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The new "Stars" models receive new branding

On June 5th, AMD will launch its Athlon X2 BE-2350 and 2300 processors. The new Athlon X2 BE-series marks the debut of AMD’s new naming scheme. In addition to the Athlon X2 BE-series, AMD is to revamping its complete product lineup using the alphanumeric scheme.

The new naming scheme designates the first letter as the processor class. AMD currently has three processor classes for the new scheme – G, B and L. All G-class processors are designated as premium processors under the Phenom X4 and X2 names. The B-class processors slot below the G-class processors as an intermediate model. At the bottom of the AMD ladder is the L-class processors. L-class processors carry the AMD Athlon or Sempron names.

New AMD Names
Brand layer
 Class
Model
PhenomFX TBD
PhenomX4
GP-7xxx
PhenomX2
GS-6xxx
AthlonX2
BE-2xxx
AthlonX2
LS-2xxx
SempronN/A
LE-1xxx

The second letter in the model designates thermal design power class. AMD P-class processors have TDPs greater than 65-watts; S-class processors have TDPs of approximately 65-watt while E-class processors have less than 65-watt TDPs.

Under the new naming scheme, upcoming Stars-family dual and quad-core processors will carry the AMD Phenom X2 GS-6xxx and Phenom X4 GP-7xxx names. Value-priced AMD Athlon and Sempron processors will carry the Athlon X2 LS-2xxx and Sempron LE-1xxx names.

AMD Phenom FX processors will not follow the new class designations; however, AMD is undecided on the model numbers.


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ATI bleed over
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 6/4/2007 8:29:29 AM , Rating: 4
Now the Graphics Card alphabet soup can be applied to AMD's processor lineup. Why is it that so far Intel is the only one without a massive alphabet soup? Although the chipsets are getting there......

Wonder if AMD fired its marketing group in favor of the ATI group.




RE: ATI bleed over
By Griswold on 6/4/2007 9:20:31 AM , Rating: 4
Where is the issue for you, between this and Intels naming scheme, other than this one actually tells you roughly what thermal envelope the product has. Its a much better solution than the worthless performance rating they used for too many years, so its definitely a step forward and not the same as the ATI garbage naming of the past that really made no sense at all.


RE: ATI bleed over
By defter on 6/4/2007 2:32:29 PM , Rating: 2
Actually, Intel's scheme also tells the power envelope:
E - 65W
X - higher (120W?)
T - mobile (35W?)
U - low power mobile
and so on. Thus Exyz CPU will have higher TDP than Txyz and lower TDP than Xxyz.

I don't understand why AMD used two letters while one would be enough. Numbers already tell the difference between performance (7xxx line vs. 2xxx line), no need for additional letter.


RE: ATI bleed over
By Sunner on 6/5/2007 4:33:30 AM , Rating: 2
Check out Intel's naming of the Xeon and Itanium lineups ;)
Luckily OEM's tend to not give a crap and just write "2.6 GHz Xeon" or whatever.


Confusing
By Martimus on 6/4/2007 10:32:15 AM , Rating: 2
While I like the idea of the naming convention, it is confusing. The letters seem to have nothing to do with what they are representing, so it isn't intuitive at all. It would probably be better to have a simple A, B, C, ... etc. lettering scheme for the quality of the processor, with A being the top end, and B being moderate, and C being low or something like that instead of G, L, and B which aren't at all intuitive to the buyer. The same goes for the power class letter. It isn't remotely intuitive either. If they are going to change the naming convention, why not do it so that it will be easier for the layperson to understand? It was a good idea, but it seems that it was poorly implemented.




RE: Confusing
By Wonga on 6/4/2007 2:03:41 PM , Rating: 2
I agree. I don't normally have a problem with naming schemes, since people soon learn them and forget there was even a problem, but these ones seem... weird.


RE: Confusing
By bhieb on 6/4/2007 5:39:31 PM , Rating: 2
I agree way too confusing.

Keep in mind Naming conventions are for the average "hey I want that one because it has a bigger number" buyer. Most people who care about the power rating can find it in the specs so why even include it. This is a nightmare for the average person, hell most IT folks don't know what is better these days let alone the Grandma that walks into Best Buy. Seriously have any of you tried to recommend a specific processor to an average joe lately? It takes a month of research to build a PC these days. Pick the wrong motherboard (no wait the wrong Chipset on the almost identical board) and you loose 10% performance. Pair it with the wrong memory same thing do you go with the Gold, Platnium, Uranium or imlosingmymindium stick of memory.

I don't know the fix, but something has to be done if they want to sell these to the DIY folks. Oh well keeps Anandtech busy explaining why you need the xyz memory for the 5% boost if used on boar abc, but with ghi you loose 30%.


my naming scheme, what do you think?
By MDme on 6/4/2007 12:14:50 PM , Rating: 2
Just use the processor name add 4-digit model number then and L (if it is a L ow-power part) example:

Phenom X4-7000
Phenom X2-6600
Phenom X2-6000L
Athlon X2-4000
Athlon X2-4000L
Sempron X2-3600L

you can use E if you want instead of L ( E fficient)

Heck, even works for Phenom FX-8000




By microslice on 6/4/2007 1:29:21 PM , Rating: 2
I like yours better actually, heh.


By Belard on 6/4/2007 4:16:41 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah... that would have been TOO simple to come up with.

Still... do we really need 4 digits?

Why not:

Phenom X4-70
Phenom X2-66
Phenom X2-66L

Still... more thought could have gone into these names.

I guess G = Great, B = Better than L, L = Lame?
P = Power Hungry, S = Standard, E = Easy on the Wallet?


ugh...
By Verran on 6/4/2007 10:19:30 AM , Rating: 2
I'm pretty sure I couldn't be less interested in this new nomenclature. Are they just trying to confuse people to the point that they won't be able to compare AMD models to Intel? Maybe they plan to send out decoder rings to everyone.




RE: ugh...
By gramboh on 6/5/2007 12:28:58 AM , Rating: 2
Agreed, I'm not even going to bother trying to understand it unless I see some benchmarks of CPUs offering performance that matches/exceeds Core 2 and is price competitive.


GBL
By jhtrico1850 on 6/4/2007 1:03:59 PM , Rating: 2
Why GBL? An unfortunate acronym that is also redundant with Phenom (hi end), Athlon (mainstream), Sempron (cheap). Silly AMD.




RE: GBL
By nitin213 on 6/5/2007 1:29:32 AM , Rating: 2
The Good, the Bad and the Losers........


Forest for the trees
By pyrosity on 6/4/2007 3:42:44 PM , Rating: 4
Many of the comments are based on little more than wild speculation and smarter-than-thou logic, IMO.

I have two points to make, and my hope is that at least someone will read them and maybe understand the nature of this new naming scheme.

1. Some of the comments on this article suggest that AMD should fling all (or at least more) of their resources entirely into whatever exactly can be used to get their processors out faster. Valiant pro-AMD or pro-competition thinking, but full of holes.

AMD has to operate as much more than just the development, debugging, and optimization of their K10 architecture right now. They have clearly stated that they really believe in this architecture, so they are currently paving the road ahead of their new architecture. One example of this is for the naming change.

The individual or team or committee that developed this naming change certainly required some resources from AMD to make an intelligent decision about what to name their processors, from top to bottom, in a wholly unified format. However, we should not escalate this position or action into something that "took resources/funding/time" away from the development of K10, Barcelona, etc. To think that AMD's key engineers would walk away from architecture work and lock themselves away in a chamber for a month to discuss naming strategies is foolish.

2. Now, about this naming scheme. The comments on this article come from both ends of the opinion spectrum, and serve to both uplift the strengths of this new strategy and also point out negative aspects of the new naming strategy.

Personally, I see it to be very clear and straightforward. Following is a brief demonstration of my thought process:

Phenom X2 GP-7xxx

Pros:
+ First letter quickly demonstrates what class of hardware one is talking about/considering. This requires absolutely zero knowledge regarding the numbering scheme, and just where an enthusiast/high class part # starts off following middle class part #s. This transcends both part numbers and names; AMD is allowing for the future when, say, Phenom refreshes will eventually be rebranded as midrange parts.
+ Second letter quickly does the same for power draw.
+ Part # allows for quick relative comparison between two otherwise similar parts.

Cons:
- Currently/at this time, the first letter seems like it might be superfluous, as the same information can be determined from part # (albeit slower for one not as accustomed to the eventual wide gamut of part #s) and the processor name.
- The actual letters used to show class/power draw show very little actual meaning. G, B, L? P, S, E? What are those supposed to represent?

I may be missing some pros and some cons, but ultimately my hope is that this comment demonstrates that AMD created a new, unified, top-to-bottom naming scheme that can potentially communicate quickly to customers--that is only a part of the company's natural means of operation. Engineers and plant managers were not taken out of duty for such a task.

Sure, AMD could sack their marketing team to put more money into hiring more engineers & expanding R&D, but my guess is that is a process that takes a lot of sifting to find quality engineers. AMD still needs their marketing team, anyway. Their processors are hardly going to sell themselves.

Looking back, I am not sure what overcome me as I wrote all this out.




Stars // Cities
By Crassus on 6/4/2007 7:50:18 PM , Rating: 2
Can anyone please enlighten me as to what is the Stars family as opposed to the Cities family? Are those the same or does one follow the other?




RE: Stars // Cities
By zander55 on 6/5/2007 2:28:24 AM , Rating: 2
with much of k8 they named the cores after cities. ie "san diego" "venice" with k10 AMD is naming their cores after stars or consolations.


By 13Gigatons on 6/4/2007 8:58:44 AM , Rating: 2
AMD is just spinning their wheels right now with these silly, confusing, paper launch marketing hype press releases.

AMD should focus on actually releasing one good cpu with say 4 models:

A6200
A6400
A6600
A6800

Is it that hard to figure out?




Naming
By Screwballl on 6/4/2007 1:18:47 PM , Rating: 2
Heres a better naming scheme:

Phenom FX = PFX-8xxx
Phenom X4 = PX4-7xxx
Phenom X2 = PX2-6xxx
Athlon X2 = AX2-2xxx
Athlon X2 = AX2-1xxx
Sempron N/A = SX1-1xxx

or even 8000FX, 7000X4, 6000X2, 2000X2, 2000X2L (for low TDP), 1000S




AMD = A Madman's Dream
By GeorgeOrwell on 6/4/2007 9:19:32 PM , Rating: 2
All these new super-crypto model designations will accomplish is to further reduce sales.

It really looks like all the smart people have left AMD. Sad to say, but there is little evidence of intelligent life in AMD's endless "look like we are doing something" busywork.

So far it does not appear that CEO Hector Ruiz is capable of shipping a real product.

But "follow the money" would say he was installed to slow down the company and cripple them up with meaningless work... so private equity could step in and buy AMD for pennies on the dollar...