The Intellification of AMD

Through multiple rebrands, AMD is slowing becoming the Intel we used to know and hate. This post will hopefully keep you away from these products or at least caution you to pay a fair price.

The first step in this journey was given with the 5000 series, but it became much worse with 7000: it had Zen 4, Zen 3 and Zen 2 chips in the lineup. The distinguishing feature? It ended in 20, 30 or 40.

Now we have a "40" chip with Zen 2 cores. This was entirely predictable.

Going back to 7000, there were 7520U chips that were some low cost 4 core chips with small iGPUs called Mendocino. 7735U was Zen 3(+), but this one could be passable, even if I think it should have never been "Ryzen 7" or 7700 to begin with.

It is hard to understand the Mendocino chips because they are mostly available in more expensive laptops than this 5000 chips, despite lower core counts and significantly worse iGPUs (40%+ deficit). You could since last year, and still can, buy 5700U (Zen 2 6C), 5625U and 5825U laptops for less. Even the 5625U is a perfectly fine chip for office work and will be for some years.

The (not so) new chips

What AMD released last October and which is now reaching shelves is the Ryzen 5 40. Yes, a Ryzen 5 naming convention, which in Intel lingo meant great performance for a reasonable price.

What you get here is another Zen 2, a 7y old architecture, 4 core chip dressed up as high performance. This is extremely bad consumer practices that AMD should end right here and now. There is nothing 2025 about this chip.

This is ending up in $500+ laptops which should are not really worth more than $300, with barely enough 8GB of RAM.

AMD should name this for what it is. A true Ryzen 10 (or Ryzen 1 if they really want it to) and nothing more.

Easier decoding for everyone:

• Ryzen 5  30,  4C/8T 2.8GHz Zen 2, Radeon 610M  2CU
• Ryzen 5  40,  4C/8T 2.4GHz Zen 2, Radeon 610M  2CU
• Ryzen 3 110,  4C/8T 3.0GHz Zen 3, Radeon 660M  4CU (!!!)
• Ryzen 5 130, 6C/12T 2.9GHz Zen 3, Radeon 660M  6CU
• Ryzen 5 150, 6C/12T 3.3GHz Zen 3, Radeon 660M  6CU (higher TDP)
• Ryzen 7 160, 8C/16T 2.7GHz Zen 3, RAdeon 680M 12CU
• Ryzen 7 170, 8C/16T 3.2GHz Zen 3, RAdeon 680M 12CU (higher TDP)

Look at this product stack. A 4C chip from a slower architecture that will have a Ryzen 5 sticker on it. I don't even recall Intel doing something this devious. Ryzen 7 in a world of Zen 4 and Zen 5 chips is also extremely misleading for the consumer.

Zen 3 chips will land somewhere around Intel Core 5 and Zen 4 6C chips in performance, which are usually Ryzen 5 parts.

Anyhow, now you know. Stay away from these and recall to this chart if you need.