Ryzen

Lore & Background

Ryzen uses the Zen CPU microarchitecture, a complete redesign that returned AMD to the high-end CPU market after a decade of near-total absence since 2006. AMD's primary competitor, Intel, had largely dominated this market segment starting from the 2006 release of their Core microarchitecture and the Core 2 Duo. Until Ryzen's initial launch in early 2017, Intel's market dominance over AMD continued to grow with the launch of the Intel Core CPU lineup and the successful rollout of their tick-tock CPU release strategy, which ended with the delayed 14 nm Broadwell desktop CPUs. This delay proved critically important for AMD, as Intel's inability to sustain tick-tock provided market openings for Ryzen and the Zen microarchitecture to succeed.

AMD's prior Bulldozer microarchitecture, released in 2011, had been designed for parallel computing above all else, leading to inferior real-world performance in workloads that were not highly multi-threaded. Despite a die shrink and several revisions, performance and power efficiency failed to catch up with Intel's competing products, forcing AMD to abandon the entire high-end CPU market until Ryzen's release in 2017. The Zen architecture delivered more than 52% improvement in instructions per cycle over the prior-generation Bulldozer AMD core without raising electrical power use. Since the release of Ryzen, AMD's CPU market share has increased while Intel's appears to have stagnated or regressed.

Ryzen processors offer greater multi-threaded performance at the same price point relative to Intel's Core processors. The first generation, the Ryzen 1000 series, featured up to eight cores and sixteen threads. Subsequent generations included the Ryzen 2000 series with Zen+ (April 2018), the Ryzen 3000 series with Zen 2 (July 7, 2019), the Ryzen 5000 series with Zen 3 (October 8, 2020), and the Ryzen 7000 series with Zen 4 (September 27, 2022). The Ryzen 7000 series introduced the AM5 socket and DDR5 memory. Threadripper, geared for high-end desktops and professional workstations, was developed by a small team inside AMD and greenlit by 2016.

Reader's Guide

Ryzen's significance lies in its role as the vehicle for AMD's return to competitiveness in the high-end CPU market after a decade of absence. The Zen microarchitecture, with its more than 52% improvement in instructions per cycle over Bulldozer, allowed AMD to offer products that could compete with Intel's Core processors, particularly in multi-threaded performance at the same price point. The release of Ryzen in early 2017 capitalized on Intel's inability to sustain its tick-tock release strategy, which had ended with the delayed Broadwell desktop CPUs. This created a market opening that Ryzen exploited, leading to an increase in AMD's CPU market share while Intel's stagnated or regressed.

Ryzen's legacy includes the introduction of the chiplet design with Zen 2, the move to the AM5 platform with Zen 4, and the establishment of the Threadripper line for high-end desktop and workstation users. The brand also expanded into mobile with the Ryzen 6000 series and introduced Ryzen AI, an AI technology based on Xilinx intellectual property, starting with the Ryzen 7040 mobile series in mid 2023. Ryzen's impact is measured by its ability to restore AMD as a viable competitor in the CPU market, ending Intel's near-total dominance that had persisted since 2006.

Did You Know?

• Ryzen was announced on December 13, 2016 and first delivered in Q1 2017.
• Ryzen Threadripper was developed by a small team inside AMD in their spare time before being officially greenlit by 2016.
• The Ryzen 7000 series, released September 27, 2022, introduced the AM5 socket and DDR5 memory.