Intel shakes up multi-core chip branding

So farewell then, Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad: come 1 January 2008 you will be no more, leaked Intel presentation slides reveal. The Centrino Duo and Pro brands are out too, it seems.

The move appears to be an attempt by the chip giant to streamline its branding for a world where multi-core processors are not de rigueur. According to slides posted by Chinese-language site HKEPC, the Core 2 Quad and Core 2 Duo lines will simply be badged 'Core 2' from the start of next year.

Which makes sense: the dual- and quad-cores are already distinguished by their model number. Presumably, that's the metric Intel will use to differentiate a four-core Core 2 from a two-core part, though we'd hope that, from January, quad-core model numbers will be changed to reflect this more clearly than the current approach of just bunging a 'Q' on the front.

The plan will leave Intel with four desktop brands: Core 2 Extreme, Core 2, Pentium - it's dropping the 'Dual-Core' from the name of the Core architecture-based chips - and Celeron. On the mobile side, from January it will simply offer Centrino and Centrino vPro brands, with the Centrino 'wings' logo finally biting the dust.

The attachment of the vPro label to Centrino - in place of Centrino Pro - will be accompanied by a similar change on the desktop: vPro machines will be labelled Core 2 vPro. Likewise, Viiv PCs will be branded Core 2 Viiv from next January.

Server branding will remain almost as before. The only change: intriguingly, Itanium 2 chips will simply be labelled 'Itanium'.

It goes without saying, of course, that all of the new chip labels have the 'inside' in the bottom right corner, a word missing from a fair few chip labels of late.