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

Page 18 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,230
9,990
126
1550061381745.png
That's the Passmark 9.0 score, for a rig, with an Athlon 200GE, overclocked to 3.90Ghz in BIOS/UEFI, on an MSI B350 Bazooka micro-ATX mobo, with UEFI 1J0, and Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-2667 2x4GB kit, and a Patriot Scorch 256GB M.2 PCI-E x2 NVMe SSD, running Windows 10 64-bit Pro 1809.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,230
9,990
126
Ok, now struggling with Linux on this A200GE rig. Got Linux Mint 19.1 Cinnamon 64-bit installed, then updated to 4.19.21 kernel, updated userspace, updated AMD drivers, installed Skype, finally got my camera connected.

Seeing if this "Freezes" like Linux Mint is prone to doing on Raven Ridge. Hopefully the new AMD GPU driver PPAs helped.

Oh, no "static" screens on mode-set or HDMI connection, like the Windows 10 drivers do. Both Linux and Windows' behavior is independent of whether or not I have this APU clocked at 3.2Ghz or 3.8-3.9Ghz. Although, @ 3.9, Linux didn't want to install, and kept freezing. (I had previously installed Windows 10 at 3.80Ghz and 1.40V.)

Edit: Update, I've discovered that I'm running in 3840x2160 30Hz mode, on my display. And the "Display" Widget in Settings on Mint, doesn't have a "Refresh Rate" option. My friend says it's there on his, but he's running Mate, and I'm running Cinnamon. Oversight by the programmers? Or something lacking in the AMD driver version I'm running? I installed some PPA for more up-to-date AMD GPU drivers.
 
Last edited:

whm1974

Diamond Member
Jul 24, 2016
9,460
1,570
96
Ok, now struggling with Linux on this A200GE rig. Got Linux Mint 19.1 Cinnamon 64-bit installed, then updated to 4.19.21 kernel, updated userspace, updated AMD drivers, installed Skype, finally got my camera connected.

Seeing if this "Freezes" like Linux Mint is prone to doing on Raven Ridge. Hopefully the new AMD GPU driver PPAs helped.

Oh, no "static" screens on mode-set or HDMI connection, like the Windows 10 drivers do. Both Linux and Windows' behavior is independent of whether or not I have this APU clocked at 3.2Ghz or 3.8-3.9Ghz. Although, @ 3.9, Linux didn't want to install, and kept freezing.
Use Manjaro and update the kernel to the 4.20.x series and try that. While I am promoting Arch based Manjaro here, maybe you will have better luck with it.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,230
9,990
126
Ok, I built another one.

DIYPC ATX case, RGB LED rear fan, RGB LED vertical strips down the front, pretty bling-y. Tempered glass side-panel too.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811353157&ignorebbr=1
MSI B350 Bazooka micro-ATX AM4 mobo
Athlon 200GE AM4 APU
Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x4GB DDR4-2667 kit (Black)
Patriot "Scorch" 256GB M.2 PCI-E x2 NVMe SSD
SeaSonic S12II 520W ATX PSU (80Plus Bronze, 5-year warranty, I think, maybe just 3.)

Overclocked to 1.40V, 3.80Ghz (38.0 multi) in BIOS.

Installed Win10 64-bit Pro 1809 (while overclocked). Installed AMD driver 19.1.1, and before that, newest Chipset drivers for B350.

Guess what? No weird "static screens" over the HDMI.

I'm wondering now, if I had overclocked the previous A200GE MSI OC Win10 box to 3.90Ghz before I installed the AMD drivers? Because, Linux Mint 19.1 wouldn't install at 3.90Ghz, it would hard-freeze, I had to clock it back down to 3.80Ghz.

I'm going to re-install Win10 on the first box, at 3.80Ghz, and try again.

Edit: No go. I used a Win10 USB to re-format the main partition and re-install to it, then I followed the procedure that I followed with the "working" (no static) system, but... this rig still has 7 screens of static before it settles down. It's not an HDMI cable issue, it's not a display issue, it doesn't appear to affect Linux Mint 19.1 at all, just the Windows' drivers, and just that particular rig. The mobo doesn't want to re-start properly either. Have to power-off and power-on to reboot to access BIOS, or re-start Windows 10. I'm pretty sure I disabled Fast Startup in Win10. Maybe the PSU is bad? It's pretty-much new, but it's a Rosewill. Works in Linux fine though. Maybe I'll try re-flashing the firmware on the mobo.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: lightmanek

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,583
10,785
136
Doubt it's the PSU (otherwise you would see problems under Linux). I would think it's the chipset drivers.
 

Shivansps

Diamond Member
Sep 11, 2013
3,835
1,514
136
Due to some developments ill have to sell my 1700 and get a 200GE for a few months at least (im gona keep my RX480), the other option was to sell everything and settle with a 2400G.

So some unlucky 200GE gona get overclocked like hell.
 

NostaSeronx

Diamond Member
Sep 18, 2011
3,683
1,218
136
For what I know right now, if you see Intel as too expensive, then the Athlon 200GE is the best product to buy. It is the perfect placeholder for the product in below speculation.


[Speculation]
The next Athlon on N7+ is possibly a monster and hopefully is socket compatible. This Athlon is suspected to be in the same price range at Athlon 200GE through Athlon 240GE.

Zen -> Zen
Improved Zen -> Zen+
Enhanced Zen -> Zen2
Next-generation Zen -> Zen3

My expectation is the upcoming Athlon will skip Zen2/Vega. In turn will use two Zen3 cores and eight Navi CUs. Of course, it will be in a hybrid CCX as my guess in below imgur;


Not to size or anything. As;
Zen3 cores will each have 1 MB L2 caches.
The Navi engine will have two 512 KB L2 caches, with each 512KB going to four CUs.
The L3 in the middle is 4 MB. With the directory cache possibly taking up space somewhere.

3 CU + 5 CUs => 8 CUs
11 CUs + 5 CUs => 16 CUs <-- N7+ big APU. In which, it uses two of the above CCXs. <== This however is for another day. As this will be done slightly different than the single CCX. The change here is what will allow the chiplet GPU to happen. Renoir(Zen2/Vega) and Small APU in 2020 and Big APU and Small APU(Improved) 2021.
 
Last edited:

amd6502

Senior member
Apr 21, 2017
971
360
136
I don't think Athlons are going to make it to 7nm Nosta.

On an unrelated note, are there volunteers here for performing a 220ge or 240ge athlon delidding? I just checked newegg and they're actually physically available (at 70 and $80).
 

Insert_Nickname

Diamond Member
May 6, 2012
4,971
1,691
136
I don't think Athlons are going to make it to 7nm Nosta.

Since AMD is using the Athlon brand as a dumping ground for salvage dies, eventually they might. I'm not going to hold my breath for it to happen though. With the chiplet setup, there cant be an awful lot of marginal dies usable for this.
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,583
10,785
136
Since AMD is using the Athlon brand as a dumping ground for salvage dies, eventually they might. I'm not going to hold my breath for it to happen though. With the chiplet setup, there cant be an awful lot of marginal dies usable for this.

Depends on what AMD does with Renoir. If it is built along the same lines as Picasso, then AMD will create a separate die that may have cores, iGPU, and I/O all in one. The salvage dice from Renoir would become Athlons. Given that Renoir will probably find its way into laptops, I am inclined to believe that AMD will go the separate route, just as they did with Raven Ridge and Picasso.
 

LightningZ71

Golden Member
Mar 10, 2017
1,627
1,898
136
I thought that AMD had announced somewhere recently, maybe in an interview, that they were going to be producing a specific die in the future for smaller, low cost products that had only two cores and a minimal iGPU. It was to be targeted at the embedded, mobile, and Athlon market. Since it looks like AMD has a longer term plan to move the main APU lineup to 7nm for next year in a monolithic die, they may be able to leverage GF's 12nmFF production for such a small and low cost product. That cut down would be roughly half or less the total area of the existing Raven Ridge/Picasso die. On the higher end, with a more mature 7nm process, AMD may be willing to take the risk of making a premium APU that has 8 cores in 2 CCXs along with a 12-14 CU gpu using DDR5 (as the extra CUs would be there to take advantage of the higher bandwidth offered by DDR5). All of that crammed in there would leave them with a die that's roughly the size of the existing raven ridge die, but on 7nm. What AMD will run up against is the fact that this "value" die will be more expensive for them to manufacture than the components of their premium desktop line due to its size.
 
  • Like
Reactions: amd6502

moinmoin

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2017
4,934
7,620
136
I thought that AMD had announced somewhere recently, maybe in an interview, that they were going to be producing a specific die in the future for smaller, low cost products that had only two cores and a minimal iGPU. It was to be targeted at the embedded, mobile, and Athlon market.
Banded Kestrel should have been that. Instead we only got Horned Owl/Raven Ridge and the Banded Kestrel class (Athlon) was served with salvaged Raven Ridge dies.

What AMD will run up against is the fact that this "value" die will be more expensive for them to manufacture than the components of their premium desktop line due to its size.
Prolly that already happened with Banded Kestrel. Honestly the whole APU range itself is already quite the low profit value package compared to all the other Zen based products. The only chance I see for a smaller dedicated Banded Kestrel class die to happen is a sizable ODM requesting (and paying) such through AMD's semi-custom business.
 
  • Like
Reactions: amd6502

Abwx

Lifer
Apr 2, 2011
10,854
3,298
136
Dunno what Lisa Su had exactly in mind but when asked if AMD could release products that are currently still unannouced in their roadmap she answered something like "perhaps", "possibly".

If there s such a last minute release it s probable that it s something that not only wont depart from what they have but should be also not ressources hungry, wich point to low cost APUs/GPUs based on the more expensive designs.
 
  • Like
Reactions: amd6502

lightmanek

Senior member
Feb 19, 2017
387
754
136
I'm joining the party with my soon to arrive 200GE destined to be home micro server for hosting files and services. It will replace Athlon 5350 which started to act up (most likely motherboard issue).
As this system is also my CCTV DVR (AxxonNext) I'm expecting good improvement in responsiveness of this behemoth program!
 
  • Like
Reactions: amd6502

cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
12,968
221
106
Fanless build that comes with 200GE:

http://www.fanlesstech.com/2019/04/quiet-pc-nofan-a830a-silent-pc.html

nofan2.jpg


(Would like to apply something this to the existing idea of placeholder build.)
 
Last edited:

Shivansps

Diamond Member
Sep 11, 2013
3,835
1,514
136
I don't think Athlons are going to make it to 7nm Nosta.

At this point im convinced AMD will make a true dual core, and as such it be 7nm. Its too early to say anything else as i expect the rest of the Athlons to be quad cores.

And im going to say it right here, it is a HUGE MISTAKE to make a true dual core with just 3CU, they are going to get outperformed by next gen Atoms. I hope AMD realise this and go for a little more than 3CU.
 
Last edited:

whm1974

Diamond Member
Jul 24, 2016
9,460
1,570
96
At this point im convinced AMD will make a true dual core, and as such it might get to 7nm. Its too early to say anything else as i expect the rest of the Athlons to be quad cores on 7nm.


And im going to say it right here, it is a HUGE MISTAKE to make a true dual core with just 3CU, they are going to get outperformed by next gen Atoms. I hope AMD realise this and go for a little more than 3CU.
They should have went with 6 CUs instead of 3. However with 7nm nodes, it may not be worthwhile to both with anything less then 4 CPU cores.
 
  • Like
Reactions: amd6502

Shivansps

Diamond Member
Sep 11, 2013
3,835
1,514
136
They should have went with 6 CUs instead of 3. However with 7nm nodes, it may not be worthwhile to both with anything less then 4 CPU cores.

Well 2C/4T is not that bad really, AMD could have made a 2c/4t Athlon with Vega 11 and the bottleneck would still be the DDR4. Im not sure what AMD will do 2C and 3CU on 7nm sounds like insanely small and cheap to the point someone could made a RPI-like board for less than $100 with it. but i just cant ignore the fact that next gen Atoms are going to have more IGP power than current Intel desktop CPUs, AMD should not understimate that if they wish to compete on Chromebooks and cheap Notebooks that are currently dominated by Atoms.

The same applies to future Sunny Cove Celerons on PCs. 3CU whiles its cheap, sounds like a huge mistake to me, to me it needs to be 6CU minimum.