Intel to rebrand client chips once Meteor Lake splashes down

Poll When Intel debuts its forthcoming Meteor Lake client processors, it could possibly be the tip of the chip large’s long-standing naming conventions for desktop and cell processors.

Chipzilla at the moment informed The Register “We are making brand changes as we’re at an inflection point in our client roadmap in preparation for the upcoming launch of our Meteor Lake processors.”

“We will provide more details regarding these exciting changes in the coming weeks.”

The Register requested Intel about branding after semiconductor analyst Dylan Patel on Monday tweeted “Imagine you’re losing market share when you’ve been monopoly for decades, and your bright idea is to burn all brand recognition to the ground!”

“That’s Intel’s plan by removing the ‘i’ in i7 i5 i3. All the decades brand recognition being lit on fire for no reason!”

Patel labelled the rebranding a “horrible very short sighted move” that will not repair Intel’s woes and “will cause more harm than good, as many buyers know + recognize the i7 i5 branding, they won’t once it’s changed.”

“The new branding sounds bad with ultra strewn about + confusing scheme.”

Patel’s point out of “Ultra” branding seems to be a reference to this benchmark consequence for recreation Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation which lists a processor known as “Intel Core Ultra 5 1003H”.

Look, ma, no “i”!

• Cash-strapped Intel seems for $3B in financial savings to pursue ‘5 nodes in 4 years’ dream
• Intel reminds everybody it is nonetheless cooking away on extra PC processors
• AMD was proper about chiplets, Intel’s Gelsinger all however says
• Intel’s Thirteenth-gen CPUs are scorching, hungry, loaded with cores

With Intel admitting it is about to rebrand, The Register feels the CPU talked about in that benchmark is probably going greater than a glitch and is as a substitute proof of the forthcoming remonikering.

And maybe it is about time. Meteor Lake is a giant change for Intel – the processors are constructed from a number of chiplets assembled right into a completed product, slightly than the silicon-slinger’s former strategy of utilizing a single die.

If Intel cannot rebrand now, when can it rebrand? Given that the chip large sometimes retains a few generations of product on sale at a time, and unsold stock can cling round for ages, distinguishing chiplet-powered processors from their predecessors with a recent moniker could possibly be wise.

Getting individuals to purchase them is one other matter. Your correspondent typed this story on a Thirteenth-gen Core i7 that options Intel’s most up-to-date step change – mixing efficiency and environment friendly cores – and it completely flies by every thing I’ve been ready to throw at it. AMD has supplied chipletized desktop CPUs for just a few years, but they haven’t notably pushed demand.

Indeed, PC gross sales are presently very muted. Bad financial information and machines purchased throughout COVID-19 not but displaying their age – plus no main model of Windows on the horizon to drive a PC refresh cycle – suggests a brand new era of chips will wrestle to drive demand, with or with out new branding. Intel’s Thirteenth era definitely did not enhance gross sales.

Intel final week informed buyers “Meteor Lake product on Intel 4 is ramping production wafer starts for an expected launch in the second half of 2023.”

Combined with the quote above that mentions “changes in coming weeks,” your correspondent notes that the annual COMPUTEX gabfest in Taiwan kicks off on May 28, and has usually been utilized by Intel to announce its newest desktop wares. The Register plans to attend the occasion, so might be within the room if Chipzilla makes the change to Ultra from the COMPUTEX stage.

While we await the information, tell us what you consider this doable rebranding within the ballot beneath, or the feedback. ®