Intel should simplify its CPU naming policy
Posted on 29th Nov 2012 at 07:51 by Antony Leather with 55 comments
Something happened the other day that made me realise just how complicated Intel’s naming regime is. It’s been a bone of contention for years now, and we regularly pass jokes in the office about whether the average consumer really knows the difference between Core i3, i5 and i7 and where Pentiums and Celerons fit in to all this as well.
Just a few days ago a friend of mine said she had around £350 to spend on a laptop but didn’t know whether to go for a Core i3, Pentium or Celeron, but thought the Pentium would be the best as she’d heard of it before and it was slightly more expensive than the other two. Needless to say I pointed her in the direction of the Core i3, which, on further investigation on CPU World turned out to be an Ivy Bridge-based CPU too.
Of course, it’s not just all these ranges of CPUs that consumers need to get their heads around, it’s the fact that multiple generations of Core CPUs are available at the same time as well. Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge (Intel Core second generation and third generation) are both available at the moment and many refurbished/second hand models are first generation too.
For tech-savvy desktop users and journalists who salivate over new releases, gossip and rumours, the difference between the two will be well-known. For prospective laptop buyers, though, it’s anything but clear cut. Most retail stores will list whether desktop CPUs are Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge-based, but many don’t, meaning plenty of people are probably buying generation-old stuff without knowing it.
However, with laptops, the situation is pretty dire. Not only are the CPUs often just listed as Core i3 and then the model number, but most retailers don’t even mention which generation the CPU is. The worst part is that at the budget end of the spectrum, there are at least four completely different CPU options, and that’s just before you even count AMDs various and equally confusing offerings.
Core i3 second generation, Core i3 third generation, Pentium and Celeron are all doing their best to utterly confuse the consumer. There’s very little difference in price too – the Pentium and Celeron options are often only a fraction cheaper than Core i3s, but those in the know would never pick a Celeron over a Core i3.
I’d also place bets that as Pentium is a better-known name, they get picked up for just that reason. If you’re browsing on the Internet for cheap laptops without some kind PC World assistant maybe or maybe not doing the right thing and pointing you towards the similarly-priced Core i3 laptop, then there’s little else to guide you away from the cheap and nasty CPUs and towards something with a bit more grunt that will stand the test of time.
The point is, that there’s very little information out there that steers people in the right direction, especially if you're shopping alone on the Internet focusing on prices rather than digging a little deeper. For your average Joe who has never seen a CPU benchmark, never mind knows this ins and outs of the latest CPU architectures, it’s a confusing situation.
However, there’s an easy solution. Intel – change your product naming. It might work for those of us in the know or for retailers that list CPUs with all the proper info, but for the hordes of other outlets, particularly online, people are ending up with the wrong kit.
Have you had to explain Intel’s naming strategy to the less tech-savvy? Let us know in the forum.
Just a few days ago a friend of mine said she had around £350 to spend on a laptop but didn’t know whether to go for a Core i3, Pentium or Celeron, but thought the Pentium would be the best as she’d heard of it before and it was slightly more expensive than the other two. Needless to say I pointed her in the direction of the Core i3, which, on further investigation on CPU World turned out to be an Ivy Bridge-based CPU too.
Click to enlarge - It's a Core i3 but is it Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge?
Of course, it’s not just all these ranges of CPUs that consumers need to get their heads around, it’s the fact that multiple generations of Core CPUs are available at the same time as well. Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge (Intel Core second generation and third generation) are both available at the moment and many refurbished/second hand models are first generation too.
For tech-savvy desktop users and journalists who salivate over new releases, gossip and rumours, the difference between the two will be well-known. For prospective laptop buyers, though, it’s anything but clear cut. Most retail stores will list whether desktop CPUs are Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge-based, but many don’t, meaning plenty of people are probably buying generation-old stuff without knowing it.
However, with laptops, the situation is pretty dire. Not only are the CPUs often just listed as Core i3 and then the model number, but most retailers don’t even mention which generation the CPU is. The worst part is that at the budget end of the spectrum, there are at least four completely different CPU options, and that’s just before you even count AMDs various and equally confusing offerings.
Core i3 second generation, Core i3 third generation, Pentium and Celeron are all doing their best to utterly confuse the consumer. There’s very little difference in price too – the Pentium and Celeron options are often only a fraction cheaper than Core i3s, but those in the know would never pick a Celeron over a Core i3.
Click to enlarge - Different generations and multiple models can only be serving to confuse the consumer
I’d also place bets that as Pentium is a better-known name, they get picked up for just that reason. If you’re browsing on the Internet for cheap laptops without some kind PC World assistant maybe or maybe not doing the right thing and pointing you towards the similarly-priced Core i3 laptop, then there’s little else to guide you away from the cheap and nasty CPUs and towards something with a bit more grunt that will stand the test of time.
The point is, that there’s very little information out there that steers people in the right direction, especially if you're shopping alone on the Internet focusing on prices rather than digging a little deeper. For your average Joe who has never seen a CPU benchmark, never mind knows this ins and outs of the latest CPU architectures, it’s a confusing situation.
However, there’s an easy solution. Intel – change your product naming. It might work for those of us in the know or for retailers that list CPUs with all the proper info, but for the hordes of other outlets, particularly online, people are ending up with the wrong kit.
Have you had to explain Intel’s naming strategy to the less tech-savvy? Let us know in the forum.
55 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyThis speed war was picked up by mainstream media and the Pentium name was thrusted into average joes pc vocabulary and resulting in todays PC world mess. Intel should have binned Celeron and Pentium when they switched to the core i series. An i1 and i2 would have done the job and average joe responds well to numbers.....
I may sound like I don't know what i'm talking about here - which is because I don't !
- B75
- P67, P75
- H61, H67, H77
- Q77
- Z68, Z75, Z77, Z78
it's far too many chipsets ... how many, even among us, know the exact differences between all those ?
you evil man bringing this up....
Oh yeaaaaaaah xD .... just (re)mentioned it because I'm asked twice a day by friends who are lost with Intel chipsets. They are aware of celeron < pentium < i3 < i5 < i7 .... but when it comes to chipsets ....
Oops, my bad .... missed copy / paste :D
Seems just as complex to me and people seem to be able to make choices that suit them when buying a car. Why is this (cpu lines and models) any harder?
Or is it that we still seem to be treating PCs as somehow different, as something people shouldn't have to expend effort learning about? Maybe it's about time people invested some time and effort to understand something that's as big a part of their lives as their cars.
I think that most people only looks at this when bying a car :
- overall look
- Price
- horse power
- consumption
- luggage compartment size
eventually the amount of seats when more than 2 childrens.
If only a store would have said benchmark next to each product....
or just a sign saying "it can run crysis"
As for the intel line up I now ask what they want it for and just point out what they should be looking to get. Too hard to explain and tired of watching people eye's roll back in their head when I try!
Eg: Intel mini
Intel
Intel Pro
Thats purely an example but is there really any point in releasing 5 cpus with the same cores etc but with +0.1 GHz.
And you even missed ULV :D.
Perhaps the large number of SKUs is a yield thing. Or perhaps they are pandering too much to OEM requests
I propose a streamlined system where the top tier has all CPU features enabled and models just differ in core count and stock clock frequency.
And second tier has features disabled.
Not sure about a third one.
I have not given this much thought yet.
Most importantly it was the best I could get built into the hardware, that was all I really needed to know as the primary reason to upgrade was to get the fastest raw CPU performance I could.
I don't even think the CPU has a proper name, just a random collection of digits like a postal code or truncated software licence key.
*redacted
All the star rating seems to do is basically rank celeron, pentium and i3 to i7 in order of performance. What a freaking joke. You wouldn't need a star rating system if the processors followed a naming convention which ranked them in order naturally. Plus if the wikipedia entry on all the ivy bridge SKUs is correct then for the i5 series you have 15 processors, all with different prices and all with the same star rating.
Surely this is the number one reason engineers shouldn't do marketing...or be allowed out of their dark room.
:(
Kind of worrying as his purchasing process was "Go to Newegg.com, go to Intel, buy expensive CPU with the bigger number, find bundle deal with expensive motherboard"!
A quick look at the Apple website shows that the iMac comes in 4 options: 2 choices for 21.5 inch; 2 choices for 27 inch.
I'm fully aware of the standard arguments that will now commence. Sheep, morons, cost, et cetera. Yes, it's a walled-garden approach with limited selection. Based on profits, it seems to be working quite well. Perhaps the other PC manufacturers should take a lesson and start paring down their offerings.
/dons flame-proof suit
I think thats more of a problem with dell, than a mac versus a windows thing. But simplicity is key to Macs and the like. However this time I do agree with Apple's approach. The only reason I see for that vast array of individual SKUs is that OEMs need to shave off tiny amounts of money here and there to make profit or to add other features. Use a slightly slower processor and put the money saved towards adding bluetooth for example. I don't think there is a need to give everyday consumers or enthusiasts that wide a range of processors.
You missed PowerIntel :p
I run unity on my laptop along with so animation, rendering is a bitch as it is on an i7 nevermind a pentium
Calling people sheep or morons for such a decision always bothers me. From the perspective of the buyer they've often done what appears to be the best choice given the information they've been provided. How many people, including PC enthusiasts who call Apple buyers "sheeple" and the like, are guilty of buying something like a flashlight, pocket knife, camera, you name it in store because it looked like a decent enough product given what you already knew (which could be nothing!) and what the available competition looked like? There's likely to be an enthusiast community for anything and they're likely to think you're a sheep or a moron for your purchase. People have different interests.
Yeah...no that's not what we do.
PCworld are not evil. Infact it makes no odds to me if i sell you a £250 laptop or a £1k laptop, it's the solution that's right for the customer that's important.
When I worked there, we didn't get any commission or anything, and the markup on the machines is actually quite small. Money is made on peripherals and service plans. This means that even if you sell the most expensive piece of kit to the customer, you're still only 'box-shifting' if you don't get the printer/mouse/keyboard/coverplan on top of it.
Right on the money.
- 3770K
- 3770
- 3770S
- 3770T
- 3570K
- 3570
- 3570S
- 3570T
- 3550
- 3550S
- 3475S
- 3470
- 3470S
- 3470T
...ad nauseum. I mean, that's just ridiculous, and that's just SOME of the desktop offerings.And the desktop vs mobile hyperthreading categorization is likewise ridiculous. :(
Because it is insanely complex to understand that desktop model numbering is (and it was the same for Sandy Bridge as well, they had the S/T/K models as well) :
1) Prefix (model)
Celeron - single or dualcore, lowend, no HT
Pentium - dualcore, lowend, no HT
Core i3 - dualcore, HT
Core i5 - quadcore, no HT
Core i7 - quadcore, HT
2) Number inside the category, higher = better
3) Suffix (if present) :
K = unlocked for overclocking
P = IGP disabled/removed
S = a bit lower TDP (lower voltage and clocks)
T = a lot lower TDP (lower voltage and clocks)
Mobile numbering
1) prefix giving "performance" categorization:
Celeron/Pentium = dualcore, no HT
i3/i5/i7 = dualcore, HT (with exceptions)
2) Number inside the category, higher = better
3) Suffix (if present) :
Q = quadcore
T = means lower TDP.
U = means ultra low core (even lower TDP)
Sandy Bridge had the same suffixes :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge_(microarchitecture)#Desktop_platform
I guess AMD numbering where all the number tells you is number of core (in case of Bulldozer AM3+ CPU) or nothing at all (FM1/FM2 CPU) is much, much better.
You forgot the i5-3350P version that doesn't have an IGP, not to mention that the i5-3470T has 2 cores-4 thread while the i5-3570T has 4 cores- 4 thread :(
Would it be better if they flattened it out to where it won't do 3.1, so they throw it away? i3s already start at $130 - what do you think would happen to pricing if they started throwing 3/4 of their procs in the bin?
Not that I'm defending them (nor AMD, for that matter, who do the same), but it is more than a little ridiculous that even in the Pentium line, they have at least 4 SKUs that are separated by 100 MHz each.
I've got parts coming for a partial rebuild for a friend, and it only took about 5 minutes to find a processor, but that's the result of god knows how many hours reading about Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Llano, Trinity...
What's even worse are the fliers I see for the local computer behemoth (Fry's) that now show AMD as only 'E2' or 'A8' - no clocks, no features, just an entirely meaningless number. Were it me, it would seem logical that the first character meant the most, and so the 'E' would be way better than the 'A'...no, not at all.
It is worse on the Intel side, though, with up to 4 variants of the same model with different TDPs, or in some cases the 'lower' model having better features than the 'higher', and that the way they're named/numbered is not consistent between mobile and desktop.
I expect chips to go i3,i5 and i7, all with increasing model numbers to make it easy to understand, but I don't think it's so simple.
Not sure where I'm going to start...
And naming isnt that bad. Could be a whole lot worse. With the amount of processors they make, it is expected that there would be some naming confusion.
http://ark.intel.com
enter part numbers, add to compare, and compare!
even if you manage to decide on a chipset and a brand...
Ausu for instance have 18 different Z77 MoBo's. :D
http://www.asus.de/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/Intel_Z77
Nope, for this much confusion, you need a Marketing Expert. :D
Also, we riside in an ivory tower*...
*made of concrete