Ryzen ( ) is a brand of multi-core x86-64 microprocessors designed and marketed by AMD for desktop, mobile, server, and embedded platforms based on the Zen microarchitecture. It consists of central processing units (CPUs) marketed for mainstream, enthusiast, server, and workstation segments and accelerated processing units (APUs) marketed for mainstream and entry-level segments and embedded systems applications.
A majority of AMD's consumer Ryzen products use the Socket AM4 platform. In August 2017, AMD launched their Ryzen Threadripper line aimed at the enthusiast workstation market. AMD Ryzen Threadripper uses the larger TR4, sTRX4, and sWRX8 sockets, which support additional memory channels and PCI Express lanes. AMD has moved to the new Socket AM5 platform for consumer desktop Ryzen with the release of Zen 4 products in late 2022.
History
AMD announced a new series of processors on December 13, 2016, named "Ryzen", and delivered them in Q1 2017, the first of several generations. The 1000 series featured up to eight cores and 16 threads, with a +52% instructions per cycle (IPC) increase over their prior CPU products.
The second generation of Ryzen processors, the Ryzen 2000 series, released in April 2018, featured the Zen+ microarchitecture. The aggregate performance increased +10% (of which approximately +3% was IPC and +6% clock frequency). Most importantly, Zen+ fixed the cache and memory latencies that had been major weak points.
The third generation of Ryzen processors launched on July 7, 2019, based on AMD's Zen 2 architecture, featuring significant design improvements with a +15% average IPC boost, a doubling of floating point capability to a full 256-bit-wide execution data path much like Intel's Haswell released in 2014, a shift to an MCM style "chiplet" based package design, and a further shrink to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC) 7 nm fabrication process.
On June 16, 2020, AMD announced new Ryzen 3000 series XT processors with increased boost clocks and other performance enhancements compared to non-XT processors.
On October 8, 2020, AMD announced the Zen 3 architecture for their Ryzen 5000 series processors, featuring a +19% IPC improvement over Zen 2, while being built on the same 7 nm TSMC node with out-of-the-box operating boost frequencies exceeding 5 GHz for the first time since AMD's Piledriver. This was followed by an unusually short stop-gap release of Ryzen 6000 mobile-only series processors on January 4, 2022, using the modestly changed Zen 3+ core on a 6nm process by TSMC, with claims up to +15% performance uplift gains (stated to be from frequency rather than IPC).
Following this, the Ryzen 7000 series released on September 27, 2022, for desktops, featuring the new Zen 4 core with a +13% uplift in IPC and +15% increase in frequency for a claimed nearly +30% in single thread performance. The Ryzen 7000 series features a brand new AM5 socket that only supports DDR5 SDRAM, unlike AMD's previous DDR3 sockets like AM2/+ and AM3/+ that offered DDR2 and DDR3 options and Intel's Alder Lake platforms that offer both DDR4 and DDR5 compatibility.
Microarchitecture
Ryzen is the consumer-level implementation of the newer Zen microarchitecture, a complete redesign that marked the return of AMD to the high-end CPU market, offering a product stack able to compete with Intel at every level. Having more processing cores, Ryzen processors offer greater multi-threaded performance at the same price point relative to Intel's Core processors. The Zen architecture delivers more than +52% improvement in instructions per cycle (clock) over the prior-generation Bulldozer AMD core, without raising power use. The changes to instruction set also makes it binary-compatible with Intel's Broadwell, smoothing the transition for users.
Threadripper series
Threadripper, which is geared for high-end desktops (HEDT), was not developed as part of a business plan or a specific roadmap; instead, a small enthusiast team inside AMD saw an opportunity that something could be developed between the Ryzen and EPYC CPU roadmaps that would give AMD the lead in desktop CPU performance. After some progress was made in their spare time, the project was greenlit and put in an official roadmap by 2016.