These desktop APUs will have a G or GE suffix. These APUs use higher series numbers for their product name compared to the same generation non-APU desktop SKUs. AMD further confused their naming by using a different numbering scheme for their APU SKUs. This is just a CPU with integrated graphics. Example: Ryzen Threadripper 5990X ( this is just a guess)Īccelerated Processing Unit (APU) is AMD’s marketing term for CPUs that have both a conventional CPU and a GPU on a single die.Fourth Generation Zen 3: Ryzen Threadripper 5000 Series “Chagal”.Third Generation Zen 2: Ryzen Threadripper 3000 Series “Castle Peak”.Second Generation Zen+: Ryzen Threadripper 2000 Series “Colfax”.

This generation will not be supported on Windows 11.First Generation Zen: Ryzen Threadripper 1000 Series “Whitehaven”.To their credit, AMD stayed pretty consistent with the naming scheme between mainstream desktop and HEDT CPUs.įor AMD HEDT CPUs, the SKU naming goes like this: This was similar to a Tick in the old Intel Tick-Tock release cycle.ĪMD Mainstream Desktop Zen 2 Processors AMD High-End Desktop (HEDT) CPUs That decision caused an untold amount of needless confusion over they years! AMD probably used Zen+ because 12nm Zen+ was a relatively minor update to the original 14nm Zen microarchitecture. This reminds me of when Microsoft had their ill-fated penchant for using R2 in their product names, such as SQL Server 2008 R2. Fourth Generation: 7nm Zen 3 released in November 2020.Third Generation: 7nm Zen 2 released in July of 2019.Second Generation: 12nm Zen+ released in April of 2018.First Generation: 14nm Zen released in March of 2017.Here are the generations, their names and when they were first released. Another choice would have been Zen, Zen 2, Zen 3, and Zen 4. They could have used Zen 1, Zen 2, Zen 3, and Zen 4. The actual names are Zen, Zen+, Zen 2 and Zen 3. Unfortunately, AMD started this confusion with the names of the successive Zen generations. The fourth generation (Zen 3) was released on November 5, 2020. So far, there have been four generations of the Zen microarchitecture. The first actual Zen-based processors were released in March of 2017. The History of ZenĪMD announced their Zen microarchitecture on August 17, 2016. This post is meant to reduce this confusion. Unfortunately, understanding AMD processor names is more difficult than it should be. AMD now has modern, competitive processors in every single market segment. As you probably know if you read my blog or follow me on Twitter, I am a pretty big fan of AMD processors.

Amd ryzen 5 4th gen