AMD has been using the same basic model numbering scheme for its chips since the company launched the Ryzen brand in 2017. But now the company has announced it’s overhauling the system it uses to name its Ryzen Mobile processors.
While the new names will look similar, there’s one key difference: starting with the company’s 2023 mobile chip lineup, each number in the name will mean something.
There will still be a Ryzen 3, 5, 7, or 9 at the beginning, followed by 4 numbers and a letter. But starting with the Ryzen 7000 series mobile chips set to debut next year, here’s what those 4 digits and a letter will signify:
- Portfolio Year: This is when the chip debuted and/or is being actively sold. Unfortunately these don’t line up with calendar years, so 7 means 2023 and 8 means 2024. And to make things even more confusing, the first Ryzen 7 series mobile chips are expected to launch toward the end of 2022. As AnandTech suggests, it’s probably best to think of this as a “model year,” much the same way you would if you bought a 2023 car in 2022.
- Market segment: This is a significant change, in that this digit now lets you see at a glance if it’s an Athlon Silver, Athlon Gold, Ryzen 3, 5, 7, or 9. In fact, this digit sort of makes the “Ryzen 5” branding at the beginning superfluous, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually goes away altogether.
- Architecture: This is another big change, letting you see at a glance which AMD Zen CPU generation a chip has. For example, a 3 would indicate Zen 3 or 3+. A 4 indicates Zen 4.
- Feature isolation: As a way to differentiate, for example, Zen 3 from 3+, a 0 in this field indicates lower configurations within this segment, while a 5 indicates higher models.
- Form Factor/TDP: This single letter or pair of numbers indicates whether you’re looking at a 9W, 15-28W, 35+ or 55W+ chip. There’s no real change here, as this is how AMD has been doing things for years.
Interestingly, AMD does not seem to have any plans to indicate GPU architecture in the model name. So while we can tell that the upcoming AMD 7020 series “Mendocino” chips will feature Zen 2 CPU cores, there’s nothing in the name to indicate that they’ll have RDNA 2 graphics.
It’s also a bit odd that AMD is moving to these new, more descriptive names for its upcoming mobile processors, but currently has no plans to do the same for desktop chips.
For now, here’s what we know about AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 7000 mobile processors though:
| 7020 Series Mendocino Basic computing (new) | 7030 Series Barcelo-R Mainstream thin & light (Updated 2022 Designs) | 7035 Series Rembrand-R Premium thin & light (Updated 2022 Designs) | 7040 Series Phoenix Elite ultrathin (New Designs) | 7045 Series Dragon Range Extreme Gaming (New Designs) | |
| Ryzen 9 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Ryzen 7 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Ryzen 5 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Ryzen 3 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Athlon | ✓ |
Mobile chip names for 2024 should look similar, except the first digit will be an 8. And in 2025 AMD will switch to a 9.
wold have trouble with power.
why amd not create a computer working on one watt
not kilowatt only one watt
You take a 1W processor (yes, they exist), drop it into a computer design of your choice, and see how you like the performance. If you’ve written the software yourself to use the limited resource, stick to the command line, or don’t mind using a really old set of software with modifications, you’ll be fine. Otherwise, you’ll want to use more power. Keeping in mind that the screen is going to use significantly more power than that, that the other components will also sum to over a watt at idle, and that some of them will use more than a watt when in operation, you’ll also not get the power savings you might expect. Such a device would run a lot longer on a battery, but not orders of magnitude longer.
Raspberry Pi Zero W, running Rapsberry Pi OS lite, burns about 1 watt. Great for single-purpose, CLI dedicated stuff (that can actually run on it) but as a desktop? I think you’d be hard-pressed.
For my primary workstation, I run a Dell 3510 with a Pentium N5030, 8G RAM ,1TB nvme, & 2TB 2.5″ SSD, recent Linux; it sits around 10W at the desktop when the battery is fully charged, which I consider pretty frugal.
If you can bring a 1W system to market, that is usable as a desktop, I think the world wants to hear from you.