I don't think that is accurate. What is out of control is how users do a mismash of talking about the product lines, brands, and future updates. People muddle contexts and product lines and wrong labels on the wrong things. That is primarily what causes the confusion.
There is absolutely nothing crazy about how Intel labels the Xeon products.
http://communities.intel.com/commun...n-processor-numbering-more-than-just-a-number
Brand, Product Line , Product family version , "wayness" (number of sockets ) , socket type.
It hasn't always been that way, but has been "fixed" for over 2 years.
The core i and especially the i7 are more nuanced in differences, but the server/workstation naming is quite clear. i7 should probably be split into i7 and perhaps i9 to more clearly label the two product lines that currently share that label.
Where the tracking gets messed up is where users start use labels on the wrong thing and to make broad sweeping assumptions that have nothing to do with Intel's naming.
One problem is that folks try to use the microarchitecture code names to peg a group of processors to a year or short period of time. It has uses for a group of future processors, but once the products are out it generally lacks clarity.
The other hugely flawed at this point assumption is that Intel is releasing updates to the whole spectrum of products on the same microarchitecture at the same time. So that if a Haswell Core i5 is coming in june then a Haswell E7 much be coming in this year (or so) also. That isn't true.
The other huge flaw with the microarchtecture is that people use it to reference both CPU and the associated chipsets. The microarchitecture revisions are not necessary one-to-one mapped to the chipsets.
The "v2", "v3" , etc labels that should start to be more consistently used should get rid of the special microarchitecture code names that float around. Again Intel has cleaned it up. It is the usage in forums like this that is way behind the curve.
Finally, the other aspect that folks are drifting on is that the CPU is just were the x86 cores live. That is increasing not true. There are multiple aspects of functionality inside of that package now. Different product lines have different groupings. While it is more complicated to keep track of which product line does which grouping there aren't that many product lines.
Folks are often lazy when talking about topics. They say "There is a Haswell Xeon being released in Q3". That is like saying "there is a blue Ford" in the parking lot of a large mall. It is not as specific as saying "There is a blue Ford Thunderbird" in the parking lot. There are lots of times where folks say something like "Haswell Xeon" where what is more needed is "Haswell Xeon E3".
In the Mac Pro context the other user generated problem is that folks keep dragging Core iX issues , names , and developments into discussions about the Mac Pro which do NOT use those products. Probably is not going to use those products. Again that isn't Intel's fault. Or Apple's.
