[Intel] therichwoods:
A friend of mine once suggested that I write a $0.99 Amazon Kindle book with a complete guide to Intel products because to the vast majority of people, they're super-confusing. I never did it, but I was going to call it "Crazy Lake" if I ever did.

Frankly, it's not hard to come across someone that sees two machines with Core i7 CPUs and things that the chips are equal, even if one is an ultrabook and one is a tower. After all, they're both called Core i7, right? Better yet, it's even more confusing if two machines say they have 11th-gen Core i7 CPUs. Intel makes it that way though.

Let's start with generations. Even this is way too complicated than it should be.

11th-generation:

Tiger Lake (10nm) (UP3, UP4, H35, H45)

Rocket Lake (14nm) (S, K, F)

10th-generation:

Ice Lake (10nm) (U, Y)

Comet Lake (14nm) (U, H, S, K, T, F)

Amber Lake (Y)

9th-generation:

Coffee Lake (14nm) (S, K, H, T, F)

8th-generation:

Whiskey Lake (14nm) (U)

Kaby Lake R (14nm) (U, G)

Amber Lake (14nm) (Y)

Coffee Lake (14nm) (S, K, H, T)

7th-generation:

Kaby Lake (14nm) (U, Y, S, K, HQ, HK, T)

6th-generation

Skylake (14nm) (U, Y, S, K, HQ, HK, T, R, EQ)

5th-generation:

Broadwell (14nm) (U, Y, S, K, HQ, HK, T, R, C, EQ)

4th-generation:

Haswell (22nm)

3rd-generation:

Ivy Bridge (22nm)

2nd-generation:

Sandy Bridge (32nm)

The further back you go, the more the letter suffixes stray from modern processor nomenclature. By the time I got down to fourth-gen 'Haswell' a lot of it was recognizable. Still, once you get past eighth-gen, everything from one generation is from the same family.

Those suffixes, however, tend to mean the same thing throughout the years, only changing recently.

Let's start with stuff that means the same throughout the years:

S - these are desktop CPUs, typically with a 65W TDP. Despite being referred to as 'S', they mostly don't actually have a suffix. For example, an Intel Core i5-10600 is from the Comet Lake-S family. If it actually has an 'S' on it, it's probably a special edition chip.

K - This means that it's unlocked for overclocking. On the desktop side, that means the TDP is higher, 95W through the ninth generation and 125W after that. Core i5-10600K would be unlocked. This can also be combined with other suffixes, such as HK.

F - If you see 'F' on a CPU SKU, that means that it doesn't have integrated graphics. You'll need discrete graphics for that PC. This can be a desktop or laptop part, and it can be combined with other suffixes like K and H.

T- Intel calls this "Power-optimized lifestyle", and it's basically a desktop chip that only comes in with a TDP at around 35W.

H - Intel defines this as "High performance optimized for mobile". Typically with a 45W TDP, or a 35W TDP in Tiger Lake-H35, these are for gaming laptops, creator laptops, and mobile workstations. HK is the same but unlocked for overclocking, and you'll notice that older generations used to have HQ, which meant that it was quad-core.

U - This is a common one if you're into laptops. It's what you'll find in standard laptops, ultrabooks, and so on. Historically, it comes in with a 15W TDP, although it can be beefed up. Intel has also been known to make 28W options.

Y - Made for fanless PCs, Y-series probably has the worst reputation of any class of Intel processor. It seems like the TDP goes up a little each year, with 4.5W, then 5W, then 7W. They also finally went quad-core with 10th-gen. Y-series was originally known as Core M with Broadwell. With Skylake, it expanded the lineup to Core m3, Core m5, and Core m7. But even after having such a bad reputation, Intel went into the Kaby Lake generation rebranding Core m5 and Core m7 to Core i5 and Core i7, making it harder to tell them apart from proper laptop parts.

G - This always refers to graphics on some level. With Kaby Lake G, Intel actually released what was basically a 7th-gen H-series chip but with AMD Radeon graphics right on the die.

UP3 and UP4: U-series and Y-series died off with 11th-gen 'Tiger Lake'. They're called UP3 and UP4 now, respectively.

New G: With Ice Lake, Intel stopped using U and Y suffixes entirely, even though with 10th-gen, they were still technically called U-series and Y-series. That letter was replaced by G1, G4, and G7, while the actual CPU power (U-series or Y-series) was indicated by the processor number, so Core i7-1065G7 was U-series and Core i7-1060G7 was Y-series. The new G-number stands for graphics power. With 10th-gen, that was Iris Plus Graphics. With 11th-gen, that's Iris Xe.

Even that changed a bit though. With Ice Lake, G1 meant that the processor used the old UHD Graphics. G4 and G7 used different levels of Iris Plus Graphics. With Tiger Lake, there's only G4 and G7 now, with G4 meaning UHD Graphics and G7 meaning Iris Xe. Moreover, Intel still has two levels of Iris Xe; it's just not indicated in the model number. You get 96EU graphics with a Core i7-1165G7 or a Core i7-1160G7, and you get 80EU graphics with a Core i5.

That about sums up the different Intel generations. It can be a bit hard to keep up. I remember when Google's Pixel Slate came out, and I read quite a few articles by people claiming it had the same specs as that generation's Surface Pro. But Google didn't publish which Core i5 and Core i7 it used. It turned out that it was Amber Lake Y, while Microsoft has always used a full U-series chip in the Surface Pro. It's worth knowing the difference between these things, even if it's just surface level. If you're buying a new PC, it's always worth remembering that not all chips are equal.