(Credit: AMD)
TAIPEI–Look back a few years, and you'll see that AMD did a major rethink of how it named its mobile (which is to say, laptop) processors. We were at a 2022 demo in Austin, Texas, where we were handed, in a semi-serious manner, a decoder wheel for the new processor-naming scheme being adopted by AMD at the time. We keep our sample of the thing in PC Labs. Really, it’s been a handy occasional reference. (See our tale of the wheel here.)
Now, though, the wheel is destined for the drawer with the old 512MB USB keys and recordable CDs. With the release of its “Strix Point” mobile processors here at Computex, the chipmaker is reconfiguring its branding for these particular new Ryzens. (That said, the desktop Ryzens are adhering to their ongoing naming scheme.)
We had a small group briefing with AMD in advance of the move. The key slide from the company’s presentation around this issue lays out the naming logic…
The new chips, as discussed in our general coverage of the event, are being dubbed the Ryzen AI 300 series. But where did that out-of-sequence, out-of-nowhere “300” come from? Simple enough, once you know: The “3” is for this being AMD’s third generation of mobile processor equipped with AI-speeding hardware silicon on-die. The Strix Point Ryzen AI 300 follows on from the Ryzen 7000 and 8000 chip families that were equipped with AI hop-ups in the first two generations.
Strixly Speaking, It’s All Still Ryzen
In the run-up to development of these chips, they were known as Strix Point, but as ever, the code-name will fade away. We would expect a bit of confusion may persist while the preceding families of AI-equipped Ryzen mobile chips work their way off the market.
One thing to bear in mind is that even though the Ryzen AI 300 comes to market as a third generation, the first two generations will not be renamed to play ball with the new naming scheme. That said, you could think (in spirit) of Ryzen 7000 as the equivalent to a Ryzen AI 100, and a Ryzen 8000 as a Ryzen AI 200.
Number Gumbo Redux: Unraveling the New Ryzen String
So, there is a bit more to the new scheme than all that. AMD will be retaining the “branding level” and the letter indicator that signals a processor’s relative class (such as U series or HX series).
The breakdown is as follows. The words “AMD Ryzen AI” get followed by the primary brand number level (the typical 3/5/7/9 stepping known well to CPU observers and BMW owners everywhere), followed by the lettered processor class such as U or HX. That then is followed by a three-digit number. The three-digit number will lead off, in this case, with “3,” indicating third-generation and ascending from there with future generational advances. The second two numbers are SKU numbers that indicate differences among chips of the series with the same branding-level number and processor class.
This might actually be a cleaner and more sensible means of AMD naming its chips. Under the previous logic, the processor number also had a digit that indicated the architecture, a trait of some interest to industry insiders but seldom to end users.
We're looking forward to seeing AMD Ryzen AI 300-based machines shake out in testing later this year. One thing’s for sure, though–we’ll be referring back here to this article for a while to make sense of AMD’s new CPUs whenever they appear first.
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