Intel Roadmap Update: The Art of Naming Processors

THG writes "CoolTechZone.com has compiled a list of Intel processors from its roadmaps, and discusses Intel's naming convention. According to the article, 'Gone are the days when processor names were something as simple as their clock speeds. If you wanted a nice and powerful 3GHz processor, you simply asked for a P4 3.0GHz and that was it. Ever since Intel has decided to revamp its naming conventions, the confusion makes you wonder if the whole idea of renaming was a smart move. Moving on with Intel and it's desktop endeavors, the problem is that if the names were as simple as stated above, we would've somehow managed to figure them all out. But someone at Intel obviously wanted to ensure that we don't remember processor names without having a 100-page manual on product families, so there are modifications to each series, which may or may not be consistent across different series.'"

Comments

Intel's naming scheme has been fucked up since...

[Caspian]

...the "Pentium Pro".

'Pentium' derives from 'penta'-- i.e. FIVE, as in "five-eighty-six", as in 80586-- the successor to the four-eighty-six.

That made sense. Kinda.

But then Intel designed the six-eighty-six, and instead of "Hexium" (or, Allah/Yahweh/Zeus/Vishnu/InvisiblePinkUnicorn/Flyi ngSpaghettiMonster-forbid, "Sexium"!), they called it the "Pentium Pro". So, evidently, the number six was then redefined as "Five Pro".

Then Intel kept improving (well, or at least adding to) the 686 design, but not only did they never label any of these newer-gen chips the 80786, 80886, 80986, etc., but they kept the goddamned 'Pentium' brand.

This makes perfect sense from a marketing (read: "a suit's") perspective, but absolutely no mathematical or logical sense.

If Intel invented counting, we'd all count something like this:

"Zero, zero, one, two, three, four, five, five pro, five II, five II point xeon, five III, five III point xeon, five IV, five IV point xeon, five IV extreme edition, five M..."

Of course, this isn't all that different from the convoluted way the French count... ;)

Code Names

[SmartSsa]

Code names are just as bad as the official part numbers.

However, if you haven't figured out already, Intel is moving away from directly selling CPUs based on their speeds and starting to bundle 'Platforms.'

This started mostly with Centrino (the platform), since it's not a CPU. And is now continuing into the Desktop and Server marketspaces.

It's their hopes that end users won't ask for "pentium 4!" but rather (insert catchy platform name here). It's worked well with Laptops. People want Centrino! And it'll likely work with Desktops, but probably not so much servers.

With that their naming conventions for individual parts are also going to get even more screwy...

But, on the other hand, Intel is not the only one to have evil codenames. They, as well as their competators, should just stick with sequential numbering so one can say "higher number is newer!"