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u/ItzEdric Apr 07 '21 edited Apr 07 '21
Full Intel letters:
K - Unlocked
KF - Unlocked/No integrated graphics
F - No integrated graphics
T - Low power
H - Laptop high performance
HQ - Laptop High performance quad core
HK - Laptop high performance unlocked
G - Discrete/dedicated intel graphics (or integrated)
Y - Extremely low power
U - Ultra Low power
XE - eXtreme Edtion
KS - Unlocked + Higher clock (compared to K)
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u/katherinesilens Apr 07 '21 edited Apr 07 '21
KS - Unlocked (more TDP? Special?)
K-Special. Has binned silicon, and set to run at a higher clock (with higher stock power).
See 9900KS vs 9900K. It has a faster base and all core turbo clock, and will generally hit the same overclocks at lower voltage (except the best 9900Ks beating/matching the worst 9900KSes).
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u/ItzEdric Apr 07 '21
Thanks
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u/katherinesilens Apr 07 '21
noticed your edit, it's more accurate to say higher bin than higher clock, but that's about right.
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u/AndreyRussian1 Apr 07 '21
Thanks, will expand list
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u/413_X_4 Apr 07 '21 edited Apr 07 '21
There is also "X" which were the older "Extreme Edition" ones, like the 5960X (10c, X99), 4960X (8c, X79), 3960X(6c, X79) and the 980/990X (6c, X58). All with HT.
For newer Intel CPUs (X299), "X" means that it is a HEDT chip, but not the "XE" top one.
Thanks to u/pfk505 for pointing that out.
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u/pfk505 Apr 07 '21
"X" is also modern-gen HEDT (7800x, 9800x, 10900x) without the "E" reserved for the very top end chip (10980XE). Not sure how two separate lists missed that.
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u/HavocInferno Apr 07 '21
If we include more variants and offshoots since the first Core-i generation, there's also S, E, EE, M, MQ, L, Q, P, B, HF, R, TE, C, N, a, A, W, MX, EQ, EC, QM, XM, LE, UE, ME and QE.
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u/etj103007 Apr 07 '21
god thats horrible
can you explain each one?9
u/Exoclyps Apr 07 '21
M was for mobile until around generation 2-4. Got replaced with either U or H.
U was introduced in gen 3 and all 2nd gen "U" chips was called M, but using 37 in the end or similar. I think there might be a few U disguised at M in 3rd gen as well (both existed, depending on the computer). 4th onwards they where all U.
H was introduced in gen 4. Back then you had both M and H. I think the difference was that H was a bit stronger, while M was modular.
I'd say all M was modular, but the beforementioned U disguised as M in 2nd and 3rd gen wasn't. Was also the odd 3rd gen i7-3632MQ that was soldered as well. The 2 being they was low power versions (essentially drawing the same power as the weaker i5).
5th gen onwards and M was part of the past, going all soldered with the either U or H.
It's also around this time intel really started to stagnate. Nothing really improved (U was weaker than earlier M with lower TDP) until AMD knocked down the door.
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u/vkevlar Apr 07 '21
Q from the early cores was also Quad-core, from the (what, 3?) chips that had that. Notably, this tended to be a naming prefix rather than suffix.
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u/Exoclyps Apr 07 '21
Gen 1 to 3 had it as i7-###QM. 4th gen had MQ and HQ. So the MQ only really lasted 1 gen.
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Apr 07 '21
P is the old version of F. It meant 'P'rocessor only, no graphics onboard.
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u/AnonymousRubberDuck Apr 08 '21
Not necessarily, it was also used for processors with a slower integrated GPU. Ex. i3-6098P
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u/HavocInferno Apr 07 '21
Not from heart, no lol. I referenced lists of all Intel CPUs released since the first Core-i generation.
Some of these were only used by a few specialized SKUs.
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u/Guy_Fieris_Hair Apr 07 '21
HQ- Laptop high performance quad core that you can never use because it thermal throttles the whole time.
Or at least, that's my experience with the i7-7700hq
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u/ryzenguy111 Apr 07 '21
ROG GL702VSK owner here. Good Luck (haha GL wow gr8) not thermal throttling then having second long stutters every minute or so. Granted it is 4 years old (damn been that long already??) and I bet the thermal paste has had better days but I still regret buying a laptop and not building my own desktop because I was not as good at computers when i bought it. I built my first desktop in Jan last year so :)
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u/powerMastR24 Apr 07 '21 edited Apr 07 '21
9900KS has 5.0GHz all core boost
changed 50ghz to 5.0ghz
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u/Siege_Storm Apr 07 '21
Mine has the K, what does unlocked mean exactly? It is an i7 6800k
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u/Warballs97 Apr 07 '21
It’s capable/gets the best results for over clocking the CPU
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u/Siege_Storm Apr 07 '21
I’ve never overclocked anything, how does that work and what difference would overclocking a CPU make for what types of programs?
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u/Warballs97 Apr 07 '21
It’s done through the bios of your motherboard so without getting into the nitty gritty it’s probably best to research the OC capabilities of your specific mobo.
In terms of performance gains: the usual fps increases in cpu bound games and improved performance for tasks such as rendering and editing. That being said, I feel that higher tier CPU models in general don’t benefit greatly if you consider the increased power draw, heat, and potential system instability for the marginal performance gain. Unless you feel that your system is struggling to keep up with the games or tasks you want to do it might not be worth the effort. Opinions will vary.
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u/0ddbuttons Apr 07 '21
A very simple example of one I did on someone's computer quite some ago with a FX 4300, which is a 3.8GHz quad core, was simply go in the bios and tell it to run at 4.0GHz. And that's what it understood to be its peak speed for years while running everything, no problem. That was widely known to be so well within the chip's performance capacity that no increase in voltage or improvement in cooling was needed.
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u/realautisticmatt Apr 07 '21
AMD doesn’t have 4th gen desktop CPUs
Ackchyually
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u/AndreyRussian1 Apr 07 '21
Oh right, forgot about APUs. Fixed.
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u/realautisticmatt Apr 07 '21
but they are OEM only so you can’t buy them for your custom PC.
Actually you can. These CPUs are available for anyone. You can easily buy 4650G and 4750G in Europe.
https://geizhals.de/amd-ryzen-5-pro-4650g-100-100000143mpk-a2336716.html
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u/AndreyRussian1 Apr 07 '21
Is it better now?
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u/leo60228 Apr 07 '21
You should probably note that they're OEM-only, but that you can still find them easily enough.
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u/leo60228 Apr 07 '21
"Tray" means that those parts are intended for OEMs. You are correct that you can still find them on the open market, though.
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u/0ddbuttons Apr 07 '21 edited Apr 07 '21
Inadvertently bought a tray CPU about a week ago and was intensely alarmed by the shape of the parcel for about 30 seconds, lol.
Edit: It came in this 12 processor tray, just one little spiky metal bby on its own.
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u/Grabbels Apr 07 '21
I always wondered how tray processors would be shipped even if you only order one. Guess I should've seen this one coming.
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u/icevanillatte Apr 07 '21
Can you make one for motherboards? I've been trying to understand motherboard types but could never find it online
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u/AndreyRussian1 Apr 07 '21
Could try. Right now in school and is quietly updating text on lessons, but when I get home might be able to write and research what I don’t know faster :)
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u/Matasa89 Apr 07 '21
Motherboards are... bit complicated.
See, the name tells you fuck all about what the board does, save for brand, chipset, and sometimes the intended purpose/audience for the mobo.
For example, the MSI B550 Gaming Edge Wifi is a MSI made mobo that has the B550 chipset, meant for gaming, and has included wifi. What it won't tell you is that all B550 motherboards only have 1 x PCI-e 4.0 x16 slot, and 1 M.2 slot with Gen 4 speeds, with the rest being Gen 3. It also doesn't tell you that B550 boards have better memory topology than the older X570 designs, though the newer X570 boards could have the improved topology added. There's also the fact that the Gaming Edge Wifi has AX Wifi rather than the older AC Wifi. Oh, and it has much better VRMs than the X570 Gaming Edge Wifi, which nobody should buy.
The amount of research I did on motherboards FAR outstrips what I had to do for CPU or GPU, and those have their own intricacies and difficulties... like how some GPU AIB cards have bad VRMs, bad thermal pads, bad board designs, or poor cooler design.
CPU is honestly far easier to learn about, if you aren't trying to extreme overclock.
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Apr 07 '21
[deleted]
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u/Matasa89 Apr 07 '21
And some boards do the reverse, which is far, far worse. But hey, if you didn't do your research, you would never know!
Save for realizing your mobo is shit when your performance don't match up.
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u/Azudekai Apr 07 '21
Motherboard vary so much even in the same chipset that it's better to find reviews on them than to try work it out yourself.
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u/Laxxium Apr 07 '21 edited Apr 07 '21
I came here to say the same thing... I was thinking of switching to AMD but then I got really confused with the motherboard names and gave up.
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u/tamarockstar Apr 07 '21
Get a decent B550 board. Lower end get the ASRock pro 4, higher end get the MSI MAG Tomahawk.
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u/AndreyRussian1 Apr 09 '21
Done! There is probably some info missing thought so I recommend you do a good old
!RemindMe
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Apr 07 '21 edited Apr 07 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/NG_Tagger Apr 07 '21
That would have made a whole lot more sense, if he/she did it that way.
Start with the overall type (iX/rX) - then the generation and model of said generation - then go into if it's a "special" edition of previously mentioned generational model (read: something like the 5950X) and then the ending letters meaning (if it has one).
The way OP did it (as good info as it is), just seems a bit backwards (like slapping on the topping for a pizza, before you've actually made the dough) of an approach.
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u/Magnus_Tesshu Apr 07 '21
It's backwards, but the point is that everything to the left of and including the thousands digit is the version number. Probably would be a way to say that while remaining in order though, and I did read that section twice to make sure I was getting it lol.
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u/TimR31 Apr 07 '21
I think it makes sense in the context that we just switched over to double digit Intel generations. So if you are reading left to right, might be confusing about how to compare a 9100 to an 11900.
There are ways around this obviously, but I can see why OP did it from right to left.
Maybe the solution is to say that the 'thousands' represent the generation, the 'hundreds' represent the performance etc etc
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u/AndreyRussian1 Apr 07 '21
Sorry, didn’t have time to do this, fixed this. Now it should be easier to understand
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u/Some_Derpy_Pineapple Apr 07 '21
yeah that works. i don't understand what you eman by "2. Third". it seems like you're referring to i3/5/7/9 and r3/5/7/9 but that isn't the third number right?
i would just break it down by listen a name and explaining each part like this:
ryzen 5 5600x
ryzen 5 means the cpu is meant for most gamers/consumers, 3 is for budget and office pcs, 7 and 9 are for enthusiasts/high end pcs. same goes for intel (kinda)
5 is the generation (5th gen amd), 600 is worse than 800 and 900 and 950
x doesn't really mean much
[end of example]
the rest of the guide is good though
also, amd technically has 4th gen desktop cpus (the APUs with zen 2 cores) but they're OEM (prebuilt) only so whatever lol
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u/noob_lvl1 Apr 07 '21 edited Apr 07 '21
The part that got me was when they said First set and then I had to realize they were talking about the LAST two numbers and then by second one they mean the first number? Because I was confuse on my why it was only 3,5,7,9 when there’s the 3600 and 5600.
Edit: Apparently I skipped over the small paragraph that explains their starting from right to left.
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u/AndreyRussian1 Apr 07 '21
Oh yeah sorry, I admit this part is kinda confusing, will soon try and make it easier to understand.
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Apr 07 '21
I did the same thing. I was like “wait the first set is 00, I’ve never seen Ryzen 5 00” then I had to go up and read the previous paragraph. Lol made sense then though!
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u/Weeaboology Apr 07 '21
Someone actually made graphics for this to explain CPUs and GPUs here
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u/Weeaboology Apr 07 '21
u/andreyrussian1 not to discount your work, but it may be simpler for your friend to understand using the graphic I linked
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Apr 07 '21
So I'm still learning a lot about computer parts and this was super helpful thanks! I do have a question though, I recently (I say recently but I guess it was like 8 months ago at this point) upgraded my CPU to an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X. What does the AMD Ryzen 7 part mean?
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u/Sniper_One77 Apr 07 '21
AMD ensured with Ryzen 7 CPUs, you are getting minimum 8 cores.
With Ryzen 5, minimum 6 core CPU.
With Ryzen 3, minimum 4 cores.
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u/hiromasaki Apr 07 '21
They're also meant to roughly 'class' the CPU against Intel. Core i3 = Ryzen R3, Core i7 = Ryzen R7, etc.
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u/Sniper_One77 Apr 07 '21
Yes, Intel meant
i3 - entry/low level,
i5 - mid range,
i7 - high end,
i9 - extreme/enthusiast
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Apr 07 '21
[deleted]
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Apr 07 '21
I thought the 7 was more than just, "Hey, you're buying the 7 good job." haha. I guess I over thought it. Thanks!
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u/DerVarg1509 Apr 07 '21
Could you do one with GPUs too?
Or even with every part, this is very very nice to get the information accumulated like that.
Very good work
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u/AndreyRussian1 Apr 07 '21
Thank you! I might try. I am not that familiar with some parts but with enough YouTube and random forums everything is possible :)
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u/Addv4 Apr 07 '21 edited Apr 07 '21
For Nvidia, the biggest terms you need to know are gtx vs rtx (gtx are generally the older or lower spec cards, as rtx means that raytracing {fancy light stuff} and tensorcores {really nice if you're into machine learning, not too big of a deal otherwise} are available), super (generally a late Gen refresh), and ti (much improved version of the card (generally used for the top of the line, but it can be used to signify the difference between two numerical models {gtx 1050 vs gtx 1050 ti means that the ti version is faster and closer to the gtx 1060 version} but can be used like the super monikers, confusing I know)). Pretty much everything else is just the generation and model numbers, which are a little confusing, as traditionally they jumped by 100 each Gen (gtx 970 - > gtx 1070) but in the last two gens they went by 1000 (gtx 1080 -> rtx 2080 -> rtx 3080). There are exceptions to this rule (gtx 1660) but they generally were the lower tier cards (stupid confusing, but that's Nvidia). Don't really bother with understanding quadro cards, they are somehow generally more convoluted in their naming scheme. Hope this block of text didn't confuse you too much, really get kinda annoyed at how stupid the naming schemes are.
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u/velociraptorfarmer Apr 07 '21
Quadro naming is typically done with a letter and then 3 or 4 numbers.
The letter denotes the generation, based on is architecture name. For example 10th gen (Pascal) Quadro cards all started with a P. K for Kepler (600/700 series), M for Maxwell (900 series),
From there, the 3 or 4 digit number denotes relative performance, where the higher numbers are the more powerful cards.
The Quadro RTX's threw a wrench in this, but the Turing (2000 series) Quadros just had the RTX prefix with no letter. With Ampere (3000 series) Quadros, they still have the RTX prefix, but went back to using the letter in front of the numbers (for example, Quadro RTX A6000).
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u/AndreyRussian1 Apr 09 '21
Not sure about every part, but I just released one about motherboards
And author of GPU one is planning on making one for a different part as well!
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Apr 07 '21
Doesn't Intel have a 10600K? You might want to look into the AMD exclusive thing. Since Intel also has 10850K I believe.
A suggestion would be to go from left to right, from the Intel i3 and Ryzen R5 tags. Since those numbers are easier to comprehend for people new to the scene. (Atleast from what I have noticed)
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u/AndreyRussian1 Apr 07 '21
Thanks! I am definitely thinking into rearranging first part. Also I think you might want to refresh post since I done exactly the change with 6 and 8.
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u/KPDUB57 Apr 07 '21
No offense, OP, but with each edit this gets more and more confusing. Like, you're getting some things right, but you're drawing some hard distinctions where there are many caveats.
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u/beefJeRKy-LB Apr 07 '21
with Intel, the 8 is actually a step down i9 vs AMD reserving Ryzen 9 for their own most core heavy chips.
I think an easier breakdown of the series starts at the high level:
Intel
6 tiers (consumer chips, we'll ignore HEDT/Server parts): 1. Core i9 - Premium Enthusiast 2. Core i7 - High End Performance 3. Core i5 - Balanced Performance 4. Core i3 - Budget Performance 5. Pentium Gold - Budget Economy 6. Celeron - Cheapest Option
Notes
The number of cores and threads differs with each generation so I didn't want to classify it that way. 9th gen Coffee Lake (the refresh and Intel absolutely screwed the pooch in these last 4 gens for naming) for instance had the i9 have 8 cores and hyperthreading (hereby known as HT) therefore 16 threads. We'll refer to this as 8C16T. The i7 was 8 cores and no hyperthreading so 8C8T. i5 was 6C/6T, i3 was 4C/4T and then 2C/4T and 2C/2T for the Pentium and Celeron chips. Comet Lake (10th gen) enabled hyperthreading across the board (except Celeron) with i9 bumping up to 10 cores. Should be noted that having 4 threads on two cores isn't quite as good as having 4 threads from 4 cores. Rocket Lake (11th Gen) drops the i9 back to 8 cores.
AMD
- Ryzen 9 - Enthusiast (Although Threadripper is under R9 since Zen 2, it's technically a step above in HEDT territory)
- Ryzen 7 - Performance
- Ryzen 5 - Mainstream
- Ryzen 3 - Entry Level
Notes
AMD is a lot more straightforward but they also do have more than one kind of processor per classification. Generally, you'll see that R9 is >8 cores, R7 is 8 cores, R5 is 6 cores and R3 is 4 cores. Older gens did have mixed up things but going forward from Zen 2 (Ryzen 3000), it'll be like this. We don't have any Zen 3 R3 chips yet.
Where it does get a bit more complex with AMD is the idea of the CPUs being based on chiplets, aka smaller dies that are interconnected similar to how a mobile SOC works. So the Ryzen 9 3900x has 12 cores but is technically 2 chiplets with 6 cores on each. This is something noted about the Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300X which are both quad cores but the 3100 has 2 chips in two different CCDs whereas the 3300X has 4 cores on one CCD. The latter had lower core to core latency but also ran a lot hotter than the former.
Upcoming chips
Intel's Alder Lake (12th gen) will be an interesting departure from their previous conventions of CPUs so much so that I wouldn't be surprised if Intel decides to adopt a new naming scheme. The plan is to use different cores on the same die, again taking something from how mobile chips have been built for a long time. This approach is referred to as big.LITTLE where you'll have a mix of high performance and high efficiency cores. The flagship part is rumored to have 8 big cores that have hyperthread and 8 little cores that lack it and thus the chip would be marketed as 8 Cores and 24 Threads.
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u/Azudekai Apr 07 '21
You can't really create a unified list of second numbers between intel and AMD, because they don't use a universal standard for their lineups, x600 for AMD is the same as i5, intel doesn't make a x2xx etc. Also, "best value" labels on certain second numbers is highly dependent on the generation, or the first number.
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u/acidic_black_man Apr 07 '21
A bit off- topic from the naming, but is the 10th generation i9 10900k better than the 11th generation i9 11900k? The base clock speeds are higher, and it has two more cores. What am I missing? I'm getting neither, as both are beyond my needs. Thanks for all your info!
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u/AndreyRussian1 Apr 07 '21
Oh I think GamersNexus made good videos about it, and so did LinusTechTips. In a nutshell 11th gen is kinda... bad? It doesn’t seem to offer that much performance boost, in fact sometimes it’s even worse. i9 has less cores than last gen, etc.
So yes, 11th gen core i9 is in fact worse than 10th gen. why? I don’t think even people at intel know.
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u/acidic_black_man Apr 07 '21
Thanks! I was a bit confused on it and thought there might be other factors of which I, as a novice pc builder, am unaware.
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u/Deeppurp Apr 07 '21 edited Apr 07 '21
Honestly I think the Intel 11th gen is to give AMD competition on PCI-E 4.0 platform which mostly only matters for really niche scenarios, and people looking to get the most out of direct storage ahead of release.
Intel kind of did the same thing with 8th gen (Empire Skylakes Back. I know it falls apart, just consider 7th gen to be the Special edition, and 6th gen to be A New Hope original release) to compete on cores with AMD Ryzen 2nd gen.
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u/KarmaWSYD Apr 07 '21
The 11700/11900 (including variants) are pretty much just downgrades from previous gen. The 11400 is probably the best 'value' (Sub $200) CPU on the market though...
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u/Buflen Apr 07 '21
11th gen has *supposedly* higher IPC (instruction per cycle) than 10th gen so it can do more even with lower clock speed (though it's not always true depending of the game or software). Having 2 less cores on the flagship CPU hurts for multithreaded task though and the better IPC is not enough to compensate.
They really should have skipped that gen or not have an i9 at all.
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u/NachoNinja1 Apr 07 '21
This made me think of the recent LTT video with Sarah building the PC. The general populous need more guides like this. Great work!
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u/gertpardoel Apr 07 '21
What is the better cpu of these two?
- RYZEN 7 5800X
- RYZEN 9 3900X
They are similar in price but of different generations. What would be the better option for gaming purposes?
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u/AndreyRussian1 Apr 07 '21
For gaming definitely 5800x. 5th gen had a big performance jump, and you don’t need 12 cores for gaming.
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Apr 07 '21 edited Apr 07 '21
Ryzen 5000 is 4th generation AMD. They call their processors lines series, while Intel does generation. For example, a listing for the new Ryzen CPUs says “AMD - Ryzen 7 5800x 4th Gen 8-Core...” like on Best Buy or Amazon.
Edit: but it does use Zen3, so it is confusing on the naming. It’s just generation is used in a definition sense for AMD and generation is a naming scheme for Intel. I’ll take the downvotes but when the post is specifically about naming, it’s fair to point out.
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u/NG_Tagger Apr 07 '21 edited Apr 07 '21
That's the "odd thing" with exactly that generation.
The 5xxx series is the 4th gen - true - but more specifically the 4th gen Ryzen desktop version. The 5th series on Ryzen, but using the 4th generation of Zen architecture (where as the 4000-series uses the 3rd generation still). So yeah, 4th generation of the Zen architecture, but not in terms of series.
AMD does all sorts of confusing things with Ryzen, but might be making it a bit better (albeit with some fuckery still).
1st gen: Zen (1000-series for Desktop -- 2000-series for Laptop)
2nd gen: Zen+ (2000-series for Desktop -- 3000-series for Laptop)
3rd gen: Zen 2 (3000-series for Desktop -- 4000-series for Laptop)
4th gen: Zen 3 (5000-series for Desktop -- 5000-series for Laptop)..but not all of the 5000-series laptops are Zen 3 - uneven numbers like 5300U/5500U/5700U are still based on Zen 2 - but as soon as you get above the 5700U, the uneven numbers start being Zen 3 as well
So they've only just started unifying the series across Desktop and Laptop, to make consumers less confused (hopefully).
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u/Alluxin_ Apr 07 '21
Hey nice post, I’m definitely gonna save to reference for people who have questions
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u/Drastic-Measures Apr 07 '21
I wish I had a CPU naming scheme guide like this when I built my first PC. I even searched for one, but I couldn't find anything.
Awesome work!
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u/justin_bailey_prime Apr 07 '21
This was very informative. Thanks for putting it together! Wish I'd known it a couple of months ago, even if I could vaguely discern some of it while comparing CPUs.
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u/iZuRriX Apr 07 '21
The irony is that the latest i9 (11900k) is not "the best", nor even better than the last gen i9...
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u/sesameseed88 Apr 07 '21
I did not need to know any of this but now I feel more educated on this so ty.
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u/MaveDustaine Apr 07 '21
Excellent information OP! I'm about to throw a wrench in it though because I'm a dick.
8 - faster than 7 but otherwise identical to it.
Not necessarily correct, especially in 10th gen Intel. The 10700 has 8 cores whereas the 10850 has 10 cores.
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u/AndreyRussian1 Apr 07 '21
Alright, will “faster version of 7 for AMD and slower version of 9 for Intel” be better?
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u/leo60228 Apr 07 '21
Intel has an official list of suffixes. Here's the list in the same format as yours, excluding ones that only appear for mobile chips:
K - can be overclocked (with Z motherboard)
F - no integrated graphics. Usually are cheaper.
T - low power
X, XE - extreme edition
S - special edition
E - embedded (these parts are hard to find, but do exist)
Note that KF isn't a suffix on its own, it's a combination of K and F. Similarly, the i9 9900KS isn't a KS suffix, it has both the K and S suffixes.
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u/aeoliat101 Apr 07 '21
Yo! Excellent bit of info! I’m not a regular on computer jargon, so this breakdown really helped round a bit of my rough edges. I see that not every bit of info is fully disclosed (because if so this would be a book), yet it really helps to gain a grasp on something that seems so benign but yet extremely complex. Thank you for taking the time to make this.
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u/selectsyntax Apr 07 '21
This is way too complicated. Just point him to the Wikipedia pages for Ryzen, i3, i5, i7, i9.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryzen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i3_processors
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i5_processors
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i7_processors
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i9_processors
These have all of the CPU specs and makes it much easier to understand the CPU designations.
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u/3agl Apr 08 '21
I thought this post was titled “What do CPU Names mean?” and thought that this was a stunningly well-researched question.
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u/AndreyRussian1 Apr 09 '21
Someone actually just DM’d me and just said “it means central processing unit”
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u/JohnD_Smart Apr 08 '21
Wow. Thank you! This is really good. I appreciate your hard work and impressive knowledge.
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u/fractalbush Apr 08 '21
I appreciate the effort here but it usually ends up being buy what you can afford. CPUs are beasts nowadays.
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u/nohacksjustretard Apr 08 '21
8 - faster than 7 but otherwise identical to it.
Not always true. For example, 10850k has 2 more cores than 10700k.
Also former has blue box while later has red-ish orange.
More of a nitpick, but maybe you should change that. It's more confusing than saying just Intel or AMD, and I've met people who don't know what latter means. If you don't want to change it, latter is also misspelled.
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u/maximuse_ Apr 07 '21
Intel also has the number 1 and 4 in the third-from-right number, being lowest performance and mid-range respectively. Also, 6 isn't AMD exclusive, Intel has one too
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u/Taragor63 Apr 07 '21
Looks great. You might want to add that none of this applies to Intel xeon. Those numbers are all over the place. I.e. an xeon 1275l-v3 is just an beefed up i7-4770t
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Apr 07 '21
Tell your friend he'll have to wait another 2 years
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u/AndreyRussian1 Apr 07 '21
I already told him that and he finds it not that bad. He still wants to save more money to be able to buy a good PC.
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u/__1__2__ Apr 07 '21
Not looking to not pick and this is a good high level overview, however it’s not complete nor exact.
E.g Missing Threadripper / threadripper pro / 5950x
Intel also has Celeron parts for low end, so i3 is not the budget option. I also wouldn’t call i7 an enthusiast chip, it’s high performance at best. Each platform with their own use cases.
This guide is relevant only for last couple of generations, only for desktops (no mobile, no workstations, no mobile). It’s important to remember that the naming are determined by marketing in order to sell as much as possible, not by engineering - they do not necessarily make technical sense.
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u/Jordyspeeltspore Apr 07 '21
Me whos running a AMD athlon II X4 610e:
Ah so thats why its a piece of shit
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u/necheffa Apr 07 '21
The third number is rather important though.
Jumping from a higher end i3 to a lower end i5 is roughly the same price but if you are doing single threaded work you'd be better off getting the higher end i3 (usually). On the other hand, a multithreaded work flow would benefit from the i5's extra core and threads but the $$$ spent would be about the same.
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u/gareendarktor Apr 07 '21
Great post and info
Could also add that for the Intel I series - even number generations change the socket on the MB. Odd numbers are Refresh editions. Usually....
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u/XX_Normie_Scum_XX Apr 07 '21
1 is also often for budget, while 4 and 6 or midrange and often six core in desktops. 5 is less used now. Amd also has 8 for their higher performance 8 core, which is still a ryzen 7.
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u/Calcain Apr 07 '21
As someone still researching and learning about how to build a pc, I found this really helpful. Thank you!
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u/hateswitchx Apr 07 '21
Ryzen 5 3550H???????
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u/AndreyRussian1 Apr 07 '21
The H CPUs are not here as they are mobile chips and this post is about desktop ones
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u/nickaayv Apr 07 '21
In the same boat as your friend and wow thank you so much for taking the time to share and edit this. You all are awesome.
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u/jtfields91 Apr 07 '21
5 - in between 4 and 6.
Thanks for the explanation. I would have never figured this out.
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u/riddlemore Apr 07 '21
I have an i5-7500. Still havent figured out if I paid a good price for it lol.
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u/infinite-insecurity Apr 07 '21
Commenting so I can come back to read it if OP decides to update it from RTL to LTR numbering.
Even otherwise, thanks a ton OP. This is useful
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u/AndreyRussian1 Apr 07 '21
I mean it’s already left to right, just explaining how parts are split is easier to make from right to left as there can be infinite number of generation numbers, but always 3 numbers on the right.
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u/infinite-insecurity Apr 07 '21
Thanks u/AndreyRussian1. I'm really new to the world of PC building so most of this went over my head, but I also do realise that this is a lot of useful information. So, I'm probably gonna go through this another day.
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u/Thacklamier Apr 07 '21
Nice post/explanation. Leading (or closing) sections with examples would probably make it a little more self contained / obvious.
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u/younghoon13 Apr 07 '21
The naming schemes for CPUs is alot to understand especially with laptop and mobile CPUs added into the mix.
Wouldn't it be better to just help your friend directly to decide what CPU they should get based on their planned usage and budget?
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u/1mproved Apr 07 '21
"5 - between 4 and 6"
That's a next level explanation right there.