Intel To Change The Product Name, Again
by Kristopher Kubicki on October 16, 2005 5:06 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
In the newest Intel roadmaps, Intel indicated it would change their product naming schemes, again. For those who thought the three digit product naming system wouldn't last; well, it didn't. Less than 18 months ago Intel changed the way new CPUs would be named by replacing the clock rate with a three digit product name instead. We just got briefed on the newest wave of things to come at Intel.
The new product naming scheme for some mobility processors will change to a five character alphanumeric product name based on the watt usage and general performance. All new Mobility product names will start with one of the following letters:
- E: TDP >50W
- T: TDP 25W to 49W
- L: TDP 15W to 24W
- U: TDP <14W
The next four digits after the TDP estimate will denote the CPU's processor family and performance. For example, T1700 will denote a higher echelon 25-49W Yonah chip. T2700 would denote a high performance Merom processor.
Corresponding features that are added into later Yonah or Merom cores will be denoted in the last two digits of the product name. Although the roadmaps did not indicate this, our sources claimed that two versions of a T1500 - one with VT and one without - might be denoted by a change in the last digit of the product name.
Intel's name scheme will change on all new mobility processors, but our sources close to the roadmap indicate that all Intel processors will get a similar facelift about the same time we expect Conroe, similar to the brand-wide shift of April 2004. Existing mobility chips (Dothan, Banias), will not change. Furthermore, the roadmap also revealed that single core Yonah chips will not have a letter prefix corresponding to the wattage, but this might have just been an idiosyncrasy of the roadmap. Single core M chips based on Yonah will continue to use the three digit nomenclature, however.
Server & Desktop
Although Intel's future server and desktop processors will also get a single letter prefix, for now they will just switch to four digits. Below is a quick rundown of the new 65nm Dempsey Intel processors:
- Xeon MP 7041: 3.0GHz 800FSB
- Xeon MP 7040: 3.0GHz 667FSB
- Xeon MP 7030: 2.8GHz 800FSB
- Xeon MP 7020: 2.66GHz 667FSB
- Xeon 5070: 3.46GHz, 130W
- Xeon 5063: 3.2GHz, 95W
- Xeon 5060: 3.2GHz, 130W
- Xeon 5050: 3.0GHz, 95W
- Xeon 5040: 2.83GHz, 95W
- Xeon 5030: 2.66GHz, 95W
- Xeon 5020: 2.5GHz, 95W
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bob661 - Sunday, October 16, 2005 - link
I think AMD's naming convention is pretty good. I know eactly what I'm getting. Sorry that you guys can't figure it out. Intel's naming scheme on the other hand makes absolutely no friggin sense at all. I have to carry around a cheat sheet so i don't look like an asshole. Oops, too late. :)melgross - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link
Except for one little problem. AMD's names were dependent on Intel having Pentiums that had the speeds they did so that AMD could say that their chips were as fast or faster than those.They can't do that anymore, so now their names make no sense whatsoever.
bob661 - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link
Makes sense to me as all I need is to be able to compare one AMD CPU to another. I don't on buying Intel anytime soon so it's quite simple to figure out which AMD CPU is slower and which is faster. I don't see the problem.Shintai - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link
But you still can´t with AMD. One might have 512KB cache, another 1MB cache. Another again single channel while the other got dualchannel. Don´t try and tell us AMDs is better.Both AMD and Intels scheme sucks, however since they both started mixing up their CPU line with bastard kids, in forms of different caches and technologies they ruined the game. Old days...P4 was a 512KB part, celeron was a 128KB part. AMD had the same with Durons etc. Now we have 3 or 4 variants of the same performance CPU. However the performance ain´t the same, but in average it´s somewhat close.
So AMDs misleading scheme? Or Intels nosense scheme is what we can choose from.
imaheadcase - Sunday, October 16, 2005 - link
I think everyone can agree the original way was the best. The only reason they changed it was because of pride. AMD was saying "processor speed is not true performancee" so intel figured they would change there to reflect that. AMD is just to blame by putting numbers in naming that don't equal processor speed. We are lucky enough to have online stores actully say what true mhz the CPU is. hehe9nails - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link
I totally agree. If the day ever comes when Intel makes a 3.6 Ghz "Pentium 5" CPU and it outperforms the 3.6 Ghz Pentium 4 CPU on all scores, then this silly nameing convention will make a little sence. But if they're not going to do any more work per CPU cycle, then the clock speed is still the best measurement that we have in determining the needs of the customer to the CPU. I liked it better when it was left alone.overclockingoodness - Sunday, October 16, 2005 - link
Is it just me or are the new chip names similar to AMD's Athlon XP line. T2700 = 2500+ and so forth and so one.raskren - Sunday, October 16, 2005 - link
It is just you.Last time I checked, AMD didn't rate their processors based on TDP.
Brian23 - Sunday, October 16, 2005 - link
I'm pretty sure they rate the Turion processors this way.CurtOien - Sunday, October 16, 2005 - link
If the customer is confused, the sales person at the retail store sounds like they know what they are talking about no matter what and can talk some poor fool into anything.