AMD admits its Ryzen mobile naming scheme is a mess, promises to clean it up

AMD is changing the way it names mobile processors to make it more obvious whether you’re getting their freshest Zen cores or last year’s leftovers. The chip designer’s mobile processors follow a familiar naming scheme, with the first two numbers referring to the chip’s generation and product family. The new naming scheme adds …

[bazza]

Naming Convention Sucks...

...Chips themselves are pretty damned good.

Nice problem to have!

[Snake]

"Promises to clean it up"

Because x3xx and x4xx are both Ryzen3; x5xx and x6xx are both Ryzen5; and x8xx can be either Ryzen7 *or* Ryzen9.

So glad you've "cleaned" that up for us o_O

[heyrick]

Re: "Promises to clean it up"

It's like trying to make sense of the ARM Cortex numbering...

I dunno why it's so hard to just say something like ARMv7r4 or Ryzen 7.3, rather than all this obscure and peculiar nomenclature.

[Anonymous Coward]

A Rose by any other name

would smell as sweet.

[TJ1]

AMD - ever heard of semantic versioning?

So we'd go from Ryzen v5.19 to v6.0 around now? :D

[sw guy]

But does Zen matter ?

Of course I am aware than for Y > X a ZenY core has a better IPC than a ZenX core

However, would I have to pick a CPU, what should matter is: Instruction set / RAM interface as well as IO (including chipset) / Power usage / Price

Then I expect all 5*00U providing same instruction set and be socket compatible.

Plus, a correlation between numerical order and performance level.

If this is not the case, then this is an AMD fail.

If this is the case, I do not mind Zen level (whatever my admiration for continuous IPC increase between generations)

[Scene it all]

Re: But does Zen matter ?

Yes, I do not care what technology is used inside. I care about 1) how fast does it go? 2) how many cores are there? 3) How many watts does it use?

[JoeCool]

"Saddled" ?

This sounds like hyperbole

"For example, AMD’s 5300U and Ryzen 5500U were saddled with a Zen 2 core ... "

Because the chip market is competititve, there is a truism : retail cost reflects performance, regardless of underlying tech. AMD is competing with Intel and themselves on Performance/$. When they intro new tech, it is priced to fit on that curve.

The technical details are interesting, even cool, and if you are bleeding edge, they may matter. But if you are just interested in running apps, price is a good proxy for *relative* ranking. Maybe performance / watt matters, but again, that's pretty competitive these days.

[anonymous boring coward]

"an AMD 7640U would refer to a seventh-gen Ryzen 5, that uses a Zen 4 core, is a lower-end model"

So the 6 means it's a 5?

Forgive me for suggesting you call it a 7540U instead...