AMD Promises To Make Distinguishing Between Ryzen AI & Non-AI PCs Much More Clear With Ryzen 8040 APUs

AMD will be making the naming of its Ryzen AI chips such as the Ryzen 8040 APUs & the respective AI PCs more clear to help consumers make the right choice.

Intel recently released a presentation titled "Core Truths" which highlighted how AMD was offering its old architecture under the new Ryzen 7000 branding.

A few points made by Intel were accurate but the way the company presented the topic by using terms such as "Snake Oil" was very unprofessional for a company as big as Intel. Intel also didn't point out their branding which is also very confusing. This new branding scheme will be part of the upcoming Core Ultra CPUs featuring the newest Meteor Lake core architecture. The company also proceeded to delete its presentation page after being called out by various tech outlets, including us.

In an interview with PCWorld's Adam Patrick Murray and Mark Hachman who were hosting the Full Nerd Special at the "Advancing AI" event, AMD's VP & GM of Client OEM, Jason Banta, said that they were going to offer a clearer branding and naming for their next-gen AI PCs and the respective laptops. The full statement can be read below:

[Mark Hachman - Senior Edition at PCWorld] Q- Is there going to be sort of an indication that you're buying an AI PC, I mean your partners saying hey we are going to put these stickers on to let people know this has AI in it?

[Jason Banta - VP & GM of Client OEM at AMD] A- We are getting more and more clear at our messaging.

The first PCs based on the 8040 coming out in Q1, February timeframe, so when those are coming out, you will see more of how we are going to message that to make them much more clear to the buyer.

The AMD Ryzen 8040 "Hawk Point" APUs will feature several SKUs and although they are a refresh of the Ryzen 7040 "Phoenix" APUs, they do come with an updated XDNA engine which runs higher clocks out of the box. These chips deliver up to 16 TOPS of AI performance, a 60% increase over the 10 TOPS offered by the Phoenix APUs. But not all Ryzen 8040 APUs feature the AI engine.

As such, AMD has made it clear on the logos that will be used by its partners to remove the "AI" tag from such SKUs while those APUs that support the XDNA engine will feature the Ryzen AI tag. AMD also issued newer stickers to distinguish between the new Ryzen 7040 APUs & the older chips such as Rembrandt, Cezzane, and Mendocino.

While AMD's newest naming scheme is far from perfect, it is good to see that the company is working to help out consumers rather than dishing out slides without looking at their product portfolios. AMD's Ryzen 8040 AI PCs and laptops will be available around February 2024 while Intel's Core Ultra Meteor Lake AI PCs will be available in the coming weeks following the 14th of December launch.