Intel is dropping the Gen and I designations in its processor branding, and the new Core Ultra series will represent its most advanced processors.
Rebranding of Intel processors
A rebrand of Intel consumer CPUs has been rumored for some time, but an announcement from the company today made it official. Starting with Intel’s next-generation Meteor Lake chips, the company will no longer use the “Gen” and “i” markings on its CPUs, and Core chips will be divided into two classes: the regular Core series and the new Core Ultra series. .
In general, not much has changed with this. New naming system. It’s not entirely clear which CPUs are Core and which are Core Ultra, but we do know that Class 3 CPUs are only in the Core series and Class 9 chips are only in the Core Ultra series. So maybe Core Ultra just means high TDP chips and unlocked chips. Under this assumption, the current 13th generation Core i9 13900K will be called Core Ultra 9 13900K in the new naming scheme. In general, there is not much difference.
Reasons for the change in naming
The obvious question is why Intel is pursuing what appears to be an unnecessary overhaul of its brand. While Intel says this reflects the “inflection point in Intel’s client processor roadmap” with Meteor Lake, another factor could be the rumored Raptor Lake update. It has long been suspected that since the desktop version of Meteor Lake has been cancelled, 14th generation desktop chips will reuse Raptor Lake from 13th generation processors, while laptops will get Meteor Lake. Dropping “14th gen” at the beginning of the CPU’s name intentionally leaves things ambiguous.
Intel has already received some criticism for this change, with many calling it a strategy to make the Raptor Lake refresh look really refreshing. However, it’s not like we haven’t seen the company update products and try to make them look like new before. Intel has already rebranded its Alder Lake chips as 13th-generation Raptor Lake CPUs, with the Core i3-13100 being an exact copy of the i3-12100, among others. The outdated naming scheme didn’t stop Intel from pretending old things were new, and it also caused a lot of confusion, like putting the 10nm Tiger Lake CPUs in the same generation as the 14nm Rocket Lake chips. It will still be possible to determine the generation of something by looking at the first two digits, which we’ve always done anyway.
