Athlon 200GE - the ultimate great place-holder CPU?

[Insert_Nickname]

I can see those who can only afford to buy low end doing this and I have been there myself. However aside from folks who have to make do, it is false economy for almost everyone else who have better means.

We agree then. But there are still the cheapskates out there, and you can't argue with them. Complete waste of time. At least we don't have to actually use their systems...

How much is your time worth?

Too true. I put quite a bit of value on it in fact.

 

[Shivansps]

I can see those who can only afford to buy low end doing this and I have been there myself. However aside from folks who have to make do, it is false economy for almost everyone else who have better means. How much is your time worth?

Price is everything, and anything that can run fortnite a 720p cheapper is huge these days. And the 200GE is outperforming HD630 and probably matching the A8-9600 as well in that regard, which is HUGE.

Now for office and common day tasks, what AMD had until now is awfull FM2/AM1 wannabe leftovers (like the Giga E3800/E3000), the equally awfull A6-9500/E, and the A8-9600 what started to get "acceptable" but was still too slow. In front of that was Intel with G3930/G4560 that were just better for almost everything!!!!

Having getting along a G4560 for more than a year now (my pc at work is a G4560/8GB) and having a R7 1700 at home, ill have to say you dont need more than what the G4560 offers, i also do app development(Visual Studio and Android Studio) for my company, i really cant think of anything heavier than that!!!

Yeah the 2200G is better but you are mostly going to notice that while gaming with the IGP, Gaming with a dGPU, or doing some really high level work, all of which you would be better off with a 2400G if you need such high level perf.
But for common day and no so common day stuff, and even mainstream 1080p gaming the 2C/4T is still fine, it may not be for gaming 2 years in the future, but thats what you are paying for, and the 4/4 are also in a similar issue future-like.

EDIT: oh and i forgot to mention, my G4560 at work has an SSD, an SSD yields far better usage experience than going 4C. So if you ask me that you should go 200GE/SSD for common day use or 2200G/HDD i would pick 200GE/SSD every time.
And lets not forget that before G4560 this was I3-6100/I3-7100 level of perf, people used to buy those things to get some work done and common day tasks.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Now for office and common day tasks, what AMD had until now is awfull FM2/AM1 wannabe leftovers (like the Giga E3800/E3000)

Those are Jaguar-based, which means about half of already poor BD performance. Worse, they have very low frequencies.

Not suited for desktop usage at all.

, the equally awfull A6-9500/E

Single module BD-derivative. Enough said. Avoid those.

, and the A8-9600 what started to get "acceptable" but was still too slow. In front of that was Intel with G3930/G4560 that were just better for almost everything!!!!

Primary problem with the 9600 is again low (for BD) frequency. BD-derivatives really need to hit 4GHz+ to perform decently. Not great but decently.

----------------------------------------

The 200GE means AMD is back in the sub-$100 game again. If they want to clean out, release a 220GE@3.6GHz and 240G(E might be a bit optimistic)@3.9GHz + an el cheapo $39 option (2C/2T+128SP@3.4GHz?) (would love to see Duron return).

 

[Shivansps]

I rather they do not release anything below the 200GE, 2C/2T needs to die already. You can already notice by just running basic windows apps that an G3930 is slower than a G4560 even on a HDD. You can feel the Celeron being slower (but still miles better than AMD 1M BD based stuff (6300/7300/4000/7400K/9500)...

2C/4T should become the new entry-level standart.

BTW, not to mention that DDR4 is the real budget killer now, funny enoght the only thing Intel needs to do to combat these Athlons is to release H310 with DDR3.

 

[whm1974]

I rather they do not release anything below the 200GE, 2C/2T needs to die already. You can already notice by just running basic windows apps that an G3930 is slower than a G4560 even on a HDD. You can feel the Celeron being slower (but still miles better than AMD 1M BD based stuff (6300/7300/4000/7400K/9500)...

2C/4T should become the new entry-level standart.

BTW, not to mention that DDR4 is the real budget killer now, funny enoght the only thing Intel needs to do to combat these Athlons is to release H310 with DDR3.

I agree that 2c/2t CPUs needs to die off, but Intel releasing a DDR3 board seems to be a bit backwards step to make.

 

[Shivansps]

I agree that 2c/2t CPUs needs to die off, but Intel releasing a DDR3 board seems to be a bit backwards step to make.

They just need allow OEM to do what the want, Asrock that was the king of the wierd stuff in the past, does not have an H310 with DDR3, thats because Intel is not allowing it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Don't see the point. Buy a 2200G or i3 8100 instead. A 200GE is a false economy. Saving a bit more gets you a substantially better platform.

For the money, and having AMD's newest Vega iGPU, rather than being stuck with Intel's HD630, I would almost prefer an A320 board, and a 200GE, than an H310, and and i3-8100.

The only exception, is that you can seemingly get ITX boards easier and a little cheaper for Coffee Lake than you can AM4.

(Btw, ASRock H310-ITX/ac is on sale today at Newegg for $78 or so, was looking at maybe that, with an i5-8400, sounds like a slick entry-level combo to get a 6-core Intel desktop. Although, IMHO, with AMD R5 2600 @ $165 now, I think that Intel should match that price with the i5-8400, being as its base clock is so low, and no overclocking or SMT. AMD just has more MT throughput for less money at those price-points.)

 

[VirtualLarry]

Price is everything, and anything that can run fortnite a 720p cheapper is huge these days. And the 200GE is outperforming HD630 and probably matching the A8-9600 as well in that regard, which is HUGE.

my G4560 at work has an SSD, an SSD yields far better usage experience than going 4C. So if you ask me that you should go 200GE/SSD for common day use or 2200G/HDD i would pick 200GE/SSD every time.

This guy "Gets it".

 

[VirtualLarry]

an el cheapo $39 option (2C/2T+128SP@3.4GHz?) (would love to see Duron return).

That would be ... interesting. I honestly question the utility of anything with less than four threads, these days. (I can't really imagine buying a 3920 Celeron or whatever the 2C/2T Kaby Lake model was, I think that 2C/4T should be a minimum, to keep up with modern software, that has a tendency to "assume" at least a quad-core / quad-thread.)

But it would be a way to grow AM4 market-share, and sell more AM4 mobos, with a $39 AM4 option. That would pretty-much completely put the nail in the coffin of Bristol Ridge, save maybe for those users that needed a VGA output from an AM4 iGPU? (Raven Ridge dies only support HDMI / DVI / DP, no VGA output, even if the board has one.)

Edit: Actually, something like that would be BRILLIANT in BGA form-factor. I would LOVE for all of these low-end crapola Intel Atom Cherry Trail N3060 dual-core slow-as-garbage Netbook / Cloudbook PCs, to switch to a Zen-based APU at the same price point, and possibly similar TDPs, with 4GB of DDR4, and even maybe eMMC (but MAKE SURE it's at least 64GB, to allow for easier Windows 10 upgrades).

I could see those selling for $300 / $350 / $400-ish. Currently, if you want a Ryzen-based laptop, the lowest I've seen is around $500.

Edit: Even better, if that diminutive Zen-based APU Cloudbook, could play Fortnight @ 720P / 768P. Can you play Fortnight in 4GB of system RAM? That would be SOOO "killer-app".

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Edit: Actually, something like that would be BRILLIANT in BGA form-factor. I would LOVE for all of these low-end crapola Intel Atom Cherry Trail N3060 dual-core slow-as-garbage Netbook / Cloudbook PCs, to switch to a Zen-based APU at the same price point, and possibly similar TDPs, with 4GB of DDR4, and even maybe eMMC (but MAKE SURE it's at least 64GB, to allow for easier Windows 10 upgrades).

That was my thinking too. AMD could do -something- like that to fight all the various Atom derivatives. Just think of the "tablet towers" being sold as full on desktops. Even a 2C/2T Zen would obliterate them, if the frequency is high enough. Add the Vega graphics, and you have a potent AL/GL competitor.

Having it socketed would just be icing on the cake...

Edit; come to think of it, you'll even get full-on AVX2 capability and full virtualisation support compared to Atom. AMD haven't got a history of artificially segmenting instruction sets, unlike Intel.

 

[Shivansps]

Fortnite does not play well with 4GB ram, even with a dgpu.

The problem with the 2C/2T is that it cost the same for AMD as a 2C/4T, well actually as a 4C/8T as it is the same die, it just makes no sence to me.

AMD could provide 2200U/2300U or the embedded ones to OEMs so they make ITX boards. but i dont expect that to be cheap.

Oh wait its already done. https://www.ibase.com.tw/english/Ne...edded-V1000-based-MI988-Mini-ITX-Motherboard/

 

[hojnikb]

Now if someone would find a way to unlock those hidden cores

 

[VirtualLarry]

Just think of the "tablet towers" being sold as full on desktops. Even a 2C/2T Zen would obliterate them, if the frequency is high enough. Add the Vega graphics, and you have a potent AL/GL competitor.

I haven't looked at PC towers in a B&M recently, but it wouldn't surprise me to see the extreme low-end being populated by Atom SoC CPUs. (Tablet-in-a-box.)

I think that, even for extreme budget PCs sold B&M, a 2C/2T 2CU Zen-design APU, would be effective, coupled with 4GB of DDR4, or 2x4GB if they were feeling generous (doubtful in extreme budget cases), and with a 120/128GB-class SATA6G SSD, or possibly even an M.2, if it saved on assembly costs (thinking, robot-placed M.2 card, no cables to wire up that require human input for storage devices), I think something like that would be usable by the vast majority of people looking for a PC these days.

It certainly would be better than any Atom-derivative. Well, assuming that the clock-speed could be raised high enough so that it would be Sandy Bridge-level performance or Haswell-level CPU performance. (With the Vega iGPU, it probably would have better graphics, even with 2CU.)

With the SSD and DDR4, I think that it would put it over the top. Remember, back in the SNB/IVB/HSW era, most OEM boxes and therefore most people's home PCs did not have SSDs. It really wasn't until Skylake that OEMs started including SSDs in systems. (I had SSDs back when Windows 7 on a Core2Quad was a new thing.)

 

[DaveSimmons]

This is an attractive CPU for me thanks to the 35 watt TDP, 2c/4t and AMD graphics. It might be a perfect CPU for either one or both of a music jukebox PC or home theater PC.

I wonder how good the Linux (Ubuntu, Mint) support is for this?

 

[whm1974]

This is an attractive CPU for me thanks to the 35 watt TDP, 2c/4t and AMD graphics. It might be a perfect CPU for either one or both of a music jukebox PC or home theater PC.

I wonder how good the Linux (Ubuntu, Mint) support is for this?

Probably best to wait for the 4.19 kernel to be released and use whatever distro that has first support for it. Mostly likely this will mean a rolling release one.

 

[VirtualLarry]

So, when are we going to get the AM1-alike el-cheapo SoC-based no-chipset mobos for AM4 Zen APUs like the 200GE? With nothing more than an ethernet PHY and maybe a sound chip onboard? 2x SATA and 1x M.2 PCI-E x4 provided by the CPU. ITX form-factor, of course. Should be doable for $40 or less, just like with AM1. (Most were under $35, some were under $30.) ECS could find a niche here, if they're even still around?

I'm itching to build some entry-level Linux Mint boxes, with current-gen / cutting-edge platform features, like AM4 Zen-based APUs, for under $200 total cost. (Prefer more like $150-175.)

200GE APU $55
ITX SoC AM4 mobo $35
1x 8GB DDR4-2667 DIMM $70
120GB SATA 2.5" SSD $25
or
128GB M.2 PCI-E NVMe SSD, as low as $35 thus far.

Cheap case+PSU combo $35 (Logisys, looking at you)

Total: $220-230

Linux: Free ($0 too)

Cutting-edge rig for $250 shipped

 

[VirtualLarry]

The 200GE could make a good budget box if the motherboard ecosystem was more diverse. I don't see the point currently with overpriced ITX boards (to pair with a SKU like this) and not wanting to put something so weak in a large rig.

Remind me why A300/X300 failed to launch? Why hasn't a vendor created an AM1-like ITX board with no external chipset? A board like that would be perfect for this.

I guess @burninatortech4 already covered this.

 

[whm1974]

So, when are we going to get the AM1-alike el-cheapo SoC-based no-chipset mobos for AM4 Zen APUs like the 200GE? With nothing more than an ethernet PHY and maybe a sound chip onboard? 2x SATA and 1x M.2 PCI-E x4 provided by the CPU. ITX form-factor, of course. Should be doable for $40 or less, just like with AM1. (Most were under $35, some were under $30.) ECS could find a niche here, if they're even still around?

I'm itching to build some entry-level Linux Mint boxes, with current-gen / cutting-edge platform features, like AM4 Zen-based APUs, for under $200 total cost. (Prefer more like $150-175.)

200GE APU $55
ITX SoC AM4 mobo $35
1x 8GB DDR4-2667 DIMM $70
120GB SATA 2.5" SSD $25
or
128GB M.2 PCI-E NVMe SSD, as low as $35 thus far.

Cheap case+PSU combo $35 (Logisys, looking at you)

Total: $220-230

Linux: Free ($0 too)

Cutting-edge rig for $250 shipped

Larry, with all the money you are spending on low end stuff, you could build yourself a really nice system that will last you for years. But on your list you should have 2x4GB DDR4-2667 DIMMs as only 1 DIMM will cripple performance greatly. Also the 120/128 SSDs are kind of small unless you are using this for a Web Box or something that doesn't require lots of of storage.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Larry, with all the money you are spending on low end stuff, you could build yourself a really nice system that will last you for years. But on your list you should have 2x4GB DDR4-2667 DIMMs as only 1 DIMM will cripple performance greatly. Also the 120/128 SSDs are kind of small unless you are using this for a Web Box or something that doesn't require lots of of storage.

Well, yeah, it would be for a theoretical client web / Facebook box.

Therefore, I don't see the need for 2x 4GB DDR4-2667, there's not going to be any real gaming, and with only 2 CUs, I'm not certain that its that bandwidth-constrained, like the 8CU 2200G is. Think about it. 8CU requires 2 memory channels, therefore, you should be able to get comparable performance (in terms of available bandwidth per CU, or otherwise "same bottleneck") with 4CU with one memory channel, and with 2CU? Yeah, it won't matter if I use a single 2400 speed DIMM. But I'm a firm believer than even web boxes these days should come with 8GB of RAM.

As far as non-gaming boxes go, and running Linux, 128GB SSD should be way more than enough.


As far as my personal boxes go, going forward, nothing less than 6C/6T, preferably 6C/12T, 16GB of RAM, 32GB preferred, and a 240GB SSD for OS, preferably 480/500GB or more. If it's an ATX box, then a dGPU with at least 4GB VRAM, if it's a mini-PC, then being limited to the iGPU is acceptable.

 

[whm1974]

Well, yeah, it would be for a theoretical client web / Facebook box.

Therefore, I don't see the need for 2x 4GB DDR4-2667, there's not going to be any real gaming, and with only 2 CUs, I'm not certain that its that bandwidth-constrained, like the 8CU 2200G is. Think about it. 8CU requires 2 memory channels, therefore, you should be able to get comparable performance (in terms of available bandwidth per CU, or otherwise "same bottleneck") with 4CU with one memory channel, and with 2CU? Yeah, it won't matter if I use a single 2400 speed DIMM. But I'm a firm believer than even web boxes these days should come with 8GB of RAM.

As far as non-gaming boxes go, and running Linux, 128GB SSD should be way more than enough.


As far as my personal boxes go, going forward, nothing less than 6C/6T, preferably 6C/12T, 16GB of RAM, 32GB preferred, and a 240GB SSD for OS, preferably 480/500GB or more. If it's an ATX box, then a dGPU with at least 4GB VRAM, if it's a mini-PC, then being limited to the iGPU is acceptable.

I would wait for benchmarks first before buying the parts for a 200GE rig to see what the single vs dual channel performance is.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I would wait for benchmarks first before buying the parts for a 200GE rig to see what the single vs dual channel performance is.

I'll be sure to check.

But since we're only talking 2 Zen cores, and 3CUs, I don't think it'll matter much beyond benchmarking and edge cases.

Since the Athlon is limited to 2666MHz with SR, 2x SR and DR (2x DR is limited to 2400MHz), using a single DR DIMM might even be preferable from a latency point of view. I'd check, but I don't have any SR DDR4 DIMMs right now.

 

[Shivansps]

ill sure to check once we get them here.


While GTA V is an old game, the performance here is good.

Oh, they do have a LOT of videos.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV_FbbkkWz4KHNzMlmYO04A/videos

 

[Shivansps]

200Ge vs G4560 with a 1060

 

[LTC8K6]

The more modern $64 Pentium is the G5400.

For some reason they tested with a Vega64 though.

 

[CHADBOGA]

2200g all day, all night, over the 200ge.