AMD has announced availability of the Athlon 220GE and Athlon 240GE processors it announced back in September. Based on the Zen microarchitecture and featuring built-in Radeon Vega graphics, these parts are priced well below $100 per unit, focusing on the mass market, and the new chips have a TDP of 35 W.

Coming on the heels of the Athlon 200GE chip introduced earlier this year, the new Athlon 220GE and Athlon 240GE processors increase the performance of AMD’s inexpensive CPUs and make the company’s sub-$100 desktop product line more complete. Just like the Athlon 200GE, the new 220GE and 240GE models integrate two SMT-enabled Zen cores operating at 3.4 and 3.5 GHz frequency (respectively), a Radeon Vega iGPU featuring 192 stream processors operating at 1 GHz, 1 MB L2 cache, 4 MB L3 cache, a dual-channel DDR4-2667 memory controller, and so on.

Higher clocks enable AMD’s new Athlon processors to better compete against Intel’s entry-level Celeron and Pentium processors for the market of cheap PCs that do not need a lot of compute horsepower yet benefit from a high integration as well as a low TDP.

The new Athlon 220GE and Athlon 240GE CPUs are drop-in compatible with motherboards based on AMD’s 300 and 400-series chipsets that support high-performance NVMe SSDs, USB 3.1 Gen 2 interface, 4Kp60 display output(s) and so forth. The same AM4 platforms are compatible with AMD’s higher-performance Ryzen processors, providing owners of the new Athlon-based systems an upgrade path to eight-core Ryzen 7 CPUs.

AMD's Retail Stack
AnandTech Zen Cores
w/HT
Base
Freq
Turbo
Freq
Vega
CUs
TDP MSRP
Ryzen 7 2700X Zen+ 8 / 16 3700 4300 - 105W $329
Ryzen 7 2700 Zen+ 8 / 16 3200 4100 - 65W $299
Ryzen 5 2600X Zen+ 6 / 12 3600 4200 - 95W $229
Ryzen 5 2600 Zen+ 6 / 12 3400 3900 - 65W $199
Ryzen 5 1500X* Zen 4 / 8 3500 3700 - 65W $159
Ryzen 5 2400G Zen 4 / 8 3600 3900 11 65W $169
Ryzen 3 1300X* Zen 4 / 4 3500 3700 - 65W $114
Ryzen 3 2200G Zen 4 / 4 3500 3700 8 65W $99
Athlon 240GE Zen 2 / 4 3500 - 3 35 W $75**
Athlon 220GE Zen 2 / 4 3400 - 3 35 W $65**
Athlon 200GE Zen 2 / 4 3200 - 3 35W $55
*The 2500X and 2300X have been released, but not at retail. We should have a review soon
** Retail listings of 220GE and 240GE expected 'soon'

Both new processors will be available for order from leading retailers shortly, AMD said. When it comes to pricing, the new Athlon 220GE (3.4 GHz) sits right above the model 200GE (3.2 GHz) with a $65 price tag. Meanwhile, the dual-core Athlon 240GE (3.5 GHz) costs $75, or $24 less than the quad-core Ryzen 3 2200G, which offers significantly more compute and graphics horsepower.

Athlons at Retail
AnandTech Athlon 200GE Athlon 220GE Athlon 240GE Ryzen 3 2200G
Scan £49.99 £59.99 £69.98 £89.99
*This list will grow as listings appear online

Related Reading

Source: AMD

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  • Samus - Saturday, December 22, 2018 - link

    This is good and all but not entirely competitive with the Pentium Gold. VEGA with 3 EU's can't be any better than UHD 610 graphics...
  • Marlin1975 - Saturday, December 22, 2018 - link

    Actually it beats the i3 8100 in most game test...

    https://www.techspot.com/review/1698-amd-athlon-20...
  • Samus - Sunday, December 23, 2018 - link

    Yeah, but both are unplayable :)
  • DianR - Saturday, December 22, 2018 - link

    Pretty sure that new 2 isn't even needed in current market. Only have different base clock, and it's not even high. It will be a thing if it's also have better Vega iGPU, but unfortunately it's not.

    Somehow, they remind me of Intel who releasing few CPU with almost same specifications, just have difference in base clock. For example, G4560 and G4600, smh
  • Haawser - Monday, December 24, 2018 - link

    These chips are the obvious replacements for the old Kabini Athlons, which were 4 cat cores at ~2.x GHz and 3 CUs. But even the 200GE obviously has much better performance.
  • Oxford Guy - Friday, December 28, 2018 - link

    That doesn't mean they're needed in the marketplace.

    An overabundance of parts is a strategy companies use to increase margin. Profiteering via confusion.

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