The last generation: Intel has new labels for its next major CPU architecture

Enlarge / Intel’s Core CPUs are about to get a bit more Ultra. (credit: Intel)

As part of an effort to “simplify the Intel brand portfolio,” Intel has announced some changes to its processor branding starting with its next-generation Meteor Lake CPUs.

The smallest change is that Intel’s mainstream CPUs are losing their “i,” shifting from Core i3/i5/i7/i9 to simply Core 3/5/7/9. Intel will also stop using “generational” messaging in its processor branding—none of the new CPUs will be announced, released, or advertised as “14th-generation” anything.

Intel’s generational branding has always been a bit arbitrary, anyway. The “first-generation” Core chips followed several generations of Core and Core 2 processors, the branding Intel started using for its chips in the mid-2000s at the end of the Pentium 4 era. And the Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad branding was used for several distinct generations of chips that used different manufacturing technologies and revised architectures.