life or enabling wireless Internet access.

And so future incarnations of Intel's entry-level Celeron microprocessor will be dubbed the 300 series. The more powerful and pricey top-of-the-line Pentium chips will be designated the 700 series.

Intel executives acknowledged their debt to the German automaker favored by Silicon Valley's movers and shakers.

``We love them. What we are doing has done nothing to infringe on their'' intellectual property, said Don MacDonald, vice president of Intel's sales and marketing group. ``Yes, we talked to them first,'' he added.

Left unmentioned was Intel's smaller rival, Advanced Micro Devices. AMD may be the Volkswagen to Intel's BMW, but the Sunnyvale company was first off the line in naming chips after their actual performance rather than clock speed.

``We tried to educate consumers about the megahertz myth,'' said Pat Moorhead, AMD's vice president of corporate marketing. ``If it wasn't dead before, it certainly is today.''

Intel said it is not hiding the clock speed of its chips, and that among the features listed to describe them, clock speed will be the first. Instead, the company said it is offering more products with more features that address different consumer needs.

``Say you walk into a store, you don't need the best, but you want to have a new laptop, but you will be plugged into the wall most of the time. You'll get a 3xx model,'' said Intel spokesman Bill Calder. ``But if you say `I live by my laptop, I need maximum battery life' . . . you would need a 7xx.''

Some analysts said consumers will initially suffer confusion after being trained for years to believe that the fastest chip is the best.

But then again, BMW has had no trouble convincing drivers that if you want power, luxury and prestige, only the 7 series will do.

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Ikonomi

Diamond Member
Dec 19, 2003
6,056
1
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:confused: :confused:

I preferred the un-spun, un-fluffed version on the AnandTech front page...

Edit: Oh, now there's a BMW snippet too.
 

halik

Lifer
Oct 10, 2000
25,696
1
0
oh yeah thats great how the hell will the consumers be able to tell whether athlon 3000+ or intel 369.5464 ?

 

MithShrike

Diamond Member
May 5, 2002
3,440
0
0
Bah, I'm not planning on buying one of their chips for myself any time soon so like I said, bah.
 

CubicZirconia

Diamond Member
Nov 24, 2001
5,193
0
71
``We tried to educate consumers about the megahertz myth,'' said Pat Moorhead, AMD's vice president of corporate marketing. ``If it wasn't dead before, it certainly is today.''

I'd say the "mhz myth" is alive and kicking.
 

BeauJangles

Lifer
Aug 26, 2001
13,941
1
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THis doesn't seem like such a great idea.... if I buy a BMW 325i, in 10 years it will still perform pretty much the same. But PCs are different beasts. Clockspeed IS important. I dunno, seems like its going to create a lot of confusion for nothing.