By complicating its naming convention Intel will finally teach people to look at the benchmarks

Intel is known for its Core i series of processors, which have been the mainstay of laptops and desktops for over a decade. But that is about to change, as Intel has announced a new naming scheme for its upcoming chips that will drop the iconic i3/i5/i7 branding. Instead of using the i prefix, Intel will use names like Intel Core Ultra 5 and Intel Core Ultra 7 to indicate the performance level of its processors.

That would not be the end of the world if they just replaced the Intel Core i3 sticker with Intel Core Ultra 3 sticker and called it a day.
But there will be no Core Ultra 3. Instead all "affordable computing products" including i3-class processors, but also all Celerons and Pentiums (both gold and silver) will be merged into one category - "simply" Intel Processor.

So Intel is giving you a choice: either buy (rebranded) i5 or i7, or pray that "Intel Processor" with a random string of letters and numbers is not a single-core Celeron.
Yes, they are still sold new, and somehow their recommended retail price is 80€ - the same as some (far more powerful) i3 processors. So you cannot even make your educated guess based on price.

But wait a second. Aren't we living in a similar reality already?
Saying your computer has an i7 processor is like saying your brother-in-law drives a Passat. It's a more accurate description than that he drives a Volkswagen. But there are still quite drastic differences between the Passat R36 (with its 3.6-liter engine and 300 horsepower) and the Passat Santana (with its 1.3-liter engine and 60 horsepower).

Someone will say oh ok, it's because there are these different series that have different values of energy consumption (and heat dissipation).
So naturally Intel Core i7 from the Y-series consuming 7 Watts of power, will be outclassed by the Intel Core i7 from the H-series consuming 35 Watts.

But there is the i7-11370H which has 4 cores, and there is also the i7-12700H which has 14 cores. Both come from the H-series, both come in the same thermal and power envelope, and they are only 1 generation apart (11370H was released in 2021 and 12700H was released in 2022).

Maybe there is another catch? 14 cores but they are all really slow maybe? Not at all. Even the single-core performance of 12700H is superior when you look at the benchmarks...
https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-intel_core_i7_12700h-vs-intel_core_i7_11370h

Right - look at the benchmarks. See the test results - 7zip files take that long to unpack on one processor, and that long on the other.
1 minute of 4K video render in Premiere Pro takes this many seconds here and that many seconds there.
That's how we should be shopping for processors even today. Not by looking at (in most cases) meaningless stickers.

Right now, unfortunately, most people choose to shop based on the stickers and ignore everything else. They think I can afford the i7, I'll go with the i7. I can afford the i3, I'll go with the i3 - still better than any Celeron, I'll take it.
But in the near future, once there will be absolutely no way of knowing anything about the performance of Intel processors without looking at benchmark results - customers will finally have to start paying attention to actual performance results rather than stickers.

Or they will just skip the affordable parts altogether and buy (significantly overpriced as a result) Core Ultra 5 because that's basically i5, so that's good enough.
And those less fortunate will be stuck with laptops running on Celerons. And switch to Apple as soon as their credit score allows them to take out a loan for one. Because "Windows sucks".

Perfect strategy, let's hope AMD does the same, I can't wait for "Ryzen Super" and "AMD affordable". And maybe let's add a fun spin on it and include a random 50% of Ryzen 5 processors in the affordable class.
So by shopping at random, you may end up with a single-core A4 CPU that will struggle to open a web browser, but you may also end up with a capable 8-core that will be more than enough for the vast majority of potential users. Let's show Americans how to abuse the gambling addiction of our customers properly.

Or even better - let's just call every processor "Processor" + a random string of letters and numbers and call it a day...