[ethbr0]

When they were first released they were.

i3: single core, hyperthreading

i5: multi core, no hyperthreading

i7: multi core, hyperthreading

It only jumped the shark once hyperthreading stopped being a differentiating feature, and Intel tried to retcon equivalent performance levels into their previous numbering system.

Edit: Nehalem (~2008). Apparently i3 didn't exist until the Westmere die shrink?

[deaddodo]

This was true for only the first generation (Nehalem):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehalem_(microarchitecture)

And they didn't even have an i3 model. What you refer to as the i3 above was still branded as "Celeron". The immediate successor (Westmere) didn't follow this convention at all:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westmere_(microarchitecture)

All of the i3 and i5s of that generation were MC+SMT.

[ethbr0]

Looked up the history and got there the same time as you.

Hindsight is 20/20, so I see how Intel ~2008 could have thought "Maybe SMT will fail in real world scenarios, so we don't want it on our entire product line."

But at some point relatively soon after that it was clear that SMT worked well and they could cram it into every chip.

That's when they really should have ditched the i* and converted to a new system.

[Dylan16807]

Huh? From the very start through gen 7 the tiers were 2 cores with hyperthreading, 4 without, 4 with. And sometimes more at the very top, in different forms.

The first two generations of core processors had a different pattern, but those were "core [2] solo/duo/quad", they had no i and no tier numbers.

(And before that was pentium 4/D.)

[ethbr0]

So we're talking about Nehalem and Westmere as the first two i* releases.

Nehalem desktop had: Celeron P1053 (1 core HT), i5 750/760 (4 core no HT), i7 860-960 (4 core HT)

Westmere desktop had: Pentium/Celeron G59XX/G1101 (2 core no HT), i3 530-560 (2 core HT), i5 650-680 (2 core HT), i7 970-980 (6 core HT)

Links in sibling post above.

So really... the HT / no HT really only lasted one release (Nehalem), and that didn't even have an i3.

[Dylan16807]

Okay, I was slightly off because there were a few 2 core 4 thread models that snuck into the low end of i5, but in general they were 4 core 4 thread. And Nehalem/Westmere worked together as the first generation, so they didn't make the bigger desktop sizes using Westmere. Westmere shouldn't be analyzed as a standalone release.

But those Celerons are simply a different product line. I'm pretty sure they never released an i processor with less than 2 cores and 4 threads.