AMD’s new Ryzen CPU name just leaked, and it’s not what you expect

Asus has inadvertently leaked the name of a brand new AMD CPU, which shows the processor maker taking a very different approach to the names of its chips. If the listing is accurate, it looks as though there’s a new range of AMD Ryzen AI CPUs on the way shortly, with AMD seemingly capitalizing on its neural processing hardware in its forthcoming battle against Intel.

This move would follow the recent Intel brand change, where it removed the ‘i’ from its recent Meteor Lake laptop CPU branding, in favor of its new Core and Core Ultra names. It looks as though the forthcoming fight between Intel and AMD to make the best CPU will not only involve changing processor architectures but also changing the branding.

The new AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 170 CPU was spotted in the specs for a new Asus Vivobook S 16 OLED laptop range, found using the Asus laptop comparison tool on the company’s website, and revealed on X (formerly Twitter) by Korean tech enthusiast harukaze5719. The listing has since been removed, but it’s been preserved in a screenshot (shown below), which reveals some of the specs of the new CPU, as well as the new name.

Like Intel’s new Core Ultra branding, the model number that follows the AMD Ryzen AI name is also in a different format from beforehand. In this case, the ‘9’ looks as though it denotes a CPU at the top of the range, and there’s also an ‘HX’ in the name, a pair of letters that Intel uses on its top-end laptop CPUs as well.

Meanwhile, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 170 specs list has 12 cores (24 threads), 36MB of cache, and a peak clock speed of 5.1GHz, according to the Asus listing. The CPU is also listed as having AMD Radeon graphics, and the ‘AMD Ryzen AI’ performance is rated at up to 77 TOPS (trillions of operations per second – a basic measure of AI processing power).

Meanwhile, a second screenshot (above) shows that the specific AI performance of the dedicated AMD XDNA hardware (the neural processing unit, or NPU) is 45 TOPS. That’s the same number touted by Intel for its forthcoming Lunar Lake architecture, and it should mean that AMD’s new Ryzen AI CPUs will be able to run the new Windows AI Explorer features coming to Windows 11.

Of course, none of this has been officially confirmed by AMD yet, but if this is true it looks as though AMD is going big on AI tech with its future laptop CPUs, to the point where it’s even in the brand name. This new CPU name has already drawn a fair bit of criticism among tech leakers online, but I personally think AMD Ryzen AI is a much stronger brand than Intel Core Ultra – it instantly tells you something about the CPU without sounding hyperbolic.

We’ll have to wait and see whether this new naming scheme also gets transferred to the desktop when AMD launches its new Zen 5 CPUs, but it’s unlikely, given that motherboard makers such as Gigabyte have already stated that these CPUs have the Ryzen 9000 series branding. However, it looks as though both Intel and AMD are keen to leave their previous naming schemes behind in the laptop market.

In the meantime, if you’re in the market for a new laptop, make sure you check out our guide to the best gaming laptop, where we take you through all the best options available right now.