For a very long time, Intel’s branding has been the identical: Xeon for servers and workstations, Core for efficiency desktops and laptops, after which Pentiums and Celerons filling out the low-end. Apparently we’re on the finish of an period, as a result of Intel has determined to kill the Pentium and Celeron branding, no less than for its laptop computer line. The brand new entry-level chips will probably be known as, merely, “Intel Processor”.
Intel says that the rationale for the change is to “simplify the buying expertise for patrons.” It is a bit troublesome to think about how that may be the case, however maybe the corporate believes that merely counting on mannequin numbers will probably be simpler than having to know whether or not a Pentium Silver or Celeron is best.
When referring to the clades of processor that will probably be included below the branding, Intel makes use of the time period “important”. That gives the look that processors known as “Intel Processor” will probably be primary fashions with restricted performance, which is honest in comparison with the ever-expanding capabilities of the corporate’s flagship Core household.
Traditionally, apart from Xeons, Intel had “Core” and “Atom” as its two main processor households, however the firm discarded the Atom branding with out terminating the expertise, resulting in the growth of the Pentium and Celeron branding to incorporate processors based mostly on each its “little cores”—that’s, processors previously referred to as Atom—in addition to its “large cores,” the identical CPU expertise included in “Core” collection chips.
Earlier than that, “Pentium” and “Celeron” chips have been usually simply extraordinarily cut-down and cost-reduced types of the mainstream desktop and laptop computer CPUs. The transfer to fold Atom-family chips into the Pentium and Celeron households wrought a lot confusion as to what you have been really shopping for whenever you purchased a Pentium or Celeron processor. Intel tried to amend this with the awkward “Pentium Gold” and “Pentium Silver” branding, however customers discovered that much more complicated.
Finally this transfer, whereas laughable on the face of issues, might be an excellent factor for Intel. Similar to AMD did with its current decoder ring train, Intel can take this chance to make use of processor mannequin numbers to obviously outline what precisely is in its cell CPUs. We do not know that the corporate will try this, however we are able to dream.
