Review AMD Athlon 240GE and 220GE Review: Retaking the Low Ground

[abryant]

AMD rounds out its Athlon stack with the $65 220GE and $75 240GE. Read more here.

PAUL ALCORN
@PaulAlcorn
Paul Alcorn is a Senior Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage and enterprise hardware.

 

[logainofhades]

Given the price/performance differences, the 2200g still remains the lowest I would ever want to recommend, if using IGP. Would like to see some dedicated GPU benchmarks, though. The 200ge could be good enough to get someone started, and act as a holdover to ryzen 3xxx.

 

[Olle P]

... the 2200g still remains the lowest I would ever want to recommend, if using IGP. ...

Depends on what it's to be used for. I can see some low end use where the 2200G would be severe overkill...

 

[salgado18]

Given the price/performance differences, the 2200g still remains the lowest I would ever want to recommend, if using IGP.

Some people buy Atom desktops because they are very cheap. They can barely open notepad, let alone game. For those (especially on developing countries), a jump to a 220g is already large, let alone to a 2200g.

But I still think these Athlons lost a great opportunity. They can't even come close to the 2200g, even overclocked, so why not make them follow the Ryzen line of turbos and overclockability? Maybe not overclock, but a turbo would make them a lot more attractive, instead of relying on the competition having a supply problem.

 

[TripleHeinz]

If I wouldn't have a PC already (core i3 4330), the Athlon 200GE would have been my next cpu. It is perfect for a programming pc. Notepad 99% of the time.

 

[logainofhades]

If I wouldn't have a PC already (core i3 4330), the Athlon 200GE would have been my next cpu. It is perfect for a programming pc. Notepad 99% of the time.

They are probably about even, cpu performance wise, with AMD having the edge on the graphics side. The Ryzen architecture's IPC, is quite similar to that of Haswell.

 

[Olle P]

... a turbo would make them a lot more attractive, ...

They're at boost speed all the time. Having a marginally higher speed for single core isn't worth it.
I expect these APUs to be based on chips from the "bottom bin" in terms of function and performance, so don't expect wonders although there might be a few samples that run extremely well while most of the eight cores were broken in the etching process.

 

[cbcvenice]

Other than lower power consumption and a little faster single core, I don't see any need to upgrade from an Athlon x4 860k.
compared

 

[logainofhades]

Other than lower power consumption and a little faster single core, I don't see any need to upgrade from an Athlon x4 860k.
compared

Yea, if your system is performing, to your satisfaction, then an upgrade isn't necessary. Not everyone needs a high end rig. My minimum standard is just higher than what these CPU's have to offer, if I were to build a new rig for somebody. The 2200g isn't much more money, especially vs the 240ge, but I believe that it is a much better CPU. You get what you pay for.

 

[coutch]

For all there IGPU chips, having some emulation (dolphin, retroarch, etc...) benchmarks would be a nice addition

 

[salgado18]

If I wouldn't have a PC already (core i3 4330), the Athlon 200GE would have been my next cpu. It is perfect for a programming pc. Notepad 99% of the time.

Unless you need to compile. I was working using an i5-740 (sandy bridge), which was fine for almost everything. But then they got me a notebook with an i7-8950H, and now I'm the one compiling source, because the speed difference there is enormous (80s vs 9s for just one system).

The 200GE is great for editing code and stuff, but if compiling is on your daily list of tasks, trust me, an upgrade to a 4+ core new CPU is worth the extra cost.

 

[TripleHeinz]

Unless you need to compile. I was working using an i5-740 (sandy bridge), which was fine for almost everything. But then they got me a notebook with an i7-8950H, and now I'm the one compiling source, because the speed difference there is enormous (80s vs 9s for just one system).

The 200GE is great for editing code and stuff, but if compiling is on your daily list of tasks, trust me, an upgrade to a 4+ core new CPU is worth the extra cost.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Rarely someone talks about compiling performance and I have no reference so your comment is quite useful. I'll take a quad core into consideration when it is time to upgrade (in 2025).

I do compile a lot, daily. I compile c++ code with msvc2017 and g++ (mingw). Usually I compile small to medium sized DLL satellites, but there are many of them, plus a few executables. But they compile very fast like 3 to 7 seconds per assembly. I can't complain about performance. I have the compilers and the source code on a single SSD, that helps a lot. The only thing I can't do with my cpu is Vulkan programming (I can compile but can't run). I can code d3d 11 and 12 but when doing vulkan I have to stop Cuda processing on a dedicated geforce gpu (I also compile cuda programs = llvm + msvc2017) and then execute on that gpu.