Intel's Naming Scheme Explained

Intel's Brutal Alphabet Naming Scheme

Perhaps no company in the market has been more guilty in throwing seemingly random letters at product names than intel. So let's have a look at the alphabet soup that you have to slurp down in order to understand exactly what you are buying.Well it might not be too hard to understand the difference between a core i3, core i5 and a core i7 processor as the general rule goes the bigger the number the better the product but if you have ever looked at the product specs of some Intel based laptops or even some desktops you will notice that there are some letters attached at the end of the CPU model number too, now what are these letters referring to. Well as it turns out these letters are not just some random characters Intel threw in the names of CPUs to look cool, these letters have some real meaning that actually tell you about the processor. Unfortunately, there are so many of them that it feels like that you are deciphering some Da Vinci code just to find out what your CPU was designed to do. But fear not I am here to demystify this Da Vinci code for you.

 1. LAPTOPS

 1.1.    K

Starting off with the one which you would have heard and  seen a lot, the letter "K" as in 'i3 7350K'. The K in front of a CPU model number denotes that the chips multiplier is unlocked, this means that the chip can be overclocked if you have a motherboard that supports overclocking for example a Z490, H410 or a B460 chipset. While the non K chips support very limited or no overclocking at all.

  1. 2.  H, HK, HQ    

 The next very confusing letter on the list is the letter "H" as in 'i3 7100H' which stands for "High-Performance Graphics". It is used to designate intel's higher end offerings in the mobile segments (Laptops) that consumes more power. 

Sometimes though you will  notice a K with an H for example
i9 9980HK here also the K denotes the exact same thing as mentioned above.

 But what about an i7 7700 HQ what about the Q.........is it some kind of hidden subliminal messege telling you that intel's laptops are High Quality........well no, the Q here denotes 'Quad core' i.e the CPU comes with 4 cores.
          

1.3.  U, Y

Some of the other letters that you will probably encounter are "U" and "Y"(eg: i5 8265U and i5 7Y54) here the 'U' stands for 'ultra low power' and on the other hand 'Y' meaning 'Extremely Low Power' which as the name suggests consume very less power. Why not E or X you ask? Well because .....A. These letters are already being used to denote other functionalities and ......B. It's their company they can do whatever they want so shut up and bear it.Often you will see U and Y chips laptops where the focus is on saving battery life than on performance with some of the Y series CPU power consumption being even lower than 5 watts.

 1.4. E   

Moving on to the next letter "E"(eg:  i3 7101E)  which denotes that the CPU supports "ECC memory" or "Error Correcting Code memory" which is a type of computer data storage that uses and error correction code to detect and correct n-bit data corruption which occurs in memory........... well in simpler words ECC memory is just like any other RAM but it includes 1 extra chip on the RAM board that checks for data errors and corrects it.
 

1.5. M 

 Intel also uses a "M" suffix to tell that the CPU is a mobile chip for laptops but it is currently used only with the Xeon processers. eg: Xeon E3-1535M.
          

2. DESKTOPS

This was all about the laptop processers now let's kick back things over to the desktop land.
           

2.1. K

Starting off with letter "K" that denotes again that the cpus multiplier is unlocked that means it's over clockable.
          

2.2. T

Now moving to the most obscure letter that you will very rarely hear about, the letter "T" (eg: i7 7700T). Although the T series processors fit in an LGA 1151 desktop socket but they are low powered so you are more likely to see these kind of processers in All-in-One or Small Form-Factor PCs that are designed with smaller Power Supplies and very limited cooling.
           

2.3. P, F

  Moving on to the next one ...... The letter "P" (i5 6402P) tells about the chips graphics option. It denotes that the processor has a very weak integrated GPU whereas the letter 'F'(i5 10400F) denotes that there is no iGPU. This can save you money if you are looking to add a descrete graphic card in your system anyway.
           

2.4 G

Well the 5th generation of intel CPUs came with the letter "G"(i5 8350G) and these are my favourite as it denotes that the processor supports Radeon RX Vega graphics which is built-in and........ by the name you must have guessed is manufactured by their competitors a totally non-competitive radeon technology group whose name .....is........ AMD.
           

2.6 R, C

Intel also used the letters
R and C( i5-5675R and i7-5775C )
On there Braodwell series which is a couple of generations older. Here the R denoted high end graphics just like H and C being another name for K. Till date no one understood what was the point of using R and C instead of H and K, but the simple and undeniable reason is............It's their company they can do whatever they want. But forget about these letters as the series is discontinued now.
            

2.6. X, XE, KS

Now let's get this over with, with the most hyped and dramatic letter the "X"(i9 10900X). This indicates a very high end unlocked consumer CPUs with the most cores and the highest prices with the most high and CPU being the core i9 10980 XE and the XE is for extreme edition not to be confused with the E for ECC memory. Similarly the letter "S" as in i9 9900KS denotes the this is a special edition processor and is again a very high end chip
      

 I think Intel can do a better job in making these things simpler and more consistent for consumers or the day is not far when Intel will be using Egyptian symbols....... as they would be out of alphabets. "ladies and gentlemen presenting to you the Intel CORE i9 15980  X𓂀 𓂸".