AMD’s Raven Ridge APUs are only a few days from launching, but a budget Athlon version could be waiting in the wings. It seems AMD are already testing a potential new addition to the lineup based on the same APU architecture – the AMD Athlon 200GE. It has been spotted by ComputerBase on the SiSoft Sandra database, potentially indicating AMD’s return to the ultra low-end desktop market.
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AMD’s Athlon processors have been in deep-sleep since the last iteration with the X4 processors. While these straight-up CPUs feature four cores and four threads, the Athlon 200GE is reported on the SiSoft database with only two multithreaded cores totalling four threads – although these are based upon hugely differing architectures. You do, however, receive Radeon Vega Graphics, too.
The SiSoft database lists the AMD Athlon 200GE with Radeon Vega Graphics with a clockspeed of – likely up to – 3.2GHz. It also features 4MB of L3 cache. The platform this processor was tested on was also used to test an AMD A6-9500E APU from a generation previous – so we can likely assume this new entry to similarly be a desktop AM4 compatible chip.
The Athlon 200GE shows some parity to the Ryzen 3 2200U Raven Ridge mobile APU. This APU features the same core and thread count, a 2.5GHz base clock and 3.4GHz boost clock, a 15W TDP, and comes with Radeon Vega 3 graphics. If the Athlon 200GE featured the same GPU core it would feature 192 stream processors.
With the current first generation Ryzen chips lowest price somewhere around $100, AMD could be bring the Athlon name back to fill in the sub-$100 market and compete with Intel’s Pentium and Celeron processors. As such, you shouldn’t expect any particularly capable performance from the integrated graphics, which will likely be capable of smooth video playback and little else more visually-intensive.
For AMD, a cheaper Athlon offering could mark a complete product stack alongside their Ryzen CPUs and Raven Ridge APUs. It makes sense now that AMD’s processors are a little more established at the high-end for AMD to attempt to pull away some market share from Intel’s dominant low-end processors – which have been left largely unchallenged for some time thanks to the stunted launch of AMD’s Bristol Ridge.