Picking parts for your gaming PC can be as challenging as it is exciting -- there's a sea of options to choose from, after all, and most of your budget is going to be spent on key components like the processor, graphics card, RAM, and storage.

AMD consistently manufactures some of the best gaming CPUs alongside Intel. No matter which price point you're aiming to situate your build at, there's an AMD CPU that fits your needs perfectly. Gaming laptops, too, have been adopting AMD processors at an unprecedented rate, with an option available for nearly every budget. This is largely thanks to Red Team offering a better price-to-performance ratio with low power consumption and lots of cache in its processors.

However, if you've been in the market for an AMD-based machine, you've likely seen the rather confusing naming convention of its newer range of processors. Even if you make up your mind and pick a series, such as the Ryzen 3, 5, 7, or 9 -- there are still a handful of numbers and letters in the model names of these processors that indicate important differences. Though a bit perplexing at first, once you grasp the key to understanding the model names for AMD's processors, its lineup starts making a lot more sense.