AMD appears to be working on a bunch of quad-core and hex-core Zen 2 processors under the Ryzen 4000 nomenclature. Three SKUs namely the Athlon Gold 4100GE, Ryzen 5 4500, and 4100 have been spotted over the USB Implementers Forum. This is a bit strange as AMD used the Ryzen 3000 nomenclature for the Zen 2 chips and the Ryzen 5000 scheme for the newer Zen 3 parts.
The Ryzen 4000 nomenclature was used for the Zen 2 APUs (Renoir) aimed at the mobile market and the OEM|SI segment. While the 4100GE is undoubtedly an APU, the 4500 and 4100 are likely going to be CPUs without integrated graphics. But, why is AMD working on a quad-core and hex-core Zen 2 SKU at this point, more than two years after the launch of Matisse? The company should rather be focusing on budget Zen 3 offerings such as the 5700X, 5600, and the 5300X.
Intel’s Alder Lake-S processors are about to land in just a few months, and going by leaks, they’ll be the best parts the chipmaker has released over the last decade. Older Zen 2 parts will certainly not be enough to combat Intel’s first 10nm desktop products.