Intel Revamps Traditional CPU Branding and Launches the Core Ultra Series

Highlights

• The Gen and I designation in Intel's CPU branding will no longer be used.
• The most cutting-edge CPUs will be part of a new Core Ultra series.

It's been rumored for a while that Intel's consumer CPUs will be rebranded, but statement from the firm made it official. With the introduction of Intel's next-generation Meteor Lake processors, the "Gen" and "i" branding on its CPUs will be dropped, and Core chips will be divided between the traditional Core series and the brand-new Core Ultra series.

Overall, this new naming scheme doesn't really change much. We do know that 3-class CPUs are exclusive to the Core series and 9-class chips are exclusive to the Core Ultra series, so maybe Core Ultra simply refers to high TDP, unlocked chips. However, it is not entirely clear which CPUs are Core Ultra and which are Core.

According to this presumption, the new name for the 13th-generation Core i9 13900K would be Core Ultra 9 13900K. Overall, not all that much has changed.

Why Intel is pursuing what appears to be an unnecessary branding revision is obvious. Even though Intel claims that this is to reflect the "inflection point in Intel’s client processor roadmap" of Meteor Lake, the rumored Raptor Lake refresh could also be a factor.

Rebranding the chips

It has long been suspected that Meteor Lake's desktop variant has been scrapped and that Raptor Lake from 13th-generation processors will be used in 14th-generation desktop chips, while Meteor Lake will be used in laptops. It deliberately leaves things vague by omitting the "14th-generation" at the beginning of the CPU's name.

However, it's not like we haven't seen the company refresh products and attempt to make them look new before. This move has already received some criticism, with many describing it as a scheme to make the Raptor Lake refresh appear actually new. Intel has already rebranded Alder Lake chips as Raptor Lake CPUs of the 13th generation, such as the Core i3-13100, which is identical to the i3-12100, among others.

In addition to causing a great deal of confusion, such as placing 10nm Tiger Lake CPUs in the same generation as 14nm Rocket Lake chips, the previous naming scheme did not stop Intel from pretending that old products were new. As we have always done, you can still determine what generation something belongs to by looking at the first two digits.