Intel makes Core i3 and i5 official

Worst kept marketing secret becomes official chip announcement.

The worst kept secret in the industry shocked absolutely no one when it was stealthily announced on Intel's consumer branding site by Intel VP and Corporate Marketing Director, Deborah Conrad.

The names "Core i3" and "Core i5" will now be met with nods of acknowledgement by hordes of Intelloids around the world instead of the quizzical empty gaze of I-know-nothingness with which such terms were greeted since the launch of Core i7.

Intel has posted a video of Conrad explaining how over the last few years the company has, on occasion, confused consumers with too many chip offerings and how slimming down Intel's product portfolio would help consumers with their buying decisions.

According to the chipmaker's master plan, Intel will begin swatting away its Core 2 Duo and Quad models for good over the next few months.

It will be replacing the mainstream processors with the Core i3 and Core i5 brands but keeping, however, the venerable Pentium and Celeron brands alive, too. The business oriented vPro Core i5 and vPro Core i7 monikers will also see the light of day during the course of 2010 as well.

There's nothing really new in all this. By re-inventing the wheel and using a branding numerology similar to what it had in the post-Pentium 4 era, with the Pentium D 3xx, 5xx and 7xx, Intel will leave itself some marketing headroom for the all too predictable i4, i6 and i8 processor families.

Intel had already introduced a 5-star chip model rating system this Spring, intended to give us an idea of how fully-featured a particular processor model is, so in a not so simple way, it has added yet another dimension to the confusion. Yet we're sure you'll still be able tell your Core i5 from your Core 2 Quad.