Intel To Rebrand Atom Chips Along Lines of Core Processors 109
angry tapir writes Intel has announced that going forward it will use style of branding for its Atom chips that is similar to its branding for Core chips. Atom CPUs will have the X3, X5 and X7 designations, much like with the Core i3, i5 and i7 brands. An Atom X3 will deliver good performance, X5 will be better and X7 will be the best, an Intel spokeswoman said.
can't wait (Score:2)
"Good", "Better", "Best"? (Score:1)
When somebody uses a scale like ["Good", "Better", "Best"], are they really just trying to avoid using ["Total Shit", "Mostly Shit", "Mildly Shit"]?
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In highschool/college I worked at a retail place with the MBA speak: "Good, Better, Best" It pretty much boils down to "Shit", "OK", and "Same product as OK but with a brand name and 30% markup."
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The real problem is that i3, i5, and i7 have never been good, better, best.
My core2duo E6850 is now absolutely ancient (and feeling it's age after having been run at nearly 100 degrees Celsius for a significant portion). My dad was going to retire his old i3 to the garage as a backup, but I jumped at the chance to nick it. That was, until I looked at the benchmarks. They're about the same. New thermal paste is easier.
It's all about the benchmarks, people. There are plenty of i5's that will outperform i
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At least on desktop, the differential is core number. i3 is dual core, i5 is quad core, and i7 is quad core with hyperthreading (8 virtual cores). That means higher iX will crush lower iY in parallel tasks like video encoding. But at the same time single thread application that only care about maximum speed of a single core, higher clock i3 has a chance to eat lower clock i7.
You mean BMW numbering? (Score:3)
Since the core lines are meant to follow BMW numbering, I guess that means Atom now will too.
I wonder when Intel realizes BMW have introduced 2, 4 and 6 series in recent year ;)
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So the BMW 3-series did not come as cabrios?
It did. I think by a "long time" he meant the last 3-4 years.
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The 1-series and 3-series did have both 2-door and 4-door versions, and this was confusing in respect to where they were going with their numbering schemes.
Thus, the 2-series and 4-series were born as the 2-door versions of the 1-series and 3-series, respectively.
Want 4 doors? Get an odd-numbered first digit. 2 doors? Even.
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Bzzzz! Wrong!
http://www.bmw.com/com/en/newv... [bmw.com]
http://www.bmw.com/com/en/newv... [bmw.com]
http://www.bmw.com/com/en/newv... [bmw.com]
http://www.bmw.com/com/en/newv... [bmw.com]
http://www.bmw.com/com/en/newv... [bmw.com]
Nice try, but their new scheme makes no fucking sense at all so don't worry about it.
Before the recent change there was nothing to be confused about - you had most models in various body styles: coupe, convertible, sedan, or wagon. Of course it'd look ridiculous if they made even more (expensive) variants of the same car so they had
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What do you mean? They just started this a year or two ago.
The last two digits used to be the engine displacement in liters, and the letters meant something too (i.e. 535i was a 5-series, 3.5L engine, fuel injected) but that hasn't been true for a long time.
But I want faster... (Score:5, Funny)
Surely there should be an X11 chip, for those that want to go louder and faster?
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I thought they rebranded that as 'Wayland' ?
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That'd mean doing away with the FPU and telling people the software ought to make up for it using the vectorisation extensions.
On another note, X3 for "good", X5 for "better" and X7 for "best", where does that leave the i3, i5, i7 series? Plusgooder, doubleplusbetterbetterst, tripleplusbestest?
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They tried one, but the networking code proved to be such a performance drag that they abandoned it for a Wayland chip.
Dubious premise . . . (Score:5, Funny)
I highly doubt that.
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I highly doubt that.
I wish I had mod points...
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Mod points are only available if you have an X5 or better.
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Well, compared to what is the question, and are they comparing TDP or just IPS?
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I noticed recently that AMD's AM1 processors support ECC and AES-NI as well. It seems odd that in AMD's case AM1 processors support ECC while their FM processors do not and in Intel's case the least expensive way to get ECC is now with Atom.
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I highly doubt that.
The silvermont generation have actually been decent. Just too bad they have shared naming with the shit that came before.
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Pick up an HP Stream 7 tablet and try it ($100). It's surprisingly perky and speedy despite its 1GB of RAM, Windows and Atom processor.
it's no speed demon, and yes it can bog down, but it runs Windows impressively fast
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Yeah, I'm actually familiar with the real performance of Atoms, and they aren't actually as bad as all that, but I figured I'd take the opportunity to drop a good laugh line.
I have been using a dual-core Atom-powered PC for several years now to DJ. It's been able to hold its own.
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Why follow BMW? (Score:1)
Problem with this scheme (Score:2)
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It wasn't so much the loss 80x86 designations, as the increase of different parameters that could be tweaked for different markets.
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On a per-core basis, a Haswell i3 is significantly faster than an i7-920, but the extra threads and dynamic overclocking in the i7 feature set make up for it. In day to day computing, the two are probably about equivalent. For thread intensive tasks like video encoding, the i7 is still the better option. Which just shows how completely insane i7s are, to remain competitive with mainstream desktop CPUs FIVE YEARS after their launch date.
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A comparision of a first generation desktop i3 (which is slightly newer than a first generation i7) from january 2010 to a current generation desktop i3 from may 2014 (there was a slight speed bump released in july but anandtech don't have that one in their list) can be seen at http://www.anandtech.com/bench... [anandtech.com] . We see that performance has less than doubled in over four years
We see a similar comparison when we compare a first generation desktop i5 from september 2009 to a current one from may 2014 http://w [anandtech.com]
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Re:Problem with this scheme (Score:4, Informative)
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Generally speaking, the CPU branding is an indicator of feature set and relative performance within a generation and product class. We have desktop, mobile and (ultra)low-voltage part. If you're getting hung up trying to determine which CPU is faster between two CPUs of wildly different architectures (desktop Sandy Bridge vs. low-voltage Broadwell, for example), it's almost always going to be an apples to oranges comparison anyway; you're probably looking at different classes of devices. Just pay attention
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it's almost always going to be an apples to oranges comparison anyway
Faster is not an apples to orange comparison. It is a simple workload type question. I open a photo in Lightroom which processor does it the fastest? The current generation i3? Yesterday's generation i5, or yesterday's generation i7 mobile chip?
The problem is that it really should be an apples to apples comparison and the feature set should be separated from the performance.
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Yeah, the numbering confused me as well when I first started looking at it, but it does make sense after a bit. You have the model class: i3, i5, and i7 and then you have the model numbers.
The marketting class tells you at a glance (for a given generation) how the CPUs compare: a 2nd gen i7 has more features and generally faster than a 2nd gen i5, etc... Then the model number shows the relative performance/feature within a given generation: 2500 has fewer features or performance than a 2700, etc...
What may
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Yeah, well if it comes from a large marketing dept. and you are confused then "mission accomplished".
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The mainstream desktop I7's are pretty easy to keep track of because there's actually not been that many of them. If someone tells you they have an i7 in their desktop, it's probably one of the four chips in your list. Now dive into the mess that's the Pentium/i3/i5 lines. Most i5's are quad's, but some are dual's with hyperthreading. But that's what the mobile i7's usually are. But so are the desktop i3's, except that they can't turbo boost. And the very high end Haswell i7's have a 5xxx number. Sho
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Even within one generation the good/better/best breaks down once you start looking across product categories, an "ultra mobile" i7 can be considerablly less capable than a "mobile" i3.
Like most stuff marketers come up with it's pretty clearly designed to mislead customers into thinking they can have both an ultra slim lightweight machine and top-tier performance.
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For my work load, a first generation i5-680 (3.6Ghz, dual core, fastest clocked processor from the first generation) is about 10% slower than a fourth generation i5-4430 (3.0 Ghz, quad core, slowest clocked "normal" i5 from the current generation that's not a low power or mobile variant). Note that this workload is extremely single threaded, so if you're doing something that's multi-threaded the two extra cores in the Haswell i5 will make a huge difference. But this does suggest that cores in a Haswell ar
like eggs (Score:2)
An Atom X3 will deliver good performance, X5 will be better and X7 will be the best,
Eggs used to be sold as "small", "medium", or "large" in the UK. Then the marketing guys rebranded "small" as "medium", "medium" as "large", and "large" as "extra large".
Re:like eggs (Score:5, Funny)
Likewise, instead of selling condoms as small, medium and large, they are branded: regular, tight, and extra tight.
Core branding is utterly useless (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like the old Sears catalog (Score:2)
An Atom X3 will deliver good performance, X5 will be better and X7 will be the best
Is anybody here old enough to remember the old Sears catalog? Years ago, they sold many items in three grades: "good", "better", and "best". But here's what I always wondered: if "good" was so darn good, why was it clearly at the bottom?...
Anyway, I guess marketing is marketing: it doesn't matter whether you're selling refrigerators or microprocessors. Sears never went beyond three grades and marketed anything as "pretty good", "slightly better", or "almost best." But I guess Intel can sell an Atom "X4"
While you're at it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Please dump the Pentium and Celeron brands, which are relics from a bygone era.
Just call your brands either Core or Atom and be done with it.
Obfuscation doesn't help the consumer.
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It would be difficult to find any modern x86 CPU that is not good enough for those tasks. Heck even a pretty old CPU should work for most of those.
The amount of CPU power available today borders on the unbelievable.
Outside of power users like gamers, developers, CAD, Video editing, and other high end users a Pentium is more than good enough.
Frankly they would get better value out of an SSD than an I5.
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and it has not once stuttered when playing HD Youtube videos or Netflix or high-bitrate bootleg movies. .
That is because of the GPU, not the CPU.
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I never had an issue with Windows 7 on a core 2.
But then a core 2 is three generations back I am talking about Sandy-Bridge or higher but even a Core2 is probably going to be just fine.
If you are talking about one of the first gen Atoms yea they where terrible but modern ones are pretty good.
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I never had an issue with Windows 7 on a core 2.
My old Thinkpad X61 was replaced a few months back with a used Thinkpad X1 for precisely this reason.
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The problem I was referring to is some Pentiums are Haswell based (core), while others are Silvermont based(atom).
Similarly, there exist both Core and Atom Celerons.
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Pentium as a brand name has too much consumer good will for Intel to drop it. Remember that Intel Marketing spent 20 years convincing people to buy them. I have met people who bought a Pentium-based notebook rather than a Core i3 specifically because of the Pentium sticker. And current Pentium CPUs certainly aren't bad. They're pretty much i3s without hyperthreading support. They're perfect adequate for light-use machines.
I jokingly tell people that Celeron is an ancient geek word that means "Don't Buy Me",
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The people who faithfully buy "Pentium" are like the people who faithfully bought "Oldsmobile".
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Just think of "Celeron" as "i1" and "Pentium" as "i2" and then they fit just fine.
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Don't you mean 20.00739068902038 years?
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Just think of "Celeron" as "i1" and "Pentium" as "i2.000739068902037589" and then they fit just fine.
FTFY
No, since we are using integers here. The Pentium had a floating point bug.
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Since when is the aim of marketing helping the consumer?
In my experience it is spreading FUD, and chivvying the consumer into wasting his money on buying things he does not need.
There goal is at odds with yours. (Score:2)
They make more money on confusion. Most people don't know WTF they're buying anyway so they can more easily fleece someone in to overpaying for a sub-par processor which will be blamed on the manufacturer's name on the cover not theirs.
People just buy shiny (Apple/Alienware/"Ultrabooks",etc), cheap (Chromebook/Netbook), or at a certain price point without a clue until it doesn't do something they want and then they will blame everything but themselves. I see this shit every day; most consumers are ignorant
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The point is that they deliberately obfuscate. "This generation is better than the last" can be sold to people with higher powered processors, whilst still being technically true. Like I said earlier in the discussion, I still use a core2duo E6850, and I do use it for gaming. It's nearly 10 years old.
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My favorite are the cheap notebooks that are advertised as "Quad core processor!". What they don't tell you is that it's a quad core Atom. Granted, for a lot people it would be good enough, but I'd rather have one of the Haswell-based Pentiums even if it's just a dual core.
Tell me these are 64bit? (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft is releasing 32bit versions of Windows 10, due to idiot Atom 32bit machines manufactured only a few years ago.
It's time for 32bit to die out entirely, hopefully no more 32bit only CPU's from Intel.
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the first atom core were 64bit WTF did intel remove that support for some chips ?
Not quite [wikipedia.org]. It was WTF from the beginning, as these were released like 5 years after the introduction of x86-64. I got an Atom board in 2010 and I remember the mess of making extra sure it's 64-bit, as new 32-bit models were still being made.
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To make it even more fun, Intel won't release 64-bit drivers for a lot of their integrated graphics for the Atom. Which means that if you want to run Windows on them, you pretty much have use the 32-bit version. Luckily there's always Linux.
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Yes, the current generation Silvermont Atoms are (I believe) all 64bit.
(You might still find prev-gen Saltwells in tablets and phones)
Intel won't kill off x86 entirely - they have their Quark project for Internet of Things.
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So 32bit and large memory addressing is a problem for an low power low performance device?
I have 2 Atom machines here. I guarantee they'll never see a workload where they would benefit from a very large addressable memory space that comes with 64bit processors as the chips just aren't powerful enough to do that kind of work.
So really what is the point of a 64bit chip like that?
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Easy, software developers targetting a single platform. 32bit should be long dead by now, it's time to let it go.
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Which makes no difference to 99.99% of software vendors out there. Most 32bit programs run just fine on a 64bit platform. You make it sound like it's a real hard piece of work maintaining support for multiple platforms. That may be true only if your application has a specific need to run in 64bit.
more confusion (Score:1)
Marketing Grading (Score:2)
They should be more honest and say X3 is lowest performance, X5 average performance, X7 better performance.
If you were to rate products out of 3 stars, where 1 star was the lowest you could give, then 1 star would be worst, 3 be best.
Miss the days. . . . (Score:1)
I just want to know: backdoor or nobackdoor (Score:5, Interesting)
With recent Intel chips containing AMT (Active Management Technology) and vPro, which contain integrated 3G radio support plus hidden processing core running separate hidden "management" instructions from the main core, what I really want to know is which Intel chips have a potential backdoor and which do not.
https://fsf.org/blogs/communit... [fsf.org]
Otherwise any smart competitor which can prove that their don't have any backdoors, would have a significant marketing advantage. (Are you listening AMD?)
intel 'yellow books' (Score:2)
http://everist.org/eevblog/201... [everist.org]
I have no idea if this is true or not. interesting read. and its plausible, given how deep corporate secrets are these days and how those in charge LOVE to have backdoors into your systems.
wish someone would confirm this. without confirmation, its just a rumor.
posting it here for the slight chance an AC might confirm this with actual first-hand info.
Why 3, 5 and 7? (Score:2)
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