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

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Insert_Nickname

Diamond Member
May 6, 2012
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DaveSimmons said:
Getting an i5-2500K class CPU + decent low end GPU for $60 with a combined 35 watt TDP is pretty nice.

If I was on a budget I'd pick this for my next music jukebox, but I'm now leaning towards spending much more for a tiny fanless NUC from Zotac or Azulle with an i5 laptop CPU.
Click to expand...

From what I'm seeing, 35W is a bit on the pessimistic side. 20-25W would about fit. In any case it's low enough I wouldn't have reservations about passive cooling, if there is a bit of airflow to go around.

You can get a passive heatsink for AM4 BTW. Supports up to 47W:

https://www.arctic.ac/eu_en/alpine-am4-passive.html
 
D

DaveSimmons

Elite Member
Aug 12, 2001
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Insert_Nickname said:
From what I'm seeing, 35W is a bit on the pessimistic side. 20-25W would about fit. In any case it's low enough I wouldn't have reservations about passive cooling, if there is a bit of airflow to go around.

You can get a passive heatsink for AM4 BTW. Supports up to 47W:

https://www.arctic.ac/eu_en/alpine-am4-passive.html
Click to expand...

Thanks! My thrifty nature tells me I should just get the 200GE and stuff it into a dusty old micro-ATX case from the closet, but I've wanted to build one of those fanless NUCs for several years now.
 
A

Abwx

Lifer
Apr 2, 2011
10,947
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A short but usefull review, i guess that an A320 MB should get even more closer of an average AM1 MB idle power..

https://www.golem.de/news/athlon-200ge-im-test-celeron-und-pentium-abgehaengt-1810-136829.html

Asus Prime B350/B360 Plus, 16 GByte DDR4, Seasonic 520W Titanium Fanless, Win10 x64 v1803, Intel 25.20.100.6323, RS 18.9.3 (Bild: Golem.de)

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07b-rocket-league,-mannfield-snowy-soccar-4vs4-replay-(1080p,-high-quality,-hq-fxaa),-avg-fps-chart.png
 
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Shivansps

Diamond Member
Sep 11, 2013
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That is a very interesting review, and really an very important point there, as the 200GE has AVX, it gets close or better perf than the pentiums in apps that use it. Thats clear on the video encoding, if the pentium had AVX the gap there should be large in favor of Intel.

And is a nice point there as Assassin Creed Odyssey does not work on Pentiums because they lack AVX and it does run on the 200GE.
 
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whm1974

Diamond Member
Jul 24, 2016
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Shivansps said:
That is a very interesting review, and really an very important point there, as the 200GE has AVX, it gets close or better perf than the pentiums in apps that use it. Thats clear on the video encoding, if the pentium had AVX the gap there should be large in favor of Intel.

And is a nice point there as Assassin Creed Odyssey does not work on Pentiums because they lack AVX and it does run on the 200GE.
Click to expand...
I wasn't aware that any games used AVX. Another good reason not buy a crippled Pentium...
 
S

SPBHM

Diamond Member
Sep 12, 2012
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the G4560 and higher are decently fast for gaming and lack AVX, same for older CPUs like the 6 core Xeons/980x, so yeah, it makes sense to patch it.

actually it's weird that the Pentium lacks AVX, I mean I can understand it for segmentation on the previous gen, when both the Pentium and i3s were dual core, but now the i3s are quad core, so there is less need for this kind of separation...

still, a nice bonus for the 200GE, a performance and compatibility boost.
 
S

Shivansps

Diamond Member
Sep 11, 2013
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It still probably a week or two until i can get me hands on the 200GE.

Im thinking about reeplacing both my AM1 and old Phenom X4 840 systems with a single 200GE.
 
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Maguila

Maguila

Junior Member
Oct 15, 2018
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Hi all!

As I have not seen a place for the presentations, I would like to introduce myself first since I am new to the forum and send a greeting to everyone. I hope to learn a lot in this community.

I am a user with some experience in the world of assembly from Spain.

I have come to this forum after having spent a week looking for a solution with my last configuration for a family member, I am having problems so that the m2 unit is detected

The setup
(When copying the titles the links were also copied, it is not spam or any type of affiliate, in case of being a problem I ask a moderator please remove the links or notify me to remove them myself, thanks)

Tacens Imperator USB 3.0 Negra

EVGA W1 500W 80 Plus

Asus PRIME B450M-A

AMD Athlon 200GE 3.2GHz Socket AM4

Mushkin Essentials DDR4 PC4-19200 2400 8GB 1x8GB CL17

Samsung SSD 970 EVO NVMe M.2 250 GB

In the beginning, when I saw that I could not detect it, try to make all the possible configurations (cms, uefi setup, etc) without result. Also update the bios to the latest version, but without results.

The m2 unit can not be detected at any time, it does not appear in the BIOS or in the windows uefi installation, so boring and without possibility of testing in another setup, I decided to change the unit m2 in warranty, seeing that the motherboard did not show any behavior anomalo, suspect the unit ....

I receive the new unit m2 completely sealed in its box, after installing it, the same result, the unit is not detected :(

I try to contact the support of asus to ask about the motherboard and the configurations for m2, but the only thing they tell me is that this unit does not appear in the list of compatible units certified by them and that is why it is not compatible. (Go silly technical service, have to listen to this after 15 years riding computers, it's painful)

After trying with Asus, try with the store where I am buying the pieces, pccomponentes, do not understand that it does not work because at first they do not see compatibility problems analyzing the pieces, after discarding the unit m2, they ask me please send the motherboard for the warranty, just received today the new motherboard recently, I have not yet installed but when has it mounted, will update the results.

And after all this history is how I have come to this community, I am squeezing the maximum information available but I'm still not sure, that with the new motherboard is solved.

UPDATE:
A friend has just arrived and telling him the story I think I have found the solution to the problem.

I think they have updated it recently, but I have just discovered that the features on the official website and the Spanish one are not the same and the Spanish one is incomplete.

Spanish web asus (same that pccomponentes)

289v1gj.png


Global web asus
2dl22qa.png


it can now be clearly seen that with the new athlon it only has a sata mode
 
ao_ika_red

ao_ika_red

Golden Member
Aug 11, 2016
1,679
715
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Just be advised that this 200GE is a repackaged 2200u mobile APU. So, it would be wise if you could do some research about said laptop's features.
 
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VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,339
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126
Maguila said:
Global web asus
2dl22qa.png


it can now be clearly seen that with the new athlon it only has a sata mode
Click to expand...

Hmm, I was wondering about that. If the PCI-E x16 slot only gets four lanes from the Athlon 200GE, instead of 16, I wondered about the "extra" dedicated four lanes for the PCI-E 3.0 x4 M.2 NVMe slot. Looks like either they're not there, on the Athlon 200GE, in which case, it won't work with M.2 with ANY board, unless you use a PCI-E to M.2 NVMe card, and use up your x16 (physical) slot for it.

Very disappointing if true, because I could really see some use case for business systems, using StoreMI, a 32GB Optane drive, and a decent-sized HDD, for a business box.

Edit: To be sure, though, it probably has the four lanes for the chipset, which means that any chipset-connected M.2 PCI-E 2.0 x2 slots SHOULD work, albeit at a slower speed than the main dedicated M.2 PCI-E NVMe slot.
 
I

Insert_Nickname

Diamond Member
May 6, 2012
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VirtualLarry said:
Hmm, I was wondering about that. If the PCI-E x16 slot only gets four lanes from the Athlon 200GE, instead of 16, I wondered about the "extra" dedicated four lanes for the PCI-E 3.0 x4 M.2 NVMe slot. Looks like either they're not there, on the Athlon 200GE, in which case, it won't work with M.2 with ANY board, unless you use a PCI-E to M.2 NVMe card, and use up your x16 (physical) slot for it.
Click to expand...

They're there. My AB350M Pro4 recognised an M.2 drive in the primary slot (Ultra M.2, Intel Optane 32GB), and ran the OS from it. Due to other circumstances detailed it was just so unstable as to be unusable. Nothing to do with the drive itself.

As to whether or how its implemented on a particular board, your guess is as good as mine.
 
VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,339
10,044
126
Ok, so where are these? They're seemingly rarer than even Intel 8086K CPUs. I guess AMD doesn't have that many defective dies to make these CPUs from. Or they're binning them to release the 220GE and 240GE, and there's no bad dies left over for the 200GE.

Edit: Or, maybe, the branded OEMs and business systems and AIO producers are sucking them up.
 
W

whm1974

Diamond Member
Jul 24, 2016
9,460
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VirtualLarry said:
Ok, so where are these? They're seemingly rarer than even Intel 8086K CPUs. I guess AMD doesn't have that many defective dies to make these CPUs from. Or they're binning them to release the 220GE and 240GE, and there's no bad dies left over for the 200GE.

Edit: Or, maybe, the branded OEMs and business systems and AIO producers are sucking them up.
Click to expand...
Well there is a market for low cost entry level computers and also a market for low TDP CPUs as well. Especially for one with a decent amount of performance for it's TDP rating.
 
Jan Olšan

Jan Olšan

Senior member
Jan 12, 2017
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alfatekpt said:
I was looking for a cheap motherboard to pair with 200GE and I found this warning: https://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/A320M-HDV/index.asp#Specification

"If you use Athlon 200GE APU, DVI-D port will be disabled."
Click to expand...

alfatekpt said:
That mobo has dvi, vga and HDMI. Only dvi is disabled when using the 200GE.

For me this seems so weird but yeah, clearly something is missing on that chip. It's just weird since it's yet another small detail where the chip can fit the motherboard but then some things don't work. It's a cheap CPU but not sure if it's worth the confusion
Click to expand...

It seems that this DVI incompatibility was just an unresolved firmware issue. TPU writes that according to ASRock, it has since been fixed with a BIOS update.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Athlon_200_GE/18.html
We've seen some reports of DVI monitor outputs not working on cheap ASRock A320 boards with the Athlon 200GE specifically, which ASRock has confirmed to us has been fixed with a recent BIOS update. All Athlon 200GE processors support three active displays at the same time.
Click to expand...
-------------------------------------
Oh, also,

VirtualLarry said:
Ok, so where are these? They're seemingly rarer than even Intel 8086K CPUs.
Click to expand...

The leaked slides from Videocardz (see second last page) suggested that the initial supply was 200K units, but half of that was for China and almost all of the rest went to Europe, Asia, South America and other countries. USA and Canada supposedly got just 5000 pieces distributed, so that is likely why it was unavailable while in EU, there's no problem at all finding one at MSRP.
 
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