AMD’s New And Confusing Laptop CPU Naming Scheme Explained

Karaliene • 2024

Dito pa lang po sasabihin ko na,  medyo nakakatorete ang bagong nomenclature ni AMD para sa kanilang 7000 series mobile CPU’s. Intel definitely took advantage of this when they introduced their “Ultra” CPUs na may mas simpleng nomenclature (read it here). With these new naming scheme, kung hindi natin alam kung paano basahin, might have us mistakenly paying for an older chip dahil akala natin ito ay bago- You’ll understand later kung bakit pero bago yan let’s review AMD’s mobile cpu naming scheme pre-7000 series.

Let’s use “Ryzen 5 6600H” as an example. Tulad sa Intel, tinutukoy ng “Ryzen 5” ang Market Segment ng CPU. Mayroong apat na Market Segment ang AMD Ryzen Series with each one representing a different level of performance;

• Ryzen 3 – Para sa mga maninipis at power efficient na mainstream laptops.
• Ryzen 5 – For high performance gaming laptops
• Ryzen 7 – Enthusiast-grade high-end gaming laptops
• Ryzen 9 – Usually ginagamit sa mga prosumers, at flagship models. 

Right next to the Number Segment ay ang Generation Indicator, tinutukoy rin nito kung anong performance architecture ang meron sa chip. Yung “600” naman o yung tatlong number naman sa gitna ay ang SKU. Lastly, tinatapos ito ng isa o dalawang letra sa dulo aka the Suffix, this indicates kung anong power level ng CPU within the tier and generation. 

• HX – Unlocked high-performance used for most powerful laptops designed for heavy task like high-end, gaming at professional applications
• HS – Almost the same sa HX but with lower TDP
• H – High performance CPU na madalas makikita sa mga laptop na designed for gaming at content creation, mas mababa ang TDP neto kesa sa HS
• U – Aimed for energy-efficiency and thinner laptops. Madalas makikita sa mga entry-level models designed for light-tasks (ex: web browsing, office applications)

7000 Series and Beyond 

AMD retained the same number format para sa kanilang 7000 series and later mobile CPU’s; Four digits and a one or two suffix sa dulo. Pero ngayon ilan sa mga digits na ito ay iba na ang sinasagisag. 

Sa halip na CPU Generation,yung unang digit sa number format now denotes kung anong taon nilabas ang CPU: 7xxx= 2023, 8xxx = 2024, 9xxx 2025 and so on. 

Yung sumunod naman na digit now denotes kung saang market segment kabilang ang CPU. Dito na yung medyo nakakalitong part kasi Ryzen 3 is both represented by numbers 3 or 4, Ryzen 5 can be numbers 5 or 6, Ryzen 7 can be numbers 7 or 8 but at the same time, number 8 could be either mean Ryzen 7 or 9. O diba, parang ewan lang. This certainly feels unnecessary kasi kita mo naman na agad kung anong market segment ng CPU bago pa ang number format. 

Moving on, the third digit now denotes kung anong architecture ang ginamit sa CPU. This one’s a reasonable addition since hindi mo makikita sa lumang naming scheme kung ang Ryzen 5000 series mo ba ay gumagamit ng Zen 2 o ang mas updated na Zen 3 architecture. Thankfully mas straightforward ang numbering system dito ni AMD:

The last digit is the SKU modifier / Feature Isolation. Represented lang ito ng dalawang numbers: 0 for Lower Models within the Segment, at 5 for upper models within the segment.

And Finally we have the Suffixes which thankfully at this point pamilyar naman na tayo. It still denotes kung anong form factor or TDP ng CPU.

That’s it mga boss, congratulations for getting this far! I hope makatulong to sa pagpili mo ng laptops with next gen AMD CPUs! Thanks for reading~