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It's not always. For example "8th gen" Intel has both Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake CPUs, some gens have a mix of 14nm CPUs for desktop and 10nm for Mobile. It's ho

It's not always. For example "8th gen" Intel has both Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake CPUs, some gens have a mix of 14nm CPUs for desktop and 10nm for Mobile. It's honestly pretty confusing as to which Lake follows what at this point as they are slight refinements of slight refinements. AMD is at least making it so the second digit will indicate architecture (the first will be year released).

vladvasiliu 4y ago
I did not know that about Intel. Guess I'm lucky I wasn't in the market for a new PC at that time... Do they at least all support Windows 11, since I think "gen 8" is the first one officially supported? > AMD is at least making it so the second digit will indicate architecture (the first will be year released). Unfortunately, that's not always the case. See, for example, the Ryzen 5 5500U which is a zen 2 part and the 5560U which is a zen 3 part. The architecture is quite different, too: the first being a 2x3 configuration, while the second is 1x6. The Zen 3 one was also released as a 54xx "PRO" version. See [1] note 1. They were both released in January 2021, but then you have the Ryzen 5 4680U which was released later, in April 2021, while being a zen 2. As a matter of fact, I'm quite sure the second digit is the model's place in the range. See 3700 desktop parts, which are zen 2, and 5700 ones which are zen 3. Moreover, to your point about differences between desktop and laptop parts, I've always considered that a given. Zen 2 desktop parts already had pci-e 4, whereas the zen 3 laptop ones only had pci-e 3, even the higher end ones. The first mobile parts to have pci-e 4 seem to be the 6xxx models. --- [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_2#Lucienne_(5000_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_2#Lucienne_(5000_series) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_3#Cezanne_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_3#Cezanne_2
- goosedragons 4y ago
  The AMD changes haven't taken place yet. They start 2023. Also I was slightly wrong with the 3rd digit actually being architecture. https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/7/23340934/amd-ryzen-model-numbers-naming-announcement https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/7/23340934/amd-ryzen-model-n... The Windows 11 supported CPU list is pretty arbitrary and doesn't have much to do with the capabilities of the CPU. The main real requirement is TPM 2.0 and even that can be worked around. And there are some officially supported 7th gen CPUs because MS realized how dumb it was for the Surface Studio they were still selling to not be supported.
  - wolpoli 4y ago
    I remember Reddit discussions where they tried to figure out if the CPU support list lined up with any particular CPU features. It didn't make any much sense at all. Basically, Windows 11 supported 3-years old CPUs generations and (and later added) CPUs in Microsoft products that were actively being sold.
adrian_b 4y ago
"8th gen" is indeed an extreme case, with a very large number of slightly different microarchitectures being covered by this name, due to a chaos at Intel, caused both by the failed 10 nm process and by the Meltdown and Spectre bugs. Nevertheless, all the "Kaby Lake" proper are "7th gen", not "8th gen". Among the "8th gen" there are only "Kaby Lake R" (R from Refresh) and "Kaby Lake G" (G from GPU, i.e. discrete AMD GPU on package). There are also 2 kinds of CPUs that have been weirdly branded as "8th gen", but which, both based on the date of their launch and on their features should have been branded as "9th gen", together with Coffee Lake Refresh: Whiskey Lake U and Amber Lake Y. The remaining CPUs branded as "8th gen" were Coffee Lake and Cannon Lake U.

vladvasiliu 4y ago

I did not know that about Intel. Guess I'm lucky I wasn't in the market for a new PC at that time... Do they at least all support Windows 11, since I think "gen 8" is the first one officially supported? > AMD is at least making it so the second digit will indicate architecture (the first will be year released). Unfortunately, that's not always the case. See, for example, the Ryzen 5 5500U which is a zen 2 part and the 5560U which is a zen 3 part. The architecture is quite different, too: the first being a 2x3 configuration, while the second is 1x6. The Zen 3 one was also released as a 54xx "PRO" version. See [1] note 1. They were both released in January 2021, but then you have the Ryzen 5 4680U which was released later, in April 2021, while being a zen 2. As a matter of fact, I'm quite sure the second digit is the model's place in the range. See 3700 desktop parts, which are zen 2, and 5700 ones which are zen 3. Moreover, to your point about differences between desktop and laptop parts, I've always considered that a given. Zen 2 desktop parts already had pci-e 4, whereas the zen 3 laptop ones only had pci-e 3, even the higher end ones. The first mobile parts to have pci-e 4 seem to be the 6xxx models. --- [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_2#Lucienne_(5000_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_2#Lucienne_(5000_series) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_3#Cezanne_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_3#Cezanne_2

goosedragons 4y ago
The AMD changes haven't taken place yet. They start 2023. Also I was slightly wrong with the 3rd digit actually being architecture. https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/7/23340934/amd-ryzen-model-numbers-naming-announcement https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/7/23340934/amd-ryzen-model-n... The Windows 11 supported CPU list is pretty arbitrary and doesn't have much to do with the capabilities of the CPU. The main real requirement is TPM 2.0 and even that can be worked around. And there are some officially supported 7th gen CPUs because MS realized how dumb it was for the Surface Studio they were still selling to not be supported.
- wolpoli 4y ago
  I remember Reddit discussions where they tried to figure out if the CPU support list lined up with any particular CPU features. It didn't make any much sense at all. Basically, Windows 11 supported 3-years old CPUs generations and (and later added) CPUs in Microsoft products that were actively being sold.

adrian_b 4y ago

"8th gen" is indeed an extreme case, with a very large number of slightly different microarchitectures being covered by this name, due to a chaos at Intel, caused both by the failed 10 nm process and by the Meltdown and Spectre bugs. Nevertheless, all the "Kaby Lake" proper are "7th gen", not "8th gen". Among the "8th gen" there are only "Kaby Lake R" (R from Refresh) and "Kaby Lake G" (G from GPU, i.e. discrete AMD GPU on package). There are also 2 kinds of CPUs that have been weirdly branded as "8th gen", but which, both based on the date of their launch and on their features should have been branded as "9th gen", together with Coffee Lake Refresh: Whiskey Lake U and Amber Lake Y. The remaining CPUs branded as "8th gen" were Coffee Lake and Cannon Lake U.