Thursday, February 23rd 2017
Of New Horizons and Zen: The Story of the Name "Ryzen" for AMD's New Processors
AMD's Ryzen CPU has been a hot topic as of late, and certainly looks set to shake up the CPU world as we know it; however, it wasn't that long ago that we weren't calling it "Ryzen" at all, but merely referring to it by its codename, "Zen." What happened to that?
The "Zen" name was quite popular, and AMD claims to have made the name choice to emphasize the balance it struck between various design principles. It resonated with many enthusiasts to be sure. It was a far cry more popular than the line of "construction equipment" themed code-names that preceded it (though whether that had to do with actual performance of those products or their naming scheme itself is certainly up for debate).
Regardless, there is no denying the "Zen" name was well entrenched and already had its own level of pride built up around itself, so why dump it?
According to John Taylor, corporate vice president of marketing for AMD, they did so because they had no choice. See, AMD wanted to trademark the "Zen" name like any good company would. However, in one of their largest markets (the United States) trademarking the term "Zen" would be impossible due to the plethora of already Zen-themed products on the market and the requirement that the brand must be "strong and unique." Knowing Zen would never be trademarkable under US-law, AMD turned to its inner space geek and looked to the reports in the news at the time of the "New Horizons" mission to Pluto. They couldn't deny that the "Zen" sound appeared in the word "Horizon," and so the initial name they came up with to replace "Zen" was "Rizen," a mere product of chopping the start off the word "Horizon" and replacing the "o" with an "e" to "Zenify" it. They later would tweak this to its final product of "Ryzen", fearing people would pronounce it "risen" rather than "Ryzen," true to its "New Horizon" origins.
Continuing in that theme, AMD first made this choice apparent at its December 2016 Zen Architecture announcement event, aptly titled "New Horizon," another homage to the little probe that could. In keeping with the Japanese Zen theme, the Zen boxes of today's product announcement are adorned with a Japanese Calligraphy symbol known as an Enso: Essentially a brushed circle. That aspect is a homage to the original name: more than the Ryzen name, which is probably appropriate given the desirability of the original name: However, I can't help but feel it would be equally cool if they decided to pay homage to the origins of the name Ryzen, with a picture of New Horizons or a space probe on the box. That would be pretty darn cool too.
Source:
PCWorld
The "Zen" name was quite popular, and AMD claims to have made the name choice to emphasize the balance it struck between various design principles. It resonated with many enthusiasts to be sure. It was a far cry more popular than the line of "construction equipment" themed code-names that preceded it (though whether that had to do with actual performance of those products or their naming scheme itself is certainly up for debate).
Regardless, there is no denying the "Zen" name was well entrenched and already had its own level of pride built up around itself, so why dump it?
Continuing in that theme, AMD first made this choice apparent at its December 2016 Zen Architecture announcement event, aptly titled "New Horizon," another homage to the little probe that could. In keeping with the Japanese Zen theme, the Zen boxes of today's product announcement are adorned with a Japanese Calligraphy symbol known as an Enso: Essentially a brushed circle. That aspect is a homage to the original name: more than the Ryzen name, which is probably appropriate given the desirability of the original name: However, I can't help but feel it would be equally cool if they decided to pay homage to the origins of the name Ryzen, with a picture of New Horizons or a space probe on the box. That would be pretty darn cool too.
25 Comments on Of New Horizons and Zen: The Story of the Name "Ryzen" for AMD's New Processors
Thought you were branching out into Scientific News " Nasa and Space Related Stuff"
To me, "Ryzen" is rise from death which is literally, sadly, truth.
I do. But then again, I like outer space. :laugh:
FX-400 (430, 450...)
FX-600 (630, 650...)
FX-800 (830, 850...)
and I would proudly name it so.
Rizon........:clap:
The thing that makes it convincing to me is that they did not put the probe on the box, which would be essential if doing a "space nut" appeal. If they ever do this, I had the idea first, pay me royalties AMD. :laugh:
Great article @R-T-B :)
Article was a blast. One of the few I read top to bottom recently.
It's so exciting to see the thought process and what's "behind the curtains". It's like having the voice auditions on the disk with the anime....so awesome :D
videocardz.com/66324/where-is-ryzen-5-and-ryzen-3 the smaller cheaper ones will continue to come out later, OBVIOUSLY
www.caseking.de/en/amd-ryzen-7-1700-3-0-ghz-summit-ridge-socket-am4-boxed-hpam-118.html
Story time:
After the 486 Intel wanted to trademark the cpu name, partly to stop the likes of AMD to make copies. Remember this was the time when there were several x86 chip producers. But they were not allowed to trademark 586, so in stead they named it Pentium, from penta meaning five.
"Oh, yes we wanted to copy Intel naming hopping that people with no clue in computer hardware will not understand the difference between a Core i7 and a Ryzen 7".
Anyway, in the end the name is as good as the benchmarks.