Core 2 Quad was a silly and confusing name. Good riddance.

'Tis a shame, the current naming system makes it easier to distinguish between any two chips, for instance, the "Core-2 Double Quad Dual Quadruple Core Ultra Extreme" vs. the "4-Core-Two Quad Double Quadruple Dual Core Extreme Ultra (Pro)".

Perhaps they should just use the price as the model number going forward? "Pentium-D 1.5GHz" and "Pentium Core 2 Extreme 1.5GHz" would become "SPentium $70" and "SPentium $2500", respectively...

Giving the normal computer user a Quad core with the RAM, HDDs, graphics cards and network access specs necessary to use those cores to their max potential is massive overkill. It's like giving your sister a 4 litre Jag for driving around her university campus.

The average consumer needs to buy their computer on the basis of number of cores as this is now the single biggest factor determining the type of computer you are buying.

Single core - you gran doing some emailing and booking her holiday cruise over the internet.

Dual core - normal family computers.

Quad core - hardcore online gamers, video renderers etc

Any other naming system is designed to make it harder for consumers to judge the value of what they are buying.

I suggest the following: 32bit Dual Core I 1600 (first generation 32 bit dual core with each processor having a power equivalent of 1600), 64bit Quad Core III 3200 (third generation 64 bit quad core with each processor having equivalent of 3200 processing power rating).

To me it just sounds like things are going to get "AMD" all over again, and be confusing (this is originally why i liked Intel - I could understand exactly what i was looking at for the most part).

If they're going to change up names, simply call 'em "Dual Core 2.4GHz" or "Quad Core 1.8GHz" ... or yea, "Core 2D 2.4GHZ" or "Core 2Q 1.8GHz" ... i dunno, but as long as "reading and understanding model numbers, code-names, code-words, etc..." doesn't come into play I think I'll survive.

Just for heaven's sake, keep it simple.

Then there would be no doubt what you are buying. It's stupid calling quad core chips Core 2