Intel has used the Celeron and Pentium brands for CPUs since the 1990s, but they’re finally fading away — if not quite in the way you’d expect. The company is replacing both brand names for low-end laptop chips in favor of the simpler (if not exactly creative) “Intel Processor” badge starting in 2023. The move will help “simplify” the lineup, Intel VP Josh Newman said.
The Core, Evo and vPro labels will stick around. Intel didn’t say how it will handle branding for desktop processors, which still include Celeron and Pentium models released this year. We’ve asked the company for comment and will let you know if we hear back.
The decision isn’t shocking. Both the Celeron and Pentium names have been synonymous with low-end processors for years, and the practical differences for users have been modest at best. This clarifies what you’re getting. If you don’t see “Core,” it’s a basic model. And let’s be honest — people shopping for entry-level laptops aren’t hunting for specific branding like their enthusiast counterparts. Here, pricing and base functionality are more important.
Very interesting. The Intel brand has been fairly tarnished lately. The last time that happened they moved what was a premium brand “pentium” down and added “core” on top. I have been wondering if they would do something similar with the new tile CPU’s like Meteor lake. “core” becomes the middle brand and they give tile CPU’s a new high end name. There is a rumor that the Raptor Lake laptop CPU adds in the VPU that we did not expect until meteor lake. This would set a improved and differentiating feature set for the new brand.
Alan
There is a rumor that the Raptor Lake laptop CPU adds in the VPU that we did not expect until meteor lake. This would set a improved and differentiating feature set for the new brand.
AMD is adding a GPU in all Raphael desktop Zen 4s, but I don’t expect a renaming from Ryzen. I suspect that the GPU will be on the I/O chiplet. That results in an elegant design–if you use the built-in graphics, the CPU will output video to standard video connectors. If you use a separate GPU card, the video I/O goes over the PCIe lanes. I suspect AMD is doing this to make it easier to share I/O chiplets with low-end EPYC server chips.
AMD is building lots of brand equity for RYZEN so it makes sense to keep that brand. Intel has had a GPU in all Alder lake and upcoming raptor lake CPU’s, so this just brings Ryzen to the same place core has been. It is not clear that the software stack makes good use of the extra GPU compute, outside of being a GPU.
The VPU (vision processing unit) is a low power neural inference engine. It seems it would be great on something like a cell phone where you are doing lots of mobile video, but I am not sure it adds much value to a laptop. We will have to see how Intel chooses to market it.
Core and Ryzen are generally viewed as similar and competitive brands. IF Intel introduces a new brand that they advertise as better than core it gives them a leg up on Ryzen. This is pure speculation on my part. It may be, they really just wanted to simplify the branding stack, rather than make room for a new brand.
I will further guess that the new “Intel Processor” will be only E-cores… we will see. It does seem a lot like the old failed Atom strategy.
Alan
I suspect that the GPU will be on the I/O chiplet. That results in an elegant design–if you use the built-in graphics, the CPU will output video to standard video connectors. If you use a separate GPU card, the video I/O goes over the PCIe lanes. I suspect AMD is doing this to make it easier to share I/O chiplets with low-end EPYC server chips.