AMD ATHLON 3000G
Can you game on AMD’s D’s latest Athlon CPU?
FIFTY BUCKS for an unlocked Zenarchitecture processor with integrated graphics? Fifty bucks?! We wondered if AMD was joking when it announced the Athlon 3000G, but no; here it is, in all its super-affordable glory. Releasing a dualcore processor in the year 2020 feels like an odd move, but when it’s cheap as all heck, it’s certainly hard to argue with AMD’s logic.
Team Red has long been the king of budget APUs, with the excellent 3400G and 3200G launching in its Ryzen line last year to some success. The Athlon 3000G isn’t so much a step forward as it is a nimble leap sideways, filling a space in the market with a budget APU that sits alongside the likes of the Athlon 200GE. It’s cheaper than the GE-series Athlon CPUs right now, too.
While this chip is 3.5GHz dual-core, it uses simultaneous multithreading tech to provide four threads, improving performance in some areas. It’s also got three GPU cores (AMD’s Radeon Vega 3 integrated graphics), and a super-low 35W thermal power design. CPU-savvy readers might recognize these specs as matching the older Athlon 240GE, and you’d be right; this is essentially the same chip, but unlocked for overclocking.
On paper, it’s a huge improvement. It’s a simple, affordable APU, ideal for low-powered systems that won’t be doing much more than word processing and web browsing. The low TDP and dinky included cooler also serve this ideal; this isn’t a CPU to pair with highend components. Only eight PCIe lanes mean that using a GPU at all isn’t ideal; performance is guaranteed to suffer compared to chips with more lanes. The low price means that pairing the 3000G with a GPU doesn’t make much sense anyway, unless you have an old card lying around. Cheaper B450 and X470 motherboards with graphical outputs are the best companion to this chip.
The Vega 3 graphics are, well, fine. Running general desktop tasks on integrated saw little to no slowdown at 1440p and below, but running Win 10 at 4K was choppy and the available resolutions were oddly limited. AMD was keen to market this as a budget chip great for running esports games at 720p, but in practice it’s only just capable of that. 2D indie titles should run fine, and we did manage to squeeze 30fps out of
Fortnite on 720p Low settings, but the 3000G definitely isn’t the poster child for gaming on integrated graphics.
Just two cores means that the 3000G isn’t equipped to handle rendering tasks, either, despite SMT doubling the thread count. Our benchmarks took so long to run, we could feel our beards growing as we waited for them to complete. The figures weren’t very impressive either, but were more or less what we expected; the 3000G performs about as well as the 240GE, albeit with added overclocking headroom (because the 240GE had none).
Overclocking does help, with a stable overclock of 4.1GHz easily achievable. 4.2GHz will likely be an option for some chips, but you’re beholden to the silicon lottery. Running the CPU at 4.1GHz got us about 15 percent improved performance on average across all our tests—impressive considering how easy overclocking was. The chip did heat up to the mid-60s; we wouldn’t advise using the puny stock cooler if you’re overclocking.
At the time of writing, the 3000G is selling fast. While the RRP is $50, the chip is sold out in many retailers, and we couldn’t find it for under $55. Still a great deal; the cheapest we could find the comparable Athlon 240GE was $70. The 3000G effectively replaces the 240GE in the Athlon hierarchy; it’s the new dream chip for budget and low-power rigs, ideal for entry-level builders and experienced overclockers looking to build a PC for peanuts.