Intel unveils entirely new platform brand, Intel Evo, based on Tiger Lake
Intel on Wednesday debuted an entirely new platform brand, Intel Evo, based on 11th Gen Core processor known as "Tiger Lake." The company also unveiled a new logo, marking the third brand transition in the company's history.
As the competition heats up in the processor industry, it's "time to embrace the future of our iconic brand," Intel's SVP and chief marketing officer Karen Walker said during a virtual event Wednesday.
The Tiger Lake processor, officially rolled out on Wednesday, is designed to be "the world's best processor for thin and light laptops," said Gregory Bryant, EVP and GM of Intel's Client Computing Group. Intel says it delivers up to 2.7x faster content creation, more than 20 percent faster office productivity and more than 2x faster gaming plus streaming in real-world workflows over competitive products.
Intel Evo also encompasses Intel's Project Athena. First announced in 2019, Project Athena takes a holistic approach to PC design, with the aim of meeting the real-world needs of the "mobile go-getter." The Project Athena already program offers more than 50 verified designs that span consumer and commercial devices from partners like Acer, Asus, Dell, Lenovo and Samsung.
Under the second generation of Project Athena, more than 20 new verified designs are expected this year, including new devices from Dynabook Americas. Intel's virtual presentation on Wednesday also gave a glimpse of new Dell XPS 13 and XPS 13 2-in-1 laptops, which Dell confirmed are launching soon. Meanwhile, Project Athena now includes more than 150 partners, including component vendors, ISVs, OS partners and OEMs.
The second-gen Project Athena devices meet 25 performance and responsiveness tests, offering features like nine hours hours or more of battery life in typical real-life use cases and screen brightness, as well as delivering four hours of charge in less than 30 minutes. Additionally, Project Athena-verified devices must offer consistent responsiveness on battery and system wake from sleep in less than one second.
The combination of Tiger Lake and Project Athena engineering is "now represented by Evo, a badge that signifies the most advanced laptops available on the market," Bryant said.
"Now that we've delivered the PC experience that rises to the occasion, we want to make it more easily recognizable," he said.
Tiger Lake offers:
- Frequencies up to 4.8 GHz
- Intel Iris Xe graphics
- Enhanced audio with CPU offload for background noise suppression via Intel Gaussian and Neural Accelerator 2.0
- AI-accelerated background blur and video super-resolution
- Integrated Wi-Fi 6
- Integrated Thunderbolt 4 and up to four ports
- CPU-attached PCIe Gen 4 interface
- Support for 8K HDR displays and up to four simultaneous 4K HDR displays
- Hardware-supported Dolby Vision for immersive content experiences and better system-level power
- It comes in nine processor configurations across two package designs
"We are delivering dramatically new technology and experiences with our 11th Gen Intel Core and Project Athena program," Walker said. "We have set a bar for laptop experiences that allows people to get things done with out compromise."
The new platform brand comes at a tumultuous time for Intel. In July, the company acknowledged a six-month setback in its 7nm-based CPU product timing. A week later, the company announced it was shaking up its technology leadership. The news came barely a year after Intel finally resolved the problems that had been holding back its 10nm process.
On top of that, Apple announced plans to move the Mac to its own Arm-based CPUs -- a major customer loss for Intel. AMD, meanwhile, has seized the moment to cut into Intel's market share.
As Intel attempts to recalibrate, Walker said on Wednesday that with Evo, as well as Intel's new logo, "We're celebrating a new era."
Intel has only had two other major brand transitions in its entire history, in 1969 and 2006.
"Our new look represents our role as a catalyst for technology that moves the world forward," she said. The new look, she said, should indicate to customers and partners "can count on Intel to deliver leadership and drive the industry forward."