Intel confuses by grouping Raptor Lake-U Refresh and Meteor Lake CPUs under new Core branding

The new rebranding for Intel’s consumer processors was unveiled last week with a new Core Ultra tier and the drop of the “i” denomination. This new naming scheme will be introduced with the launch of the Meteor Lake series later this year to make it easier for consumers to differentiate between product lineups. However, it looks like consumers might still have trouble identifying what is what as a new set of slides presented by Intel China show a rather confusing separation between the Meteor Lake models and the Raptor Lake Refresh series that are launching at the same time later this year.

The slides in question were not publicized through official channels since the Raptor Lake Refresh series has yet to see a proper global announcement. Now that the cat is out of the bag, Intel China proceeded to clarify what models will be included with the new Core branding. The Ultra Core series will feature Meteor Lake processors, while the Core 3/5/7 brand without the “i” will include Raptor Lake-U Refresh CPUs. Now for the confusing part: the Raptor Lake-HX Refresh high-end mobile CPUs along with the Raptor Lake-S Refresh desktop CPUs will be the last processors to feature the Core i3/i5/i7/i9 branding as well as mention the number of the generation (i.e 14th gen in this case).

One possible explanation for this classification method could be that the HX and S models are still produced on the Intel 7 nodes, while the U models along with the Meteor Lake CPUs employ the new Intel 4 nodes. Intel hinted that the Meteor Lake series would only feature efficient mobile CPUs with the new tile-based design, which apparently could not be adapted for desktop and high-end mobile models in time for the late 2023 launch. The first desktop and high-end mobile CPUs to adopt the new Ultra and non-i Core denominations will most likely come with the Arrow Lake series launching in 2024.

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