According to Intel, the company is discontinuing its Core “i” naming scheme starting with its upcoming Meteor Lake chips.
Intel’s been releasing processors with the Core “i” branding for a long, long time, i.e. the Core i3, i5, i7, and i9, but according to the company, its upcoming Meteor Lake chips are set to do away with the familiar naming scheme. Intel says that the upcoming chips will abandon the Core “i” naming scheme in favor of Core Ultra.
At the time of writing, it’s not entirely clear how Intel will be differentiating between different chips in the context of Core Ultra. It could be the case that we’ll still see i3, i5, i7, and i9 processors with Core Ultra attached instead of Core “i”; although, it could be the case that Intel will be moving forward with an entirely different naming scheme with Core Ultra. We’ll hear more about Meteor Lake this year, though, so we won’t have to wait long.
In a recent Intel earnings call, the company promised to be ramping up its production of Meteor Lake chips this year, and the current idea is that Meteor Lake chips will start shipping by the end of the year. According to Intel, Meteor Lake is set to be built on Intel’s ‘Intel 4’ process node, and these chips will be coming with a new tiled architecture, hybrid cores, lower power consumptions, a next-gen graphics engine, and integrated AI acceleration, says Intel.
The current speculation is that Meteor Lake desktop PC chips will be limited to the Core i3, Core i5 range of chips rated for around 35W and 65W power envelopes, but Intel has yet to confirm this and make a formal announcement. Though, of course, don’t necessarily expect these chips to be called Core i3 and Core i5.
