BRAVO TECHNOLOGY CENTER

First Published: May 5, 2004
Last Updated: February 1, 2011

This is a concise yet comprehensive chart of all Intel processors used in the IBM-PC systems. It serves as an introduction to how processor categorization works, and illustrates the relationship among: product design, marketing name (series), and technology class (as reflected in codename).

• There are currently 5 families: Core, Pentium, Celeron, Xeon, Itanium. Celeron and Xeon are edition designators, used across all generations of technologies.
• After 80486, Intel decided to market processors under consumer-oriented names.
• According to the Pentium I, II, III scheme, we'd be at Pentium XXXX (40) by now.
• Each product code represents a new feature/function/performance design & architecture.
• Each codename x represent a new technological architecture. The chips are known as x-class.
• Each marketing name represents a "product line" in a branding sense, which could include arbitrary number of classes and/or generations of actual products, in a technical sense.
• Starting at Pentium 4 Xeon, it became simply Xeon.
• The Celeron moniker was used across lines. It could be an edition of Pentium II/III/4.
• In 2002, Intel started using the Processor Number nomenclature to identify chips.   e.g.: Celeron D 336 represents Celeron Prescott class w/ 90nm technology, 256K L2 cache, 2.8GHz clock, 533MHz FSB, Intel-64 standard and NX support.
• Mobile versions often represent completely different architecture, and even instruction sets.
• The Pentium 4 Era has ended^‡. That product line has been succeeded first by the Core line, and recently, the Core 2 line. Celeron edition of Pentium 4 generation continues on, only in Prescott class. Currently, there is no Celeron edition of Core 2.
• Major attributes of a processor include: clock speed, cache design, levels & size, front-side-bus speed, memory type support, pipeline stages/depth, multi-core (fully independent), multi-thread (partial multi-core w/ shared portion), packaging & socket, fabrication technology generation (expressed in engineering terms: lambda = x nanometer), operating voltage, power consumption (wattage), 64-bit instructions set, hardware malware protection (NX/DEP) and virtualization hypervisor support.
• with the Core i series, turbo mode (self governed on-demand, parameter based momentary over-clocking and throttling) is added as a primary performance boost.

Bold type indicates one-time Bravo standards.
Yellow highlight indicates processors used by current Bravo Sonata and Encore systems.
Green hightlight indicates processors used in Bravo advanced and pilot projects.

^‡No, it isn't officially EOL yet (but soon will be), but since July 2006, it no longer has a niche as it's being overlapped by high-end Celeron D in the value segment, and being replaced by Core 2 in the mainstream/performance segment.

SEE ALSO:

• Intel Processor Numbers and Specifications (post-Prescott classes only)
• Intel Xeon Processor Numbers
• Intel Pentium 4 Families
• Intel Motherboard List with Detailed Reference
• AMD Processors