As of early 2022, the volume of notebook shipments with AMD Ryzen™ Processors inside has grown 49% in just two years. Fifty percent growth of the mobile business is an incredible rate, and more Ryzen-powered laptops are landing in consumer hands. AMD has reinvested in all-new processor categories for 2023, such as “Mendocino“ for feature-rich notebooks around $500, or “Dragon Range“ for top-tier gaming. What to call these products is an important decision, and the company knows that model numbers are something users often talk about in their communities.
What’s in a Name?
- AMD’s current naming system for Ryzen Mobile Processors was at an end. It simply could not accommodate the influx of new SOCs in new categories the company is developing.
- AMD wanted the system to be technical and informative, such that an enthusiast could quickly “decode” the number to see what’s inside.
- The companywanted it to be simple for the average user, where a higher number simply connotes higher CPU performance.
- AMD wanted to ensure that each branded processor family has one SOC architecture, with one common set of capabilities.
- And the company simply needed to make room for our partners to grow. New designs, refreshed designs, new segments, new pricepoints. AMD’s customers need flexibility from us to meet their goals, too.
The New System
AMD’s 2023+ mobile processors will all be branded according to the new system you see below. Call it a “decoder ring,” if you like! Importantly, each digit means something. For example, if you see a processor that is AMD Ryzen xx4x, you’re looking at a chip with “Zen 4” inside. If you see a processor with AMD Ryzen xx30, it’s “Zen 3”. And Ryzen xx35 is “Zen 3+”. If the processor starts with a “7xxx,” you know you’re looking at a current product in AMD’s 2023 portfolio. And if you don’t know much about what’s inside a processor, a bigger number will simply give you more CPU performance. As an example, you can see how a hypothetical Ryzen 5 7640U maps to the decoder ring.
Some of the boxes are self-evident, but it’s worth going through them in brief to sketch out why we chose this system:
- Portfolio Year: Gives you a sense of what model year the processor lives in. Are we actively selling it as a current-gen product in that year?
- Segment: Helps AMD communicate “at-a-glance” performance to customers browsing in the store. For example, Ryzen 9 are always our fastest and most feature-rich processors. This helps customers cross-shop at a glance, and is the most common way customers compare CPUs.
- Architecture: A nod to AMD’s enthusiast customers, making sure you could see what version of “Zen” lives inside the chip.
- Feature Isolation: A concession to architectures like “Zen 3” versus “Zen 3+,” which cannot be fully articulated in the architecture digit alone. Flipping this digit between 0 or 5 ensures that two different architectures don’t end up in the same Ryzen 70xx family.
- Form Factor/TDP: AMD’s innovation and growth in the mobile space is especially evident here, where you can see we’re servicing multiple design categories across Windows and Chromebook.
How Does it Look for 2023?
In 2023, the company is expecting to take on five different market/buying segments using five different SOCs. As you can see in the matrix below, it will be a mix of all-new design wins and refreshed 2022 systems, depending on what the laptop builder is looking for. But importantly, all products live under the AMD Ryzen 7000 umbrella, and each CPU architecture exists only within one series.
Just as a few examples: If you want a max performance gaming notebook, the AMD Ryzen 7045 Series will always give you a “Dragon Range” processor. If you want AMD’s latest ultrathin SOC for gaming and mobility, you’ll always find a “Phoenix” processor in the Ryzen 7040 Series.
The Years Ahead
This new numbering system is foundational to how the company will be naming and numbering their mobile processors for years to come, and they’ve already smoke-tested it against a 5-year time horizon. We hope this new system will give everyone a better sense of what’s inside our processors, and we hope that it shows the company has been listening to your conversations around the importance of model numbering.
