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[Redneckerz]

Introduction:
Edit: Slightly enhanced with list.

AMD's style of play regarding its hardware business has always fascinated me. From its Radeon HD 5xxx line to its APU' to its custom division. In general, i love the way they look at things.

AMD recently released their entry-level APU, the Athlon 200GE. This is a dualcore 3.2 Ghz chip with 4 threads, based on the Zen architecture. Much more interesting in my eyes is the Vega 3 IGP. It only has 3 CU's totaling 192 shaders, just like the Ryzen 3 2300U laptop chip, but thats where things get interesting (for me, that is)

According to TechPowerUp (So take with a grain of salt), Vega 3 has a peak of 384 GFLOPS. Ofcourse, FLOPS are a terrible measurement, but through its 12 TMU's and 4 ROPS, i'd say its an interesting piece of silicon when compared to the PS360, but with DX12/Vulkan support. Below is a comparison between GPU's. Please keep in mind that this is not a detailed comparison and ignores that both CPU's are completely different ISA's, as that's not the point of contention here.

Spoiler: A comparison between Vega 3 and ATI/AMD Xenos, the X360 GPU)

Vega 3:

• Shading Units: 192
• TMU's: 12
• ROPS: 4
• Bandwidth: System dependent. When using DDR4-2666 (The fastest 200GE) supports its 19.87 GiB/s for Single Channel and 39.74 GiB/s for Dual Channel. I reckon gameplay below is done in dual channel.
• Pixel Rate 4.000 GPixel/s
• Texture Rate 12.00 GTexel/s
• FP16 (half) performance 768.0 GFLOPS (2:1)
• FP32 (float) performance 384.0 GFLOPS
• FP64 (double) performance 24.00 GFLOPS (1:16)

ATI/AMD Xenos: (Be aware that Xenos GPU is VLIW5 so shading units are not entirely comparable)

• Shading Units: 240
• TMU's: 16
• ROPS: 8
• Memory: 512 MB GDDR3, 128 bit.
• Bandwidth: 22.40 GiB/s
• Pixel Rate 4.000 GPixel/s
• Texture Rate 8.000 GTexel/s
• FP32 (float) performance 240.0 GFLOPS

Notice how pixel and texture fill rates are quite similar and that memory bandwidth in single channel is also pretty comparable. Combined with the general efficiency improvements that you get over 13 years of silicon progression and power improvements, i feel this is an APU that can push PS360 titles above 720p and even have enough left to do PS4/XBO titles on PS360 equivalent settings (So 720p, lowest visuals, and so on). For 55 bucks, that seems like a steal. Lets highlight a few examples. These are from TechEpihany, a channel that does numerous testings of different APU's.

Gameplay was done with the following two setups:

Spoiler: Gameplay Setups

Gigabyte GA-AB350-Gaming 3

• 2x8GB DDR4-2666 (Dual Channel)
• 2GB UMA VRAM

Asus Prime A320M-K

• 2x8GB DDR4-2666 (Dual Channel)
• 2GB UMA VRAM

In both setups the driver was at version 18.9.2.

Gameplay Examples: (Remember: PS360 titles often operate at less than 720p and even lower than PC equivalents. This is especially apparent in later life multiplat titles.)
GTA V. 720p, mixed settings (Normal): 45-60 FPS. 1080p: 30-45 FPS.



Assassin's Creed: Rogue. 900p, high settings: 30-40 FPS.



And then two more modern titles that you would expect on PS4/XBO:

Overwatch. 720p, Medium texture quality, everything else low, 100% render scale: 50-70 FPS.



Forza Horizon 3. 720p, lowest settings: 30-35 FPS.



Bonus: Strange Brigade: 720p: 30-35 FPS with Async compute on.



Conclusion:
Within respects, i feel the Athlon 200GE is ideal for entry-level gaming and gaining a better-than-PS360 experience - With the benefit that even some current-gen titles run pretty well. There are exceptions though: Shadow of the Tomb Raider needs to be run at 1024x768 and although Rainbow Six: Siege and Call of Duty: WWII run at 40-60 FPS at 720p but their render scales are often set at 70% or lower, meaning its running effectively internally at a lower resolution than 720p in order to get these frame rates. I wager a 720p30 experience can be achieved however if scaling was 100%.

All in all, i feel the Athlon 200GE may be a great entry step for gaming for either your kids, or perhaps for yourself as a small footprint games console. I hope that Zbox releases an SKU with this thing on it, as it oozes potential.

Sources:
Wikichip: https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/athlon/200ge
TechPowerUp: https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-vega-3-efficient.c3290, https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/xbox-360-gpu.c1919
TechEpihany Athlon 200GE Benchmark List:

 

[Futaleufu]

And I thought the Ryzen 2200G was supposed to be the entry level APU for this season. My brother bought one of these cheap Ryzens and he can play games at 1080p.

The only reason I'm not buying one of these Athlons right now is RAM prices.

 

[Redneckerz]

And I thought the Ryzen 2200G was supposed to be the entry level APU for this season. My brother bought one of these cheap Ryzens and he can play games at 1080p.

The only reason I'm not buying one of these Athlons right now is RAM prices.

And its a good choice aswell. You get a big boost in performance (50%) for 40 bucks more. Its (Loosely put) an Xbox One with shared memory. The 200GE is just a nice choice for why i made this thread in the first place - Better than-PS360 performance and even some PS4/XBO games thrown in. Imagine how that works on indie titles or MMO titles which often have lower specs. This APU will eat that for lunch.

The reason i find the 200GE so interesting is because its such a elegant/simple design: There is no overclock, its just 2 cores and 192 shaders. Effectively you could also see it as a PC version of the Nintendo Switch in terms of performance.

And lets not forget that AMD has the 220GE and 240GE in store - if these will come with 6 CU's or 384 shaders, they may be in the middle if a Switch and XBO and even more ideal entry level gaming PC's. But when those launch, the 200GE may very well drop in price - Making them even more ideal for ultra low budget gaming at decent settings.

It speaks alot about the scalability of Vega hardware, to outperform Intel whilst being cheaper with a slight loss in CPU performance. Which, imo, is a sacrifice worth having if you consider the gaming potential you get back for it.