Intel slings dirt at AMD by claiming its selling “snake oil”
IntelA new presentation from Intel claims that its competitor, AMD, is selling snake oil by masking older architecture in newer branding.
AMD has been challenged to a duel through glove slap, as Intel begins its new campaign against Team Red. The US company is claiming that AMD is selling “snake oil” via a slide with a man holding a bottle of it. Next to the image, it says “Trust me…” and “There’s a long history of selling half-truths to unsuspecting customers.”
IntelThe slideshow aims to inform customers about AMD’s confusing naming scheme for its processor lineup. When the company launched Zen 4 and the Ryzen 7000 series, it introduced more to its branding.
How AMD’s CPU naming scheme works:
The company currently breaks down its chips like this:
- Model
- Market segment
- Architecture
- Feature isolation
- Form factor & power (TDP)
So for instance, the chip we’ve been covering quite a bit, the 7840U – found in a lot of handheld PCs – is from 2023 (7), Ryzen 7 (8), Zen 4 (4), and is a lower tier model, hence the 0 and U.
Confusing naming scheme at heart of Intel & AMD drama
As Intel rightly points out, AMD is currently selling Zen 2 architecture from 2019 in its latest chips. The main culprit pinpointed in the slideshow is the Ryzen 5 7520U. It’s mostly been seen in budget-end laptops and not high-end hardware.
Intel is correct that the naming convention obscures the real information underneath. However, it should be pointed out that Intel is currently selling the 14th generation CPUs, Raptor Lake Refresh.
These have been determined by reviewers that they’re not especially “next generation” when compared to the 13th-generation chips they’re built on top of.
Then there’s the Steam Deck, which is using a custom Zen 2 APU and is one of the most popular PC devices currently on the market. While the performance in the 7520U won’t compare in the slightest, in the laptops and devices it’d be found in, it’d be fine.
Intel’s presentation can be found on their website in full and includes benchmarks. However, on closer inspection and considering the “consumer notebook” angle they take, it appears that the target demographic might not even notice the difference.