While all eyes are on the impending launch of AMD’s new Ryzen 7000 desktop processors, the chipmaker also has its wheels in motion for the future of its mobile product lineup. And while we’re still quite a bit away from the first Zen 4 mobile parts, more immediate on AMD’s roadmap is their Zen 2-based Mendocino SoC, which is aimed at mainstream laptops. Mendocino APUs are set to launch next quarter, and to prepare for that launch, AMD today is updating their mobile processor numbering scheme to accommodate those future products.
The short version of matters is that while the new numbering system is quite similar to AMD’s previous system (e.g. Ryzen Mobile 6000), the company is now dedicating a digit to represent the version of the Zen architecture used. With AMD set to have Zen 2 (Mendocino), Zen 3 (Rembrandt), and eventually Zen 4 (Phoenix) mobile APUs all on the market at the same time, AMD has decided that they need to better disclose the architecture used underneath – a “necessary evil”, as former AnandTech CPU editor Dr. Ian Cutress put it, to avoid any improprieties (perceived or otherwise) that AMD is misleading customers by offering multiple versions of the Zen architecture.
