Intel’s processor name has changed, here’s how you can understand it

Bye bye to i

You will no longer see an Intel desktop or mobile processor with ‘i’ or generation number in the name. Starting today, the Intel desktops have now completely shifted to Intel Core Ultra series naming. The top dog in the latest desktop line up is the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K. Let’s break it down. 

The Intel brand name is followed by the product brand name called Core Ultra or Core. Ultra will be the premium tier processor meanwhile if the Ultra is missing from the name then it will be a more budget-friendly processor for buyers. After which you get the performance tier number 9. It can also be 7 or 5 like before. Are you with me so far? Good. Now in the 285K number, 2 or the first number denoted is the generation. This is the second generation of Intel’s chips with a dedicated NPU and GPU. The letter at the end is also called suffixes and for Intel Core Ultra laptops it will be H, U, or V. Whereas for Intel Core Ultra desktop processors it will be K, F, KF, or T. These are in the order of how much performance headroom and power efficiency they have.

So wrap it up, the previous naming scheme for Intel processors was Intel 14th Generation Core i9-14900K and now under the new naming scheme it is Intel Core Ultra 9 285K.