Intel will reportedly apply the “Core Ultra 4000 Series” naming convention not just to its desktop line, but also to its Nova Lake-HX mobile CPU lineup. This basically means that the enthusiast-grade mobile processor lineup will be labelled with a four-digit name, rather than three digits.
The detail comes from serial leakster Jaykihn, who posted the rumour on X. By their account, this detail seemingly lines up with earlier reports of Intel returning to a very old-school naming convention. Some among you may remember the days of the Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, and even the Haswell microarchitecture, and it continued all the way till its 9th Generation Coffee Lake-S microarchitecture, at which point the company started using a five-digit naming convention until its 15th Generation Arrow Lake.
Getting back on point, several Nova Lake-S SKUs will reportedly be designated as Core Ultra 9 4970K BFC, Core Ultra 9 4950K, and Core Ultra 7 4870K BFC. BFC, by the way, appears to be the chipmaker’s branding for the previously reported bLLC designation, which itself is short for big last level cache. Oh, and that’s the same Nova Lake lineup that is expected to ship out with one or more units rocking a massive 52-core SKU.
It clearly didn’t take long for Intel to return to using more than three digits to name its SKUs: its Arrow Lake now stands as the only generation marketed as such. For example, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, or even the Core Ultra 285K.
Mind you, Intel isn’t ditching their current naming strategy entirely. The blue chipmaker has been using this naming methodology with its mobile CPU segment since Meteor Lake and continues to do so with its latest Panther Lake architecture.
On that note, Jaykihn said that Intel will continue the three-digit naming convention with its Nova Lake P, U, and UL market segments, as part of its Core Ultra 400 Series.
(Source: Jaykihn via X, Videocardz, Tom’s Hardware)
