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Intel Confuses, Rebrands Some Core M Processors As Core I (laptopmag.com)
Reader thegarbz writes: As already covered previously Intel has announced it's 7th generation Kaby Lake processors. Curiously absent from the announcement was any mention of Core m5 and Core m7 product lines. As it turns out, Intel quietly removed the m branding and rolled its budget processors up into the Core i5 and Core i7 brands.
When we met with representatives of Intel to talk about Kaby Lake, they said that consumers didn't understand the Core m branding and that this move would help alleviate customer confusion.But what's more confusing: having two different brand names for different types of CPU or having the same name for both? Intel will tell you that you have to pay attention to the SKU numbers at the end of the chip names. And if you do, you can sidestep the issue. The regular i-series will continue as usual: Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7, with all of the processor numbers ending in the letter "U" (the i3-7100U, i5-7200U and i7-7500U). The former m5 and m7 will have the letter "Y" in the name (i5-7Y54, i7-7Y75 and m3-7Y30).
To be honest, they are so many product lines and SKUs out there these days that the only thing I do is search for the passmark rating and make sure it isn't a total dog and that it's at least a little bit better then what I used to have. Is there a better approach? For my desktop / hyper-v server I'm still running a 5 year old i7-2600k (passmark 8504) and don't really see any need to replace it. My laptop is running an i7-2620m (passmark 3811) and it seems fine to.
How in the world is that less confusing?
It's not. I suspect the real reason is to remove the less-desireable m-branding from the products and trick some unwitting people into buying lower-performing hardware.
Is the nVidia GTX 5000 Ti slower or faster than the Radeon R11 2500?
Is the Intel i9-3400X slower or faster than the AMD Athlon X8-1200Z?
It's not about being too lazy to do some research, it's that even when you have all the information it's still confusing.