Intel to rebrand client chips once Meteor Lake splashes down
- Reference: 1682922669
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/05/01/intel_meteor_lake_core_rebranding/
- Source link:
Chipzilla today told The Register "We are making brand changes as we're at an inflection point in our client roadmap in preparation for the upcoming launch of our Meteor Lake processors."
"We will provide more details regarding these exciting changes in the coming weeks."
[1]
The Register asked Intel about branding after semiconductor analyst Dylan Patel on Monday [2]tweeted "Imagine you're losing market share when you've been monopoly for decades, and your bright idea is to burn all brand recognition to the ground!"
[3]
[4]
"That's Intel's plan by removing the 'i' in i7 i5 i3. All the decades brand recognition being lit on fire for no reason!"
Patel labelled the rebranding a "horrible very short sighted move" that won't fix Intel's woes and "will cause more harm than good, as many buyers know + recognize the i7 i5 branding, they won't once it's changed."
[5]
"The new branding sounds bad with ultra strewn about + confusing scheme."
Patel's mention of "Ultra" branding appears to be a reference to this [6]benchmark result for game Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation which lists a processor called "Intel Core Ultra 5 1003H".
Look, ma, no "i"!
[7]Cash-strapped Intel looks for $3B in savings to pursue '5 nodes in 4 years' dream
[8]Intel reminds everyone it's still cooking away on more PC processors
[9]AMD was right about chiplets, Intel's Gelsinger all but says
[10]Intel's 13th-gen CPUs are hot, hungry, loaded with cores
With Intel admitting it's about to rebrand, The Register feels the CPU mentioned in that benchmark is likely more than a glitch and is instead evidence of the forthcoming remonikering.
And perhaps it's about time. Meteor Lake is a big change for Intel – the processors are built from multiple chiplets assembled into a finished product, rather than the silicon-slinger's former approach of using a single die.
[11]
If Intel can't rebrand now, when can it rebrand? Given that the chip giant typically keeps a couple of generations of product on sale at a time, and unsold inventory can hang around for ages, distinguishing chiplet-powered processors from their predecessors with a fresh moniker could be sensible.
Getting people to buy them is another matter. Your correspondent typed this story on a 13th-gen Core i7 that features Intel's most recent step change – mixing performance and efficient cores – and it absolutely flies through everything I've been able to throw at it. AMD has offered chipletized desktop CPUs for a few years, yet they have not notably driven demand.
Indeed, PC sales are currently very muted. Bad economic news and machines bought during COVID-19 not yet showing their age – plus no major version of Windows on the horizon to drive a PC refresh cycle – suggests a new generation of chips will struggle to drive demand, with or without new branding. Intel's 13th generation certainly didn't boost sales.
Intel last week told investors "Meteor Lake product on Intel 4 is ramping production wafer starts for an expected launch in the second half of 2023."
Combined with the quote above that mentions "changes in coming weeks," your correspondent notes that the annual COMPUTEX gabfest in Taiwan kicks off on May 28, and has often been used by Intel to announce its latest desktop wares. The Register plans to attend the event, so will be in the room if Chipzilla makes the change to Ultra from the COMPUTEX stage.
While we await the news, let us know what you think of this possible rebranding in the poll below, or the comments. ®
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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZE@Nw6FeXhCobLZubbt98AAAAI8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://twitter.com/dylan522p/status/1652742357002108928
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZE@Nw6FeXhCobLZubbt98AAAAI8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
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[6] https://www.ashesofthesingularity.com/benchmark#/benchmark-result/4adb4521-b865-40ab-9b11-c8ee987e722f
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/09/intel_cost_cutting/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/08/intel_chiplet_milestone/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/28/intel_chiplets_advanced_packaging/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/27/intel_13thgen_cpu_innovation/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZE@Nw6FeXhCobLZubbt98AAAAI8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Marketing: why do we need it again
I've seen benefits with renaming and rebranding. They've all been negative, though.
Marketards are only legends in their own tiny, little minds. They are truly one of the lowest forms of life, ruining almost everything they touch. The rest of us would get along just fine if the lot of them were to jump off the edge of the world, never to be seen again.
Re: Marketing: why do we need it again
No circle of hell is hot enough for the damage done to the English language from this class of wretches. The word salads they concoct rot worse every day.
Soon we'll have something like: Intel Core Super Wolf Blood Moon 7 XIII. And then the same people will join the call at Microsoft to decide the brand name for the Xbox Next One X Series Z.
Re: Marketing: why do we need it again
"I've seen benefits with renaming and rebranding. They've all been negative, though."
Goldstar monitors (and their other products) were on the cheapest, lowest rung but when the company rebranded as LG, most people didn't seem to make the connection to Lucky Goldstar. Whether LG still is or isn't a sign of quality I cannot say, but they've since had a much bigger presence on TV / Monitor market.
'Firefox' hasn't been a negative renaming of product, although I wouldn't really care if my browser of choice was named Firebird or Phoenix...
MacOS -> OS X worked also pretty well for Apple. Can't say the same about OS X -> macOS, which was pointless to me.
"Intel Core Ultra 5 1003H"
They were on a silver surfer. Now the age of ultron has arrived. The following downfall will be inevitable.
Ultra Max Super
It always perplexes me that they'll spend millions of dollars promoting a rebrand, but seem to only spend $50 on actually coming up with the name.
EA decided that the FIFA name wasn't worth the money, so they splurged on... EA Sports FC. Just rolls off the tongue like cold muesli.
Re: Ultra Max Super
"Ultra" strikes me as one of those generic words, like Super or Extra, that would be very difficult to trademark.
Sounds great!
This means I can run Windows on my Apple M1 Ultra.
Oh, wait …
Re: Sounds great!
Clearly making way for Intel branded phones, tablets and an online music store.
Intel continues their ancient and venerable tradition of shooting themselves in the foot at every opportunity. I'm sure AMD will continue to laugh all the way to the bank :)
Fiddling while...
Intel burns.
Sorry Intel, you are in a downward spiral and as far as I'm concerned... you can crash and burn. I stopped buying Intel pre-Covid.
I would much rather instead of just releasing yet another i5 or i7 part with a long list of numbers and letters after it, if the next gen are a big move away from the previous ones because of switching to a chiplet design, maybe its time to call them a new model number like i8 to show they are a long way removed from the original i7 which is now 15 years old.
Marketing: why do we need it again
This is the same thing they did a few months ago when they rebranded their low-end parts, formerly Celeron and Pentium, to just "Processor". That was probably a waste of time. The only time where a brand name change made sense was when they stopped releasing things with the Atom branding, having cemented the impression in anyone who cared that it translated as "so underpowered it isn't useful for anything". Calling everything Ultra won't convince people that it is in fact ultra, especially if it's 90% of the Intel parts available for typical computer purchases.
I get the point of some marketing people to toss around names for new things, although I'm not sure whether you really need any of the credentials that those people have since basically anyone can think up possible names, but I don't know if I've ever seen a renaming that had any benefits to the seller or to the customer.