Beyond Zen: AMD Trademarks 'Ryzen' And Other Names Possibly Associated With Next Gen CPU
However, one thing that hasn’t been talked about much leading up to Zen’s official unveil is what the processor family will be called. No hints have been dropped thus far from AMD, but one observant redditor noticed (and was subsequently picked up by TweakTown) that AMD has trademarked a number of names that could be used for the new CPU family. The name with the most potential is Ryzen, which could be a clever take on the on the Zen name (Rise + Zen?).
Other names that AMD has applied a trademark for include Vara, Joro, Jitzu and Grok. But perhaps our favorite is ThreadRipper, simply because it just sounds awesome. “You’ve got an Intel Core i7 7700K in your gaming rig? Well, I’ve got an octa-core AMD ThreadRipper!”
At this point, we know that Zen is based on a 14nm FinFET process and that AMD is targeting a 40 percent uplift in instructions per clock (IPC) performance compared to processors based on the older 28nm Excavator core. Zen will make use of AMD’s new AM4 platform, and the most potent variant, Summit Ridge, is an 8-core, 16-thread monster.
Although we don’t have any concrete numbers on Zen performance, the SR7 flagship will allegedly offer performance that rivals the $1,000 Intel Core i7-5960X at half the price. The processor is said to have a base clock of 3.2GHz and a turbo clock of 3.5GHz, while availability is reportedly scheduled for January 2017.
