Athlon 200GE: Cheap Zen With Vega Graphics

AMD is announcing its new $55 processor with integrated graphics, designed to sit under the Ryzen 5 2200G.

For anyone looking at a low cost system, AMD is changing what Athlon stands for – in previous generations, Athlon was for a processor that has its integrated graphics disabled. Now AMD is using it in the same way that Intel uses the Pentium or Celeron brands: for low cost, high volume products. This new part is designed to be a more cost-effective solution for users that need both a processor and graphics in a single system.

The Athlon 200GE is a dual core processor with simultaneous multi-threading, and no turbo: it will run at 3.2 GHz at all times. The TDP is the biggest adjustment, with AMD offering a low-cost low-power 35W product. The three Vega compute units will be plenty for all office tasks and some light gaming. However that $55 price point means that AMD believes it will be competing with products like the Pentium G4560.

AMD states that the new part will offer 4K display output (due to the integrated Vega graphics), native USB 3.1 support, as well as NVMe SSD support. The processor is AM4 socket compatible, which means that it can be enabled for at least DRAM overclocking (AMD confirmed that the CPU is locked for frequency overclocking)

AM4 Chipsets & Motherboards for Ryzen

The new AM4 motherboards will be utilizing the X370, B350 and A320 chipsets. They will be aimed at the PC DIY market with loads of CPU and I/O features. General availability of the high-end boards is expected around February or March 2017.

AMD X370 For Enthusiast AM4 Motherboards:

AMD X370, a high-end chipset for overclockers and tweakers who need robust platforms. This chip provides the ultimate low-level control to its users and delivers ultimate graphics card bandwidth. By bandwidth, AMD is referring to max PCI-Express lanes as this is the only chip in the stack that supports multi-GPU functionality. The chipset supports both, CFX (CrossFire) and SLI. Features of X300 series chipsets include:

• Dual-channel DDR4 memory
• NVMe
• M.2 SATA devices
• USB 3.1 Gen 1 and Gen 2
• PCIe 3.0 capability

AMD has mentioned two full x16 (Gen3) lanes for GPUs. AIBs can add additional lanes through a PLX chip but that would add to the cost. X370 features full overclocking support with a very sophisticated GUI that will allow the best overclock tools and experiences. Since all AM4 CPUs have an unlocked multiplier, record breakers will definitely put X370 boards to the test on liquid and LN2 setups. The X370 series motherboards AMD displayed at the event include:

• ASRock X370 Taichi
• ASRock X370 Gaming K4
• Biostar X370GT7
• GIGABYTE AX370-Gaming K5
• GIGABYTE AX370-Gaming 5
• MSI X370 XPower Gaming Titanium

ASRock X370 Taichi

AMD B350 For Mainstream AM4 Motherboards:

AMD B350 is the mainstream chipset and offers the most value in terms of I/O and functionality. This chip offers lower lanes compared to X370 since most AMD believes that most users don’t go multi-GPU under this segment. Aside from that, the chipset does retain overclocking support for all AM4 CPUs that will be offered in the future. This chipset replaces the 970 and A78 platforms.

The AMD B350 chipset features 70% power reduction over its AM3+ predecessor (5.8W vs 19.6W). The latest DDR4 memory controller also offers 22% more bandwidth compared to DDR3. Following is the list of all B350 chipset motherboards displayed by AMD:

• ASRock AB350 Gaming K4
• ASUS B350M-C
• Biostar X350GT5
• Biostar X350GT3
• GIGABYTE AB350-Gaming 3
• MSI B350 Tomahawk
• MSI B350M Mortar

Some general features of the AM4 platform is that it offers new I/O capabilities. We are looking at faster DDR4-2400 MHz memory, PCI-e Gen 3.0, USB 3.1 Gen 2, NVMe and SATA Express support. These features have been missing on AMD platforms for a while but it’s nice that AMD is finally making a proper comeback with modern feature support.

ASRock AB350 Gaming K4

AMD A320 / A300 For Essential and SFF AM4 Motherboards:

The A320 is the essential platform for plug and play users who just want their PC to work with decent capabilities. This chipset replaces the 760G and A68H based platforms. Most of the features from B350 will be retained but there will be no overclocking support on such motherboards. This chip has 4 PCI-e Gen 2 lanes and 1+2+6 (USB 3.1 Gen2, USB 3.1 Gen1, USB 2.0) support.

The A300 is the chip designed for Small Form Factor computers and generally, HTPC builds. This offers the ultimate power and space efficiency in the entire product stack. This is a new chip that has been exclusively built for the SFF niche. A300 has limited functionalities but will be extremely cheap and allow for great SFF setups.

• ASRock A320M Pro 4
• GIGABYTE A320M-HD3
• MSI A320M Pro-VD

MSI A320M Pro-VD

Summary :

Introducing AMD Zen Microarchitecture

AMD made several announcements on Dec 13, 2016 regarding its next generation desktop family of CPUs based on the Zen microarchitecture.

AMD’s big Zen preview event “New Horizon” was full of extremely impressive performance demonstrations.

President and CEO Lisa Su took the stage to wow the audience with one demo after the other, showcasing what Zen is truly capable of in a wide range of applications from gaming to streaming, rendering and video transcoding.

The new family of desktop Zen CPUs code named “Summit Ridge” will officially debut under the RYZEN brand.

RYZEN CPUs will officially launch in the first quarter of next year, before April 2017. 
RYZEN CPUs will feature up to 8 Zen cores and are capable of executing up to 16 threads simulatneously.
All RYZEN CPUs will feature a base clock of 3.4Ghz or higher at launch.
The 8 core, 16 thread RYZEN CPU has a TDP of 95 watts, 45 watts less than its direct Intel competitor.
The 8 core, 16 thread RYZEN CPU competes with Intel’s fastest 8 core 16 thread offering, the $1199 Broadwell-E Core-i7 6900K, in terms of features and performance and exceeds it in power efficiency.

RYZEN CPUs automatically overclock themselves to deliver the highest possible clock speed attainable under any cooling condition, Including LN2, liquid and air cooling.
RYZEN CPUs have hundreds of integrated sensors that monitor a plethora of parameters from temperatures to voltages and cache traffic.
RYZEN CPUs have a sophisticated AI framework, making them capable of learning on the fly via a built-in neural net that self-trains and adapts to different applications and sets of code.

RYZEN CPUs will be compatible with AMD’s next generation AM4 desktop platform.

The AM4 paltform features DDR4 memory support, PCIE Gen 3, USB 3.1 Gen 2, NVMe and SATA Express.

AMD X370 is the chipset for overclockers and tweakers who need robust platforms. This chip provides the ultimate low-level control to its users and delivers ultimate graphics card bandwidth. By bandwidth, AMD is referring to max PCI-Express lanes as this is the only chip in the stack that supports multi-GPU functionality. The chipset supports both, CFX (CrossFire) and SLI.

Its brand new clean-slate core design has been headed from the get-go by accomplished CPU architect Jim Keller. The very same man who brought us the original Athlon XP and the very first 64-bit x86 CPU, the Athlon64. Both were and remain the most successful and most competitive CPUs in the history of the company.

It’s without a doubt that Zen is AMD’s biggest long-term technology bet and one of the largest engineering efforts undertaken by it to date. It’s the company’s first ever CPU microarchitecture to feature simultaneous multithreading. It’s built on a process technology that’s as close as ever to parity with Intel since the days of the original Athlon in the early 2000s. It means that for the very first time in a decade AMD’s CPUs won’t be at an inherent disadvantage to Intel’s process lead.

Below is the complete AMD RYZEN "Summit Ridge" tech-briefing from the AMD Tech Summit held at Sonoma, California from Dec 7-9, 2016.

RYZEN & VEGA In Action–Playing Star Wars : Battlefront In 4K

Finally, we come to our very last performance demo and the only one involving the company’s upcoming ultra enthusiast Radeon graphics card featuring the VEGA architecture. Here a system equipped with RYZEN and a single VEGA graphics card was showcased running Star Wars Battlefront in 4K at 60+ frames per second.