As the title suggests, I’ve been planning to build a PC with an AMD cpu after the recent shenanigans with Intel’s latest cpu. I’ve been using Intel for about 20 years, so switching to AMD is quite new for me. Understanding their CPU naming scheme is quite… confusing. Unlike Intel, some of the letters are used in strange ways, and there are also a Threadripper variants with more cores? While they use similar numbering to Intel, such as Ryzen 5, 7, and 9, the letters at the end of the numbers and the numbering for versions or cpu make it confusing for me. And I also found out that some of the cpu have the word ‘Pro’ and some don’t.

On the other hand, their naming scheme for mobile CPUs is much more understandable to me, as they use similar naming conventions to Intel, with HX being the highest and U for low power.

Made a spreadsheet to keep track of all the rebrands and equivalent SKUs of AMD and Intel laptop CPUs released recently going back to Zen 2 and Alder Lake. For the sheet, any CPU SKU considered equivalent has the same key specs, those being CPU cores and architecture, iGPU cores and architecture, and L3 cache capacity, while things like TDP and boost clock can vary for each individual SKU

Some interesting take aways:

- the AMD CPUs with the most "equivalent" SKUs are the Ryzen 7 7840U (most recently released as the Ryzen 9 270) and Ryzen 7 6800U (most recently released as the Ryzen 7 170), each with 12 respectively.

- the Intel CPU with the most "equivalent" SKUs is the i7 13700H (most recently released as the Core 9 270H) with 9. (Edit: It turns out that even though Raptor Lake and Alder Lake mobile CPUs are different in stepping, they are practically identical in everything else, so if you additionally count the Alder Lake H SKUs with the same specs as the 13700H as equivalents, that brings the total equivalents up to 14)

Given the complete mess of naming, it's likely I missed a few SKUs, so the numbers for the two above may even be higher; these are mostly just the CPUs I could find on Intel and AMD's websites. Also, the sheet excludes PRO and desktop-class chips like AMD's Dragon Range at the moment, might add them at some point in the future.

I really don’t understand what they mean by generation for CPU’s. I’m looking to upgrade my cpu soon and my motherboard supports up to 3rd gen cpus for ryzen

I am thinking of buying a Laptop for the first time and I have not much information about the PC market and I felt that Ryzen's doing a better job then Intel so I am thinking of buying a laptop with Ryzen Processor