Intel is highly backwards compatible and hugely influential, so understanding their processor history helps to understand terms and concepts which are still relevant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004
The first commercial integrated CPU in the world. Huge breakthrough.
1974, 8 bit, 2MHz. Hit a price / performance point that kick-started the PC revolution: Apple, Microsoft, etc.
Before it, computers were huge machines for large corporations only.
1976, 16 bit, very popular, base to x86 IA.
TODO why 86?
aka i386
1985, 32 bit word register
1980
External floating point co-processor for the 8086.
In other words: this is not a CPU, but something external to the CPU, which the CPU could interface with.
Included inside CPUs starting from the 80436
x87 often used to describe the floating point operations inside the processors
Instructions include:
FSQRTFSIN
1989
Includes floating point unity inside of it
Generic Intel branding since 2007.
Generic branding by Intel since 2010.
They just mean low, mid and high end, nothing else is implied, not even the number of cores.
A much more meaningful way to group the processors is by the architecture, e.g. Ivy Bridge, Haswell, etc.
Each architecture is also referred to a generation, which started counting with the Nehalem, so for example Ivy Bridge is the 3rd generation.
To be really precise, you have to talk about the model ID for each processor Those are of the form:
iA-BXXXL
for example:
i5-3210M
where:
A: is a letteri3,i5,i7low, mid and high level markerB: is usually the generation, e.g. 3 for Ivy Bridge.XXX: further specifies the modelL: zero or more letters that further specify the type of the CPU, e.g.Mis often used for mobile targeted CPUs