Simplifying Intel's Processor Naming Scheme

Rob Williams

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From our front-page news:
If there's one thing manufacturers are starting to clue into, it's the fact that product naming schemes are far too confusing for the regular consumer. Take, for example, the ATI Radeon 9800 PRO and the NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+. One is vastly superior to the other, but a regular consumer wouldn't know it right off. NVIDIA is one company in particular that has vowed for better naming schemes, but now Intel has come clean about their own structure as well.

Bill Calder, Intel's Corporate Communications Manager, has made a blog post outlining the company's goals, and in doing so has revealed some information about their upcoming product lines. Up to this point, it's been common belief that Lynnfield was going to be placed under the Core i5 moniker, but that's not entirely the case. According to the posting, chances are Lynnfield will be both Core i5 and Core i7, depending of course on the feature-set.

The question to ask is... what's going to lack on the processor to have it become a Core i5? It's very unlikely that Core i5 is going to be reserved for Dual-Cores, because at this point in time, Quad-Cores are quickly becoming the norm. I could be wrong, however. The post further talks about Core i3, which would be dedicated to the lower-end of the spectrum, which would likely be Dual-Cores. Brands like Atom, Celeron and Pentium would not become Core i3, but rather their branding would remain in tact.

Let the speculation begin!

intel_corei7_news_logo.png

So the key here is there will be a range of features and capabilities within the Intel Core family - our flagship brand representing the highest performance and the latest technology - but simplified into entry-level (Intel Core i3), mid-level (Intel Core i5), and high-level (Intel Core i7). We will still have Celeron for entry-level computing at affordable price points, Pentium for basic computing, and of course the Intel Atom processor for all these new devices ranging from netbooks to smartphones.


Source: Technology@Intel Blog
 

Doomsday

Tech Junkie
they gotta be kidding with Core i5s as dual cores! Dragon Age: Origins PC recommended requirements have reached to 2.4Ghz quad core!! Crysis 2 will suck these Duos n Quads dry!
 

Rob Williams

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Staff member
Moderator
Alright, I'm confused. The 2.8GHz Lynnfield lacks some of what makes Core i7 "amazing", yet it's set to cost the same as the Core i7-920, and actually be faster in the process? I'm confused here, big time. It almost feels like Intel realized that certain technologies in Core i7 weren't worth the expense, because as far as I can tell, there's LITTLE stopping this Lynnfield from kicking an equivalently-clocked i7's ass.
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
Alright, I'm confused. The 2.8GHz Lynnfield lacks some of what makes Core i7 "amazing", yet it's set to cost the same as the Core i7-920, and actually be faster in the process? I'm confused here, big time. It almost feels like Intel realized that certain technologies in Core i7 weren't worth the expense, because as far as I can tell, there's LITTLE stopping this Lynnfield from kicking an equivalently-clocked i7's ass.

Well, they perform identically. The only question is price... but there doesn't seem to be any price discount either. Some sites are saying Intel will discontinue the 920 and keep the LGA1366 chips to higher bin grades, and somebody (maybe Intel) stated Intel was specifically binning LGA1366 chips to out-overclock Lynnfield chips. Either way, I view Lynnfield as the scrap bin, all the LGA1366 Xeon's that have defects will become much lower clocked LGA1156 Lynnfields with parts disabled.

The low bus clocks might allow them to overclock pretty well, so that's the only thing I'm curious to see at this point. Gulftown will become a LGA1366 Extreme Edition part next year, so another question is if they will offer more than one desktop model with it.
 

Rob Williams

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Kougar said:
I view Lynnfield as the scrap bin

Haha, it sure seems that way! Alright, I hate to ask this, but how is it that LGA1366 chips could become LGA1156 chips? I thought the socket size was physically different? Is the internal architecture really <em>that</em> exact, between both Lynnfield and Bloomfield?
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
Well sure, as far as I know it's the same silicon? Intel knows how well each silicon chip works before they even slice it off of the 300mm wafer, so they could decide whether to solder it to a LGA1156 or LGA1366 packaging based upon what's working/not working on it. I could be wrong as the CPU-Z screenshot I saw didn't show the same model info, but that same screenie had some basic info wrong on it too.

Unless their yields are so good they only need one dual-core Nehalem Xeon to sell harvested parts too? But come to remember... Intel packaged Xeon Gallatin CPUs that had defective L3 cache as Pentium 4 Northwood chips... Even CPU-Z couldn't tell which core it was originally (Some versions would detect it properly, some wouldn't) but users could tell by checking how many capacitors were underneath the core. And some programs would detect the disabled L3 cache...
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
Well, this is a new concept to me, but I'm willing to believe it. The same thing goes for Lynnfield > Westmere, although those are at least designed for the same socket to begin with. I'll ping Intel and see if I can get an answer of any sort...
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
Well, I know Intel has done it before. People took the IHS off their Pentium 4 and found two distinct silicon cores on it, because originally it was a Pentium D but one of the cores didn't survive the packaging process or didn't survive their torture testing, and was subsequently disabled.

I might be wrong with Bloomfield/Lynnfield though, because Bloomfield parts are identical to what does into Xeons and Intel sells a dualcore model Nehalem Xeon. So they wouldn't need to toss them into Lynnfields at all...
 
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