This isn't meant to compete with the i5-8xxxK or i7/i9 CPUs, so no, it's not unlocked. If you're looking for an affordable overclock-ready APU, go for the Ryzen 5 G series.
I wonder if this will allow ECC on boards that have the traces for it. Would make a great NAS processor if you don't need the 4 cores of the 2200/2400GE.
From what I understand, ECC was broken on the raven ridge APU's. People thought that it would be fixed with the pro line, but it was not. So why would it be fixed on this Athlon?
I was thinking the same thing. Everything's got to be less than the entry-level Ryzen G, so I'm thinking they stay at 2 cores/4 threads with a locked clock, and maybe add a CU or two as you go up, and possibly slightly better clock.
Still, that's it's nuts to think they'll have a total of 4 APUs between $55-$99 SEP - that's a lot of chips separated by like, the cost of a burrito.
I feel like that should be the new metric for cost difference in computer parts. Well, I really want a 2080, but that's like 33 burritos more than I expected!
hmm 2 core 4 thread, IMO they should have targeted 3.4Ghz at minimum (so basically a modernized Phenom II 965) I am with others that state should be "unlocked" likely that "ability" costs ZERO to enable seeing as it is built on Zen core
It's not about the cost of enabling overclocking (should just be a microcode thing, no?). It is about possibly cannibalizing the sales of more expansive CPUs/APUs. That's been the whole reason why Intels CPU structure is like it is. It does not cost them more to enable certain features in production. It costs them more in lost sales of higher end items.
I'm fine with this SKU as it is. If I wanted a performance-ish orientated processor, I'd spring for a 4c one with better graphics. The higher price would not matter much when building a whole system for me and the resale/reuse value is much greater. If I were to build something with this processor, I'd likely leave it as is anyway, since the extra performance would not matter much in the use case (NAS/server/router type thing) and the lower power draw would be meaningful when running 24/7.
So this SKU is for placing chips that need a lot of voltage to be reliable, I guess, since they can make 35W with a more cores/CUs. I'm guessing that as such they wouldn't be much risk of overclocking unless demand turns out to be high and a bunch of chips end up in this SKU that bin a lot higher, in which case they could alternatively be a fair amount lower than 35W if there was demand for such an SKU.
I assume the target is just cheap cheap builds, but I could see myself potentially buying one with the following thought:
My son (11) is rocking an ancient hand-me-down setup. I just put an already old R9 285 into it to replace the deprecated 6770 where he was starting to have some issues with drivers as he's playing things besides Minecraft. I know I need to replace mobo/RAM/CPU/HDD, but I'm not anxious to spend that much money all at once. One possible plan would be to buy a nice mobo/RAM and drop one of these in it for $55 and then buy a higher end Ryzen later, or let him aspire to that and save up for it or something.
I have an 11 year old as well and this processor with the R9 285 would be just fine with 8 gigs of RAM. Unless he was on a display with a resolution over 1080p. Should last him two years and then throw in a 6 or more core processor and a used gtx 1060
With the price and capabilities being so severely cut, is this a new die? I guess not. If not: the bigger models could easily go for 4 or 5 CUs to make some meaningful difference, not just the few % clock speed that intel usually uses.
There used to be a rumour saying AMD had a 2/4 CPU + 3GPU as a stand alone die. Given the potential volume on this SKU, it would make sense its an independent die.
AMD isn't exactly spectacular at naming chips let alone marketing. They really need to work on marketing like "Intel Inside". I really like the tweaking of element names like Xeon or Radeon. I half thought EPYC would be Zeneon before it came out since its tweaking Neon the same way they tweaked Radon for there GPU line.
The 35W TDP is too high for the 2 CPUs and 3 CUs at the given speeds. Maybe its a conservative number though 15-20W would be a more realistic target and open up the gates to simpler cooling options that desktop hardware has been sorely lacking in recent years.
How many Intel desktop CPUs have that sort of TDP? It does not make much sense to offer a socketed CPU/APU with lower/similar TDP to most notebook versions. If you care that much about power, just UV it. I ran a Llano A6-3500 65W on a 60W PSU by undervolting it from 1.4V to 1.075V. So they could have sold the chip as a 35W TDP one most likely. But not every A6-3500 would have been able to do that, so they would have needed a better binning process and more SKUs. Why muddy the water for little gain to AMD? I'd much rather see some mainboards with integrated mobile Ryzen APUs, similar to the Biostar A68 series. 150 to 200€ for a mSTX soldered Ryzen APU mainboard would be great.
It's for particular use-cases. Think small servers which may be built-to-order or available in configurations as a NAS or a compute box. For the first role, this kind of chip is entirely sufficient. Indeed, it would have been great to see this in HP's MicroServer Gen 10. But you might well want to upgrade it in the future, or on the manufacturing line, in which case a socket is beneficial.
Don't know about the logo but I'm mad they missed the chance to name this part Duron, and the upcoming ones - Athlon. I'd have bought a Duron in 2018 just for old times' sake; would've made a glass stand for the chip and kept it on my desk.
I'm pleased to see the return of the Athlon name. I don't miss Duron, Sempron, Phenom or Turion though - maybe Opteron a little. Athlon is to AMD as Pentium is to Intel.
These parts are surely made from "failed" Raven Ridge dies in the first instance, with too many defects to make it as either a 2200G or a 2400G. That's a perfectly sound strategy and reduces waste. The locked clock also makes perfect sense.
Oh, and there have been Athlons with integrated GPUs before, namely the socket AM1 Kabini series, such as the Athlon 5350. I bought a number of those for various projects and I envisage buying the new Athlons and A320 motherboards for similar projects in the future.
"First gen zen". So it is almost certainly a cut down Raven Ridge and not only not a new mask, but unlikely to be replaced by a new mask as well (I'm surprised Raven Ridge is a gen1 zen, but it kept them on schedule and makes money).
I wonder how serious AMD is about this. With a vega 3, it really can't compete with Intel. With 5, it is getting just behind a G4920 (naively a 6 is needed, but with any sort of bandwidth scaling 5 should be enough. Then again OEMs at this level will likely try to get away using a single slot of RAM, so you're back to needing 6).
The whole issue of this chip's future (and whether or not it ever gets made into a chip half the size of Raven Ridge or simply remains a chip that is half disabled) will likely depend on how many "less than fully competitive" wafers AMD is stuck buying from GF. Both sides may be more than happy to waste twice the wafers/fab time rather than pay the price of building a new mask.
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Alistair - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
locked ?!?mamisano - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
Yeah, locked according to their specs page: https://www.amd.com/en/products/specifications/pro...T1beriu - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
You serious? It's $55. You want all the bells and whistles at this low price?cfenton - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
That's been the case for AMD's low end for a while now. The whole Bristol Ridge line of Athlons were locked, so was the X4 845.kaidenshi - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
This isn't meant to compete with the i5-8xxxK or i7/i9 CPUs, so no, it's not unlocked. If you're looking for an affordable overclock-ready APU, go for the Ryzen 5 G series.Jimster480 - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link
Even the 2200G is overclockable though...And the Ryzen 3 1200...
So at $99 they already have a number of attractive options.
This is just to compete with Pentium and have a lower priced SKU.
beginning - Thursday, December 6, 2018 - link
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/281645-new-msi...Eletriarnation - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
I wonder if this will allow ECC on boards that have the traces for it. Would make a great NAS processor if you don't need the 4 cores of the 2200/2400GE.mamisano - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
Agreed. Already thinking about this with ECC to upgrade my Nas4Free box running ZFS.Jimster480 - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link
Same here.I've been waiting for this chip to come out for 6 months now so that I can upgrade my NAS.
John_M - Sunday, September 9, 2018 - link
Which AM4 motherboards are known to have the traces though and, more importantly, have the BIOS support for ECC RAM?Ad-Man-Gamer - Monday, December 3, 2018 - link
From what I understand, ECC was broken on the raven ridge APU's. People thought that it would be fixed with the pro line, but it was not. So why would it be fixed on this Athlon?MonkeyPaw - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
Makes me wonder what the other 2 Athlon tiers will be. Better clocks? More CUs?psychobriggsy - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
Certainly better (but fixed) clocks for the CPU.Prediction, assuming all are 35W:
220GE - 3.5GHz 3CU $69 (perhaps graphics clocked a bit higher too)
240GE - 3.5GHz 5CU $82
I presume the price includes a cheap-ass cooler of some kind as well.
sing_electric - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link
I was thinking the same thing. Everything's got to be less than the entry-level Ryzen G, so I'm thinking they stay at 2 cores/4 threads with a locked clock, and maybe add a CU or two as you go up, and possibly slightly better clock.Still, that's it's nuts to think they'll have a total of 4 APUs between $55-$99 SEP - that's a lot of chips separated by like, the cost of a burrito.
Midwayman - Wednesday, September 12, 2018 - link
I feel like that should be the new metric for cost difference in computer parts. Well, I really want a 2080, but that's like 33 burritos more than I expected!PeachNCream - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
Typo: "Everyone lines discussing headlines:"Maybe "Everyone likes discussing headlines:"
Dragonstongue - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
hmm 2 core 4 thread, IMO they should have targeted 3.4Ghz at minimum (so basically a modernized Phenom II 965) I am with others that state should be "unlocked" likely that "ability" costs ZERO to enable seeing as it is built on Zen coreDeath666Angel - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link
It's not about the cost of enabling overclocking (should just be a microcode thing, no?). It is about possibly cannibalizing the sales of more expansive CPUs/APUs. That's been the whole reason why Intels CPU structure is like it is. It does not cost them more to enable certain features in production. It costs them more in lost sales of higher end items.I'm fine with this SKU as it is. If I wanted a performance-ish orientated processor, I'd spring for a 4c one with better graphics. The higher price would not matter much when building a whole system for me and the resale/reuse value is much greater. If I were to build something with this processor, I'd likely leave it as is anyway, since the extra performance would not matter much in the use case (NAS/server/router type thing) and the lower power draw would be meaningful when running 24/7.
Jimster480 - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link
Thats exactly what I was thinking.I'm just glad they have an SKU to compete now.
T1beriu - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
Tomshardware has 2 slides that show 95W TDP for Ryzen PRO 2700X.Colin1497 - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
So this SKU is for placing chips that need a lot of voltage to be reliable, I guess, since they can make 35W with a more cores/CUs. I'm guessing that as such they wouldn't be much risk of overclocking unless demand turns out to be high and a bunch of chips end up in this SKU that bin a lot higher, in which case they could alternatively be a fair amount lower than 35W if there was demand for such an SKU.I assume the target is just cheap cheap builds, but I could see myself potentially buying one with the following thought:
My son (11) is rocking an ancient hand-me-down setup. I just put an already old R9 285 into it to replace the deprecated 6770 where he was starting to have some issues with drivers as he's playing things besides Minecraft. I know I need to replace mobo/RAM/CPU/HDD, but I'm not anxious to spend that much money all at once. One possible plan would be to buy a nice mobo/RAM and drop one of these in it for $55 and then buy a higher end Ryzen later, or let him aspire to that and save up for it or something.
Random thoughts....
Colin1497 - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
Ug, did that as a reply to you. Wish Anandtech would upgrade its comments section. I can't even delete it.Zoridon - Tuesday, September 11, 2018 - link
I have an 11 year old as well and this processor with the R9 285 would be just fine with 8 gigs of RAM. Unless he was on a display with a resolution over 1080p. Should last him two years and then throw in a 6 or more core processor and a used gtx 1060regis440 - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link
Indeed Ian you have error in Pro table. For Ryzen 7 Pro 2700X there should be 95W TDP and turbo at 4.1GHz.MrSpadge - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
With the price and capabilities being so severely cut, is this a new die? I guess not. If not: the bigger models could easily go for 4 or 5 CUs to make some meaningful difference, not just the few % clock speed that intel usually uses.iwod - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
1. Is this Quad Core with two disabled? Or an Actual Dual Core + Vega on the same Die ?2. Is this Vega as in Vega on Desktop or Vega M on Intel - AMD Chip where the Vega is actually Polaris.
3. I wonder if there will be mobile version, around 25W TDP.
4. They are preparing up to 200K for launch and than 20K every month. That sounds to me like they are using as much of the GF capacity possible.
5. I would really like to see this benchmarked against i5-5257U, the Broadwell era of Intel with Iris graphics.
Apple could have made a MacMini out of this for $499.
nitin213 - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
There used to be a rumour saying AMD had a 2/4 CPU + 3GPU as a stand alone die. Given the potential volume on this SKU, it would make sense its an independent die.Jimster480 - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link
This SKU is already in the laptop as Ryzen 3 2200U.2/4 w/ Vega 3.
FreckledTrout - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
AMD isn't exactly spectacular at naming chips let alone marketing. They really need to work on marketing like "Intel Inside". I really like the tweaking of element names like Xeon or Radeon. I half thought EPYC would be Zeneon before it came out since its tweaking Neon the same way they tweaked Radon for there GPU line.Mr Perfect - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
My immediate thought is HTPC use. I wonder if this has enough grunt to do 4K HDR decode at 60Hz?cfenton - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
It should still have the hardware decode abilities of the Ryzen APUs. If so, it can do 4K60, though I'm not sure about HDR.Jimster480 - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link
Definitely can do 4K 60 w/ HDR. I know that my 2200G has no problems with it, its around 20% CPU usage max.Meaning this would use around 40%?
PeachNCream - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
The 35W TDP is too high for the 2 CPUs and 3 CUs at the given speeds. Maybe its a conservative number though 15-20W would be a more realistic target and open up the gates to simpler cooling options that desktop hardware has been sorely lacking in recent years.iwod - Thursday, September 6, 2018 - link
This is a desktop part. I think anything lower would be aiming for slim / mobile parts.Death666Angel - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link
How many Intel desktop CPUs have that sort of TDP? It does not make much sense to offer a socketed CPU/APU with lower/similar TDP to most notebook versions. If you care that much about power, just UV it. I ran a Llano A6-3500 65W on a 60W PSU by undervolting it from 1.4V to 1.075V. So they could have sold the chip as a 35W TDP one most likely. But not every A6-3500 would have been able to do that, so they would have needed a better binning process and more SKUs. Why muddy the water for little gain to AMD?I'd much rather see some mainboards with integrated mobile Ryzen APUs, similar to the Biostar A68 series. 150 to 200€ for a mSTX soldered Ryzen APU mainboard would be great.
GreenReaper - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link
It's for particular use-cases. Think small servers which may be built-to-order or available in configurations as a NAS or a compute box. For the first role, this kind of chip is entirely sufficient. Indeed, it would have been great to see this in HP's MicroServer Gen 10. But you might well want to upgrade it in the future, or on the manufacturing line, in which case a socket is beneficial.yhselp - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link
Don't know about the logo but I'm mad they missed the chance to name this part Duron, and the upcoming ones - Athlon. I'd have bought a Duron in 2018 just for old times' sake; would've made a glass stand for the chip and kept it on my desk.Jimster480 - Sunday, September 9, 2018 - link
Duron has been gone though for over a decade.TheOneCode - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link
There needs to be a Phenom triple core Zen processor.wow&wow - Friday, September 7, 2018 - link
Ian, any chance people can access the AMD presentation slides? Thanks.John_M - Sunday, September 9, 2018 - link
I'm pleased to see the return of the Athlon name. I don't miss Duron, Sempron, Phenom or Turion though - maybe Opteron a little. Athlon is to AMD as Pentium is to Intel.These parts are surely made from "failed" Raven Ridge dies in the first instance, with too many defects to make it as either a 2200G or a 2400G. That's a perfectly sound strategy and reduces waste. The locked clock also makes perfect sense.
Oh, and there have been Athlons with integrated GPUs before, namely the socket AM1 Kabini series, such as the Athlon 5350. I bought a number of those for various projects and I envisage buying the new Athlons and A320 motherboards for similar projects in the future.
wumpus - Wednesday, September 12, 2018 - link
"First gen zen". So it is almost certainly a cut down Raven Ridge and not only not a new mask, but unlikely to be replaced by a new mask as well (I'm surprised Raven Ridge is a gen1 zen, but it kept them on schedule and makes money).I wonder how serious AMD is about this. With a vega 3, it really can't compete with Intel. With 5, it is getting just behind a G4920 (naively a 6 is needed, but with any sort of bandwidth scaling 5 should be enough. Then again OEMs at this level will likely try to get away using a single slot of RAM, so you're back to needing 6).
The whole issue of this chip's future (and whether or not it ever gets made into a chip half the size of Raven Ridge or simply remains a chip that is half disabled) will likely depend on how many "less than fully competitive" wafers AMD is stuck buying from GF. Both sides may be more than happy to waste twice the wafers/fab time rather than pay the price of building a new mask.
ewitte - Wednesday, October 10, 2018 - link
You can get the 2200g for 79 what is the purpose for this the 2200g absolutely destroys it?