Given the codename “Sierra Forest”, that chip will be available in the second half of this year, while customers will have to wait until next year to get their hands on its more powerful “Granite Rapids” sibling.
Intel has now rebranded its Xeon family of processors, replacing the “Xeon Scalable” name, which first hit the market in 2017 with the Xeon Platinum 8100 series, with “Xeon 6.” This new brand will include the all-efficiency (E) Sierra Forest chip and the performance (P) Granite Rapid one.
Amplify performance signals
The Sierra Forest data center chip is the first with an architecture comprised entirely of efficiency cores (E-cores), designed to deliver boost performance of 5G workloads by 2.7 times per rack, according to Intel. When it arrives, Granite Rapids (with P-cores) will build upon the doubled vRAN workload processing capacity offered by Sapphire Rapids and increase performance even further via Intel AVX and vRAN Boost.
Both Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest variants share the same platform (including the chiplet-based design, sockets. memory, and firmware) and thus will use the shared Xeon 6 nomenclature, a move which Intel hopes will make everything clearer for customers.
The company says the “evolved” Xeon 6 branding will “tell a united Intel Xeon story,” “Ease customer navigation,” and “Amplify performance signals”.
Intel’s existing “Emerald Rapids” 5th-Gen Xeon Scalable Processor models won’t see a rebrand. It has been said with the current-gen Xeon product stack that Intel’s branding can be “more than a little confusing”, and the company obviously feels it’s best to start afresh with the new Xeon 6 brand and focus on making things simpler going forward.
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When Sony debuted its and last week, it took the first step towards a big change on naming its products. For years, the company has used an awfully confusing mix of letters and numbers, some of which are just one letter off from products with entirely different designs. You’ll no longer have to remember something like WH-B910N to find the headphones you’re hunting for as the new names make it immediately apparent what product you’re reading about.
The ULT line of audio gear is replacing the Extra Bass brand Sony has used for several years. Described as the “ultimate step into the evolution” of its portable audio devices, ULT Power Sound is an improved progression of the low-end boost the Extra Bass products offered. ULT breaks down even further into Tower (large party speakers), Field (smaller, portable Bluetooth speakers) and Wear (headphones). I’ll concede that Field is a bit obscure at first glance, but at least Tower and Wear accurately describe the products bearing those labels. All three are a massive upgrade from SRS-XV900, SRS-XG300 or WH-CH720N, three model names that were used for previous versions of three similar models.
Sony is also revising the names for both home audio and TV products, employing its existing Bravia moniker here. The company’s new TVs are the Bravia 9 (mini LED), Bravia 8 (OLED), Bravia 7 (mini LED) and Bravia 3 (LED) instead of older names like XR-65A95L. For soundbars and speakers, the company will use along with much more descriptive terms. For example, the new soundbars are Bravia Theater Bar 9 and Bravia Theater Bar 8, while a new four-speaker setup is the Bravia Theater Quad. Previously, comparable models had names like HT-A7000, HT-A5000 and HT-A9. I’ll admit I’m not entirely sure how Sony will distinguish the next-gen models from these. Maybe it will add “second-gen,” or perhaps a different number. Either way, sticking with Bravia for its living room devices and adding “theater,” “bar” or even a single digit is much better than the previous jumble of letters and numbers.
Although they may seem random, there was a method to Sony’s madness. To my knowledge, the company never released any type of key to its alpha-numeric mess, but some of the terminology was easy to figure out. “HT” in home theater product names is pretty straightforward, while “WF” in true wireless models likely stood for “wire free” and the “WH” for headphones was probably “wireless headphones.” What followed after the hyphens was a creation from the minds at Sony, but thankfully things like “1000X” became mainstays over the last several years. That consistency certainly helped keep track of things.
The WF-1000XM5 and WH-1000XM5 are one letter apart, but very different products. (Billy Steele for Engadget)
Speaking of the 1000X lineup, that’s where some of the biggest confusion in Sony’s naming scheme resides. The company’s flagship headphones, the WH-1000XM5, are literally one letter different from its flagship earbuds, the WF-1000XM5. You likely won’t encounter any issues if you’re searching for “1000XM5 headphones” or “1000XM5 earbuds,” but in situations where both are being discussed, you’ll have to pay careful attention.
For audio gear, the two letters before the dash describe the type of product. Immediately following the dash, you get an indication of the product family or brand, whether that be “XB” for Extra Bass or “1000X” for the flagship earbuds and headphones. Then, you’d get a model or generation number like “910” or “M5.” Unless you’re keeping track of Sony’s product news, it can be a chore to decipher these. And even if you are paying close attention, it can be difficult to recall exact names accurately. I’d wager there has even been confusion among Sony’s own employees. It’s a terrible naming scheme that causes massive headaches.
“The main reason for Sony’s new naming convention is to expand recognition by adopting a more memorable and understandable name for customers,” a Sony spokesperson told Engadget. The company didn’t offer any more detail about the timing of the change or if it will rename other product lines as new models are introduced. Maybe the company transferred the task of naming products from the engineers to the marketing department. Sony has already been using for a few true wireless models. So, if the company continues what it started with the ULT and Bravia series, we could be in for easily distinguishable names instead of the (presumably upcoming) WH-1000XM6 and WF-1000XM6.
