AMD’s Upcoming CPU Naming Are About To Get Even Worse

AMD’s Upcoming CPU Naming Are About To Get Even Worse

The tech industry simply couldn’t catch a break from bad product names – just ask the monitor manufacturers, or even USB Implementers Forum how they have managed to create a name such as “USB4 Version 2”, or “USB 3.2 Gen 2×2”.

In any case, it looks like the AI craze has gotten AMD’s product naming department the wrong way going by the leaked specifications from the upcoming ASUS Vivobook S 16 OLED (M5606) laptop. All three variants seen on the comparison page have mentioned the mysterious “AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 170”, and of course it’s mandatory to mention the “AI” magic word in 2024 regardless of whether you think that name makes sense or not.

At this point you might think, “That sucks,” thinking you need to re-learn everything again – but at least Zen 5 uses a distinctly new name so you can tell them apart from predecessors, right? Well, not quite. Another leak presenting Lenovo’s marketing materials for the ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 mentions Ryzen 8050 instead, which follows the relatively straightforward naming convention that AMD uses today for its Ryzen 7000/8000 mobile processors.

It’s difficult to say if AMD may ditch this naming in favor of the even more confusing “Ryzen AI” naming scheme down the line, and to me it looks like Team Red was very eager to catch the AI hype train since ChatGPT exploded in popularity last year. It’s also not entirely out of the question that AMD simply needed a new name given that the numbers are running out for its 4-digit scheme, and having the “AI” tacked on it is just a timely convenience.

Both laptops are expected to feature the Zen5 “Strix Point” processors, which maxes out at 12 cores (featuring 4 Zen5 cores + 8 Zen5c cores). This architecture will also be paired with a fairly capable onboard GPU with 16 Compute Units based on updated RDNA3.5 architecture. Meanwhile, the Strix Halo super APU is expected to arrive in 2025 – so it’s unclear which name scheme it’ll receive by the time it launches next year.

Pokdepinion: I don’t like this…