AMD released their Athlon 3000G alongside their new Ryzen 9 3950X and 3rd-gen Ryzen Threadripper last November 29th and alongside these CPUs also came the Athlon 3000G. Following the success of the Athlon 220GE the 240GE, the Athlon 3000G looks to update entry-level consumers with a more fresh processor. Sadly, this chip is not based on the Zen2 architecture nor is it does it feature anything revolutionary. At its very foundation, its technically a refresh the 240GE with a fully unlocked multiplier. This in turn allows users to eek out every drop of performance that the chip can muster on whichever configuration the user may have and their overclocking skill and luck gives them.
This 2-core/4-thread CPU is being offered at 50$ and features a 3.5Ghz base clock. As mentioned, this isn’t a Zen2 part so its built on the older Zen architecture in a 14nm fab. Memory supports DDR4-2666 natively at dual-channel. The IGP is clocked in at 1100Mhz featuring the same Radeon Vega 3 graphics from the 200GE series.
We’re still currently exploring overclocking with this chip but we don’t expect much but we’re reserving that for a future article. Right now, we’ll test the chip on a bare budget build barring the memory as our configuration is having problems booting with our preferred Ryzen-optimized memory. For that, we swapped out out G.Skill SniperX DDR4-3400 16GB pair for a G.Skill TridentZ Neo DDR4-3600 32GB pair. We note that faster memory will have an impact here but as this is a preview, we’ll publish our results on the higher memories and how they scale.
We’re testing the CPU against the older Athlon 220GE and lets see if there’s a significant push in there to warrant recommending the new one or sticking with the older chip. Then again, price is very competitive but still. We let the numbers do the talking.
Test Setup and Methodology
Processor: AMD Athlon 3000G, Athlon 200GE
Motherboard: GIGABYTE A320M-DS2
Memory: G.Skill TridentZ Neo DDR4-3600 32GB
Storage: WD Blue SSD 1TB SATA
PSU: Seasonic Platinum 1050w
Cooling: AMD Wraith Prism
Monitor: Viewsonic VX2475smhl-4K
VGA: IGP – Radeon Vega 3
We would like to thank EasyPC for the Athlon 200GE.
For a full-hardware workout, visit https://benchmarks.ul.com for our system warm-up and stress test of choice.
For benchmarking methodology please see our game benchmark method guide.
Frame rates and frame times of a 60-second game play were recorded using NVIDIA FrameView. The test results are the average of 3 benchmark runs. Since this is a GPU review, we benchmarked the area of the games that put heavy load on the GPU.
All our test runs are repeatable, click the links below for area and details. Read our benchmarking methodology.
- DOTA2 – Kiev Major Grand Finals Game 5: OG vs Virtus.Pro (54:05 – 55:05)
- The Witcher 3 – Woesong Bridge
- Grand Theft Auto V – Palomino Highlands
- F1 2017 – Benchmark Mode (Australia, Clear Weather, Morning)
- Rainbow Six: Siege – Benchmark Mode (30 second)
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider – Kuwaq Yaqu
- Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2019 – Fog of War
See our Youtube playlist for benchmark sequences.
Note: Some proprietary technologies of NVIDIA like PCSS, HBAO+, and HairWorks work on AMD GPU’s BUT to maintain uniformity amongst GPUs, these have been turned OFF.
DOTA 2
The most popular game on Steam and the biggest competition in eSports; DOTA 2 is powered by the Source 2 engine. The game is fairly light on low to medium settings but maxed out with heavy action on screen especially during clashes can really stress most systems especially with Reborn update. This is a game where frame times matter as responsiveness is very important in high-stakes competition.
DirectX9 (default)
Fastest Detail settings (LOWEST settings)
Render Resolution (Game Screen Render Quality) 56% for 1080p, 83% for 720p
FPS_MAX 240
Vsync OFF
FPS Chart
Frametime Chart
Min-Mix Frame Rates
Comparable Frame Rate
Grand Theft Auto V
The fifth and most successful installment to date in the highly controversial Grand Theft Auto series brings a graphical overhaul to the PC version of GTA V which many have lauded as a superior approach in porting a console game to PC. Featuring large areas and detailing, GTA V is a highly challenging application in terms of scene complexity.
FXAA Off
MSAA Off
TXAA Off
Soft Shadows – Sharp
Lowest Settings Everything
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
Motion Blur disabled
Vsync OFF
FPS Chart
Frametime Chart
Min-Mix Frame Rates
Comparable Frame Rate
Rainbow Six: Siege
Nearly 4 years later and Rainbow Six: Siege has become a phenomenon after a lukewarm beginning. The massive shift in focus of the game sees it stepping into eSports territory and the excellent mix of gameplay mechanics, good design and a dedicated dev team has put R6: Siege in a position it couldn’t even picture during launch. Rainbow Six: Siege focuses heavily on tactical and creative gameplay and its vertical levels and highly destructible maps encourage players to be quick on their feet so the action is always going. Powered by Ubisoft’s own AnvilNext 2.0 engine which powers some of Ubi’s recent visual masterpieces, R6:Siege also feature excellent graphics and can get very taxing at high detail settings. The game also features an Ultra HD texture pack download for those that want higher resolution textures but will of course demand more from the system.
Lowest Settings
Anti Aliasing: TAA
Vsync OFF
FPS Chart
Frametime Chart
Min-Mix Frame Rates
Comparable Frame Rate
First Impressions
Its easy to discern in our early tests that the Athlon 3000G isn’t a performance revolution for the Athlon line so budget buyers shouldn’t jump to upgrade their 200GE-series for them. Still, with the Athlon 3000 pushing prices down with a $49 price tag, it goes without saying that retailers may want to clear their stocks for now of the older processors and if you can snag an Athlon 240GE for lower than 40$ or Php2000, thats a no brainer.
Right now, the main consideration here is for new buyers and the situation is pretty cut and dry from a gaming standpoint: the Athlon 3000 performs roughly the same as the 220GE. For anyone that just want to experience these games or chuck it into a pisonet, either processors will do but pricing will play a factor. If and should the 200GE-series processors be cheaper, I highly recommend those but if stocks are limited or your dealer is offering A320 boards bundled with the Athlon 3000, then its the better choice.
We’ve scratched pretty much half of what we wanted to look into with the AMD Athlon 3000 but we’ve yet to see how overclocking plays a factor so for our next article we’re gonna dive to see how far we can bring CPU speed, memory speed and the IGP to push this CPU to the limit.
