AMD is expanding its desktop processor lineup with a new set of low-cost, low-power processors. The new Athlon 200GE, Athlon 220GE, and Athlon 240GE are based on the same Zen architecture as AMD’s more powerful Ryzen CPUs. But these are budget chips with prices starting at $55 for an entry-level model.
The chips also have AMD Radeon Vega graphics baked in.
If that sounds like a lot of bang for the buck, you’re not wrong. But AMD did cut some corners in order to bring down the price. There’s a reason the company is slapping the Athlon label on these chips rather than the Ryzen name.
AMD hasn’t revealed detailed specs for the Athlon 220GE or 240GE. We should know more about those processors in the coming months. But the Athlon 200GE will be available starting September 18th and AMD has already provided some details about the new chip.
It’s a dual-core, 4-thread processor. It’s a 35W chip. It has a base frequency of 3.2 GHz. And it features Vega graphics with 3 compute units.
In other words, it sits somewhere below the Ryzen 3 2200GE processor that was unveiled earlier this year. That chip is also a 3.2 GHz Zen processor with Vega graphics and a 35W TDP. But it’s a quad-core processor (without hyperthreading) and it has 8 Vega compute units.
That said, the new Athlon 200GE still offers a pretty big performance jump over AMD’s previous-gen budget desktop chips.
The company says it brings “up to 169 percent more responsive computing” than an AMD A6-9500E processor.
AMD also offers a few comparison points with Intel’s Pentium G4560 Kaby Lake processor: the Athlon 200GE offers up to 67 percent better graphics performance, up to 84 percent faster HD gaming, and up to 100 percent better power efficiency. It’s probably best to take those comparisons with a grain of salt, since AMD could cherry pick the benchmarks that makes its chip look best. But the integrated Vega graphics alone should make the Athlon chip pretty competitive with Intel’s similarly-priced Pentium processor.
The chip maker is also introducing a Pro version, clverly called the AMD Athlon Pro 200GE. It offers enhanced security and reliability features and it’s being launched alongside new 2nd-gen Ryzen Pro desktop chips including a new Ryzen 5 Pro 2600, Ryzen 7 Pro 2700, and Ryzen 7 Pro 2700X.
AMD Athlon PRO Desktop Processor and 2nd Generation AMD Ryzen PRO Desktop Processors Line-up:
| MODEL | Cores | Threads | Clock Speed Max Boost/Base (GHz) | Cache | TDP (Watts) | Graphics Compute Unit |
| AMD Athlon™ PRO 200GE | 2 | 4 | 3.2 | 5MB | 35W | 3 |
| AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 2700X | 8 | 16 | 4.1/3.6 | 20MB | 105W | N/A |
| AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 2700 | 8 | 16 | 4.1/3.2 | 20MB | 65W | N/A |
| AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 2600 | 6 | 12 | 3.9/3.4 | 19MB | 65W | N/A |
Will these new Athlons come with a fan? If so, I wonder whether it would it be the Wraith Stealth or an even cheaper cheaper variant.
Too bad mini-itx AM4 board so expensive. Would be a nice HTPC build.
With those cheap Athlons out there, we might start seeing cheaper mini itx AM4 motherboards.
I agree. It’s virtually impossible to find a decent Mini-ITX board that’s AMD powered. Also, most small AMD boards only support single channel memory. A Mini-ITX board with one of these and dual channnel memory with two 8gb DDR4L memory modules would be the perfect setup!
Anyone know where I can purchase one of these AMD Ryzen 3 2200GE processors? I’ve been looking for months to no avail. Appreciate any help…
Based on Anandtech’s article, for the new AMD CPUs and a table of models there, the 2200GE and 2400GE are not available in retail. They are released, but not in retail. Maybe in the future if AMD has enough stock of them, they might release them.
Quiet PC in the UK has them. I think they ship international. https://www.quietpc.com/amd-2nd-gen-ryzen-cpus