Intel's new marketing campaign is aggressive against AMD, calls Ryzen CPUs 'snake oil'

Intel is about to launch its next-gen Meteor Lake platform and has just launched its refreshed 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" CPUs, and now has an aggressive new marketing campaign: comparing AMD Ryzen 5 processors to snake oil.

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Intel's new marketing tactic (source: Intel)

In that aggressive new marketing campaign is something Intel is calling "Core Truths"; it acts like an information brochure that consumers can use to learn about the latest CPU technologies. Intel specifically calls out specific AMD Ryzen CPUs that are using older CPU architectures... while acting like they don't, and still don't, do that (spoiler alert: oh yes, yes, they do).

• Read more: Intel says AMD's new Epyc CPU dies are 'glued together'

AMD and Intel were on good terms when it came to a direct attack-style marketing campaign, similar to how Intel also ran that marketing campaign that said AMD's new EPYC CPU dies were "glued together." Well, Intel was scared of AMD's impending dominance -- in which it has, oh-so-beautifully for years, eaten at Intel's dominance in server and HPC businesses -- where EPYC has kicked Xeon's ass.

This new "snake oil" marketing angle is because (at least, in my opinion) AMD is about to launch its new Ryzen 8000 "Hawk Point" APUs for laptops. AMD has been dominating the consumer CPU market with its Ryzen processors and the server and HPC businesses with its EPYC family of processors. Still, the laptop side has been lackluster, with no great offerings (although there has been a sprinkle of them here and there).

But now, the new Ryzen 8000 series is going to do an amazing job offering up to 8 cores and 16 threads of portable gaming power, right as Intel is launching its next-gen (and delayed) Meteor Lake CPU architecture for laptops. Both of them will be unveiled and launched in January at CES 2024.

• Read more: AMD Ryzen CPU naming scheme for 2023+ makes things clearer, confusing

Intel's new marketing tactic (source: Intel)

AMD recently updated its naming scheme for its Ryzen 7000 series CPUs and beyond, where the "7" makes it a 2023 processor, and the upcoming Ryzen 8000 series CPU with the "8" makes it a 2024 release. Intel called this out with "Core truth #1" stating that "the Ryzen 5 7520U is built on dated Zen 2 architecture released in 2019!" and "Core truth #2" stating "AMD's old architecture is hidden in plain sight!"

Intel continues with "Core truth #4" stating "not all cores give you the best overall performance," and "Core truth #3" with "the future of education and learning depends on the latest technology".

But we need to remember the confusing naming scheme goes both ways... Intel's new 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" is exactly that: a refresh of the 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake". Intel's upcoming Core 100 series (where it moves away from the Core i3/i5/i7/i9 branding) features the Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs for laptops and -- yes, and -- the new Meteor Lake CPUs. You can't make this up.