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AMD Announces $55 Athlon 200G

Does look like a great fit for a cheap and tiny machine. It will be interesting to see how it stacks up against the Pentium Gold G5400, pitting a 3.2ghz processor against a 3.9ghz one at a $9 price difference. With AMD motherboard partners now shipping with all the features that Intel has for years (WiFi, for example), it looks to be a great base for a cheap, small ITX machine.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-athlon-200ge-vega-ryzen-pro,37756.html

7 Replies
leyvin
Miniboss

Honestly., I don't like the current direction that AMD are taking.

It's like they're talking all of the bad business practises that Intel has engaged in over the past Decade and decided to echo them.

It makes no sense why these Processors have Locked Multipliers., which I know you can argue "But you'll be using them on A320 / A420 Boards, which also have Locked Multipliers" … sure but I also disagree with that bollocks as well.

Going beyond this WHY is it a 35w Processor?!

Ryzen 3 2200U and 5 2400U are both 15w Processors., provide 2 Additional Physical Threads albeit at a Lower Base Clock but similar Boost Clock and they have more Compute Units (8 and 11 respectively). Not to mention the Athlon 200GE Series is essentially replacing the Athlon/Semperon APU Series., not only are they twice the price (MSP £20-30 Vs. £50-60) but they were 15w Processors.

If they wanted to have a 35w "Pentium Silver and Gold" Competitor., well I thought that's what the Ryzen 3 2200GE and 5 2400GE Processors were for; being Lower Clocked 35w Parts... if these are those parts., then WHY do they only have 2C/4T instead of 4C/4T? Clock-for-Clock this means they're 75% the Performance for the CPU., and being 3CU instead of 8CU and 11CU means that they're < 50% Graphical Performance.

And even more notable, if they're going to bring back and use the Athlon Brand., why the heck didn't they just rebrand ALL APUs as Athlon., while the processors without Compute Units, they brand as Ryzen. That would've frankly been a far better approach, and switched to Even Numbers like the A-Series.

In this way we would've had the

Ryzen 2 (R2) 2200 / Athlon 2 (A2) 2200 - 2C / 4T (4CU) - Essential Range

Ryzen 4 (R4) 2400 / Athlon 4 (A4) 2400 - 4C / 4T (8CU) - Core Basic

Ryzen 4 (R4) 2500 / Athlon 4 (A4) 2500 - 4C / 8T (12CU) - Core Premium

Ryzen 6 (R6) 2600 / Athlon 6 (A6) 2600 - 6C / 12T (16CU) - Premium Performance

Ryzen 8 (R8) 2800 / Athlon 8 (A8) 2800 - 8C / 16T (20CU) - Premium Elite

(Threadripper TRX / Epyc AX) - Professional

This could also have extended to the Thread Ripper (TRX) and Epyc (AX2/4/6/8) again with the exact same schemes., in this way you KNOW the generation, where it sits in the performance stack and what it should feature.

Now, of course I don't agree at all with the idea of a 2C Processor today., and thus the R2 2200 would be basically pointless without Graphics.

But why not also produce a full Radeon Series, with the "Budget" Cards being exclusively produced as AMD Brand Products (even if it's via a partnership with ASUS, Sapphire, etc.)

So we have the

RX 620 ( 4CU / £25 (1GB) - £40 (2GB) ) - Essential Range / Basic

RX 630 ( 6CU / £35 (1GB) - £60 (2GB) ) - Essential Range / Office

RX 640 ( 8CU / £50 (2GB) - £80 (4GB) ) - Essential Range / Gamer

(RX 650 (12CU / £70 (2GB) - £100 (4GB) ) - Core Essential)

RX 660 (16CU / £100 (2GB) - £130 (4GB) ) - Core Basic

RX 670 (32CU / £150 (4GB) - £200 (8GB) ) - Core Standard

RX 680 (40CU / £200 (4GB) - £250 (8GB) ) - Core Advanced

(RX 690 (48CU / £250 (4GB) - £350 (8GB) ) - Core Premium)

RX RAGE (54CU / £300 (4GB) - £400 (8GB) ) - Premium Performance

RX FURY (64CU / £500 (8GB) - £700 (16GB) ) - Premium Enthusiast

RX MAXX (80CU / £750 (8GB) - £1150 (16GB) ) - Premium Elite

Again, like the Processor Streamlined convention., you know where things sit in the Performance Stack... what target Price/Performance these are aimed at.

I'm basing all of these off of the Vega / Zen 12nm Architecture., but of course there's no reason why they couldn't be 7nm, in which case they could either take the substantial drop in Power Consumption and Higher Potential Clocks *or* alternatively simply double up on CU for some somewhat insane performance uplift.

Given NVIDIA right now are betting heavily on RTX / Deep-Learning for performance advantage., while their actual Traditional Performance is only 5-8% … well taking the opportunity to shift to a 7nm with 2X Compute Units would actually make a serious difference and encourage developer to focus on AMD given they don't have to learn new Technology.

If such could be shipping in < 8 months., it would put the competition on the back-foot. Also in terms of why switch from the 3/5/7 to 2/4/6/8... well it's simple Psychology.

i3 or R4... i5 or R6 … i7 or R8., the bigger number wins.

I mean Retail Stores do it all the time in reverse... i.e. £9.99 instead of £10.00., why? because £9 is smaller than £10, thus it's a better deal; even if we're talking about the difference actually being 1p. It's crude and simplistic psychology but it works.

The same is true for the Motherboard / Chipsets.

Don't give them numbers... that's stupid. Go back to the previous idea of the "Platforms"., I mean these used to be called "Dragon", "Spider", "Wildcat", etc.

Instead of the A420 / B450 / X470... why not call it Phoenix Essentials / Standard / Performance / Professional.

I mean you can still assigned a number to it., but again look back at the Fusion Media Chipset, with A68H, A78H, X88X and X99FX.

I'd probably go with R32A, R42B, R62X; make them a little more obscure and more of a mouthful to encourage them being referred to as the above Phoenix designations. Create a Logo to echo this as well., so an easily recognisable Phoenix Bird; which could then be on the Radeon and Ryzen products that are part of said "Ecosystem" and intended to be paired together... in that way it becomes the "Phoenix Platform", again the call back to the Dragon / Spider / Wildcat Platforms from the Mid-2000s.

This can further be used in advertising, similar to how Intel used to have the "Intel Inside" Adverts with their Multi-Coloured Technicians oft dancing; well again AMD could focus on brining back ATI Ruby, who'd be paired with say the given Platform Ecosystem Symbol in a series of Adverts that just look interesting and cool.

As right now, what AMD needs is frankly Brand Recognition with the Average Consumers... as opposed to the Dedicated Consumers.

The ones who in blunt terms won't care if Benchmark Scores aren't showcasing them as "The Best" but instead just have this sense that said Hardware is "Epyc" (forgive the pun). It's how NVIDIA and Intel gained their core popularity., by focusing on consumers who simply didn't know any better or that there was even an alternative.

Hell, here's an idea... why not name the Platform after whatever Chinese Year Animal it is. Remember that China is a *massive* market and they LOVE being pandered to. If you can make the experience with AMD Hardware, and the associations something that people aren't confused about... where they can easily look at it and say "Yes, *THAT* is what I want"., well it'll win in droves.

0 Likes
marlo456
Journeyman III

black_zion wrote:

Does look like a great fit for a cheap and tiny machine. It will be interesting to see how it stacks up against the Pentium Gold G5400, pitting a 3.2ghz processor against a 3.9ghz one at a $9 price difference. With AMD motherboard partners now shipping with all the features that Intel has for years (WiFi, for example), it looks to be a great base for a cheap, small ITX machine.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-athlon-200ge-vega-ryzen-pro,37756.html

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I really feel that the previous one was much better.

Update: Sorry, but I read it online again, the new one is better.

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ajlueke
Grandmaster

Love mine.  Works great in my media streamer PC.

I looked at the 200GE for a file server box using a SATA controller and remote desktop which would be slightly more efficient.

I suspect the CPU when idle will be comparatively energy efficient.

celinia
Journeyman III

When you test this processor Tom's, please try it as a Plex Server and see how many 1080p transcode streams it can do.
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kenyomurabu
Adept II

Why do you guys want older technology? 

Can a 2 Core PC even run anything today? 
Can it even run Windows at all? o_@ 

Why build a 2 Core PC at all? 
I've been running 1080P for like ever, 
& completely skipped the 720P Generation... 

I have never bought any TV's, my last TV
was a small 4:3 Boxed TV... I just bought a 55 Inch 4K TV
for super cheap recently, & actually love how sharp the
picture is on it... 

So why a 2 Core PC?

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MeisterM1
Journeyman III

I suspect the CPU when idle will be comparatively energy efficient

 
 
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