What do AMD's confusing processor names mean?

Despite being the first company to launch a 64-bit desktop processor in 2003, AMD lagged behind Intel in the market for years. The company closed the gap with the Ryzen series announced in 2017. However, AMD’s names for this series of processors can be very confusing at first. Let’s see what’s what.

Let’s learn the classification of AMD processor names

Introduced in 2017, the AMD Ryzen processor line is now the company’s core product and is divided into four different series:

Ryzen 3: Processors in this series are primarily designed for everyday use. They are ideal for smooth video playback and web browsing, and for playing entry-level games.
Ryzen 5: Ideal for casual gaming, basic image and video editing, and media playback with high audio and video quality.
Ryzen 7: You can run high-graphics games and edit RAW photos and 4K video without stuttering. You can also play 4K HDR videos without any glitches.
Ryzen 9: This is the pinnacle of the series. It can run AAA games with ease and complete complex 3D and other demanding tasks on the fly. And everything else mentioned above.

Now for the other codings in the Ryzen lineup. This is where AMD processor names get tricky.

What do AMD processor codes mean?

Processors in the Ryzen series have 4-digit encodings. Let’s analyze the digits of the Ryzen 5 7640U processor one by one based on the image shared by AMD:

First digit: The first digit indicates the model year of the processor. If the first digit is 7, this indicates that the processor is a 2023 model. 8 is 2024, 9 is 2025, and so on.
Second digit: The second digit refers to the family of the processor. If the second digit of the processor code is 5 or 6, Ryzen is part of the 5 segment. The Ryzen 7 series may have 7 or 8 as the second digit. The Ryzen 9 series can use 8 or 9 in the second digit. For example, if the processor code is 7945HX, the processor is part of the Ryzen 9 series.
Third digit: This is where it gets interesting. The third digit indicates the microarchitecture of AMD processors. The company uses the term Zen, which indicates the manufacturing process in nanometers. If the third digit is 3, it means that the processor is based on an older Zen 3/Zen 3+ 7nm/6nm microarchitecture. The latest Zen 4 processors have a third digit of 4 and are based on AMD’s most advanced 5nm manufacturing process.
Fourth digit: The last digit further specifies the different processors within the series. Let’s take the 7730U and 7735U as an example here. Both are part of the Ryzen 7 segment, but the former is a 15W processor with a base clock of 2 GHz and maximum boost clock speeds up to 4.5 GHz. The second is a 28W processor with a base clock of 2.7 GHz and maximum boost clock speeds of 4.75 GHz. There is also a difference in the number of graphics cores (8 for 7730U vs 12 for 7735U).

Finally, let’s talk about the letters that sometimes appear at the end of all these numbers:

The letter at the end of AMD processor names is TDP (Thermal Design Power) in watts, which stands for power consumption under maximum load.

Let’s first look at the meaning of the letters in the processors used in laptops:

E (9W): A fanless variant for U-series processors and used in affordable laptops.
C (15-28W): Designed for power-efficient Chromebook devices.
U (15-28W): Lower clock speed laptop processors for thin and light devices.
HS (35W+): High-performance processors with integrated graphics and lower power draw.
HX (55W+): The highest performance processor in AMD’s processor lineup.

Now let’s look at the meanings of the letters used in desktop processors:

F: Processors without integrated graphics
- G: APU processors with high-performance AMD Ryzen integrated graphics
- GE: Processors with integrated AMD Radeon graphics but lower performance
- X: Processors with higher clock speeds and higher power consumption
- XT: Processor that is better than X due to higher clock speeds
- X3D: Processor with AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology for better gaming performance
- S: Productivity-first processor with integrated AMD Radeon Vega graphics