AMD appears to be reworking its specs and branding strategy for existing and future Ryzen CPUs as hybrid chips become the norm.Both Intel and AMD offer chips based on multiple types of cores, but with different specifications such as number of cores, clock speeds, and cache count. This has led to confusion, with both companies struggling to provide detailed specifications for users who want to know the exact configuration and details of the product they are purchasing.
Intel launched its hybrid design philosophy with much fanfare with the 12th generation AlderLake series. While the company shared little information at the time of launch, it has now provided detailed specs, such as listing individual clock (base/boost) speeds for P-core (performance) and E-core (efficiency) independent of each other.
The company also lists TDP for different power levels such as base power, maximum turbo power, minimum guaranteed power, and maximum guaranteed power. Each core is listed individually with the exact number of cores, which allows customers to know how many P-cores, E-cores, or LPE cores they're getting, as having more P-cores or E-cores can greatly impact a computer's overall performance.
However, if you look at AMD's specs page, you'll see that it only mentions the number of cores for Zen4 and Zen4C, but not the clock speed of each core individually. Additionally, the TDP only includes default and configurable power ranges, which is a bit lacking compared to Intel's description. Another area AMD lacks is a description of AI data types, while Intel mentioned these data types in its recently launched Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" processors. AMD offers XDNA NPU on both Ryzen 7000 and Ryzen 8000 APUs, but this detail is missing. AMD has previously promised to make it easier for users to distinguish Ryzen AI from non-Ryzen AI PCs through a new brand identity.
Now, AMD has confirmed in a statement to Tom's Hardware that they will provide you with more precise and detailed specifications for current and future Ryzen CPUs.
"We're not trying to create a trend. But we need to review the information they disclose and take feedback and look at our own practices and how we want to present this information to the competition," the representative responded. "One thing I would say about our architecture is that the dense (Zen4c) and E-cores are very different in capabilities, so we're not trying to compare them to each other."
It should be pointed out that AMD's hybrid strategy is different from Intel's hybrid strategy so far. Although the company uses two different types of cores in several SKUs of the Ryzen 7000/8000 series, the basic ISA (instruction set architecture) is basically the same, with the only differences being clock speeds, cache, and power consumption targets. Intel's hybrid core approach is more unique, using two different core architectures that cannot be compared to each other, and there are many different designs, so there is a more detailed list on Intel's specs page. AMD has made it clear that it will not continue to use Intel's P-Core/E-Core hybrid design in the future.
As for AMD, their specs page currently makes no separate mention of clock speeds for the two Zen4 and Zen4C cores. Zen4 cores are optimized for higher clock frequencies, while Zen4C cores are optimized for higher efficiency (and therefore lower clock frequencies). This is not made clear, and this is one of the areas AMD will improve in future lists.