Wednesday, September 7th 2022
AMD Announces New Model Numbers for Future Mobile Processors
Starting next year, AMD will move to a new model number scheme for its mobile processors and it appears that the company has decided to use the first digit to represent the model year, which should alleviate some past confusion. The second digit in the model name will represent where in the product stack the specific chip will sit and here we're potentially getting some new 6 and 8 models, although nothing guarantees that AMD will actually implement these segments into real products. The third digit represents the architecture, so a four equals Zen 4 for example.
The last digit in the model names is a new addition where AMD has sub SKUs that offer some performance advantage of the base SKU of a specific model and this digit will apparently only be represented by a 0 or a 5. Finally AMD has added a new suffix too, where C stands for Chromebook. This translates to 15-28 Watt chips that have been designed specifically for Chromebook usage. The current HX, HS and U suffix lettering will carry over, alongside the lower-case e for 9 W versions the U SKUs. AMD has also segmented it's mobile CPUs according to the chart below, to try and deliver a clearer use case for its various CPU models. The chart is pretty self explanatory, although some of the segmentation will apply to updated models of current designs, whereas others will only apply to new laptop designs. The new model numbering scheme will apply to at least 2025.
Source:
AMD
The last digit in the model names is a new addition where AMD has sub SKUs that offer some performance advantage of the base SKU of a specific model and this digit will apparently only be represented by a 0 or a 5. Finally AMD has added a new suffix too, where C stands for Chromebook. This translates to 15-28 Watt chips that have been designed specifically for Chromebook usage. The current HX, HS and U suffix lettering will carry over, alongside the lower-case e for 9 W versions the U SKUs. AMD has also segmented it's mobile CPUs according to the chart below, to try and deliver a clearer use case for its various CPU models. The chart is pretty self explanatory, although some of the segmentation will apply to updated models of current designs, whereas others will only apply to new laptop designs. The new model numbering scheme will apply to at least 2025.
70 Comments on AMD Announces New Model Numbers for Future Mobile Processors
A comparable Zen 4 would be named 7340U
This will allow AMD and their OEMs to unload a bunch of old, essentially unsellable write-off garbage onto unsuspecting consumers as a new chip. The fact the first digit starts with a '7' like 7600X/7700X etc. is no coincidence, it's a marketing decision.
Next year when Zen 5 launches as 8600X/8700X etc. they'll have that 2200U as an 8310U.
What makes it more deceptive (and potentially on purpose) is that the desktop naming doesn't change, so for Desktop the first number is correlated with CPU core generation when in mobile it denotes for the model just in what annual model lineup belongs, this difference will not be transparent for the vast majority of plain consumers.
For exmaple 10956HX. 10 for 2026. 9 for Ryzen 9. 5 for feature isolation and 6 for Zen 6 and HX for mobile extreme.
Personally i fail to see the need to include both year and architecture plus useless feature isolation numbers in the name.
Pick one and and stick with it. Since the year number matters much less to overall performance (compared to architecture) i would like it if they dropped the first digit.
Come to think of it, did AMD got pressed by OEM for doing this?
How about instead AMD not sell two different core designs under the same generational naming scheme?
"AMD makes clear that the 5700U is slower than a 5800U, and when tested side by side those claims hold true. Literally no deception whatsoever."
Oh yeah, just like bicoin makes it clear they are selling bicoin, and not bitcoin. That name was in no way whatsoever meant to mislead consumers.
This would be like Intel cranking up the 14nm fab again and rolling off a bunch of 8300U chips, then arbitrarily deciding that the first digits of the model represents something related to year (but not actually year), and calling them 12010U or some such. I'm 100% certain Intel would not get a light hand from the press over that, and AMD shouldn't either.
The good part is that now we can easily tell which cpu is newer or older simply from the model number. Which is a BIG plus; the previous model numbering was a bit of a clusterfuck:
- Ryzen 1000 was all Zen, except 1200AF and 1600AF which are Zen+
- Ryzen 2000 was all Zen+, except every chip with a G suffix which are Zen, and every mobile chip which was also Zen.
- Ryzen 3000 was all Zen2, except every chip with a G suffix which are Zen+, every mobile chip is Zen+, and the mobile 3200U/3250U/3250C which was Zen (not Zen+, but Zen 1).
- Ryzen 5000 series made sense, it was all Zen3. Except for the mobile chips 5300U, 5500U, 5700U, those are only Zen2. oops.
Yeah, make sense of that.
At least now I can look at, I dunno, 7310 and see "oh, this is still a first gen part". But if I looked at a mobile chip 3250C, I wouldn't knew if it was 2 generations older than the number implies, not without looking it up at the wikipedia list of Ryzen chips.
So yeah, this will be pretty helpful. For the next 2-3 years anyway, when they'll come up with something new that disregards the system entirely, like they used to do with every numbering scheme they came up with so far.
The difference is now that you can tell them apart from the number.