Friday, November 15th 2019
Curiously Named "Athlon Gold" Surfaces on Geekbench Database
A Geekbench database submission from an HP "17-ca2xxx" laptop (likely a prototype), spilled the beans on an upcoming AMD Athlon Gold 3150U processor, with nomenclature that looks inspired from the Pentium Gold. Intel uses the "Gold" and "Silver" brand extensions to distinguish processors based on its performance microarchitectures from those based on its low-power microarchitectures (eg: a "Skylake" based Pentium Gold, and a "Goldmont" based Pentium Silver). The addition of "Gold" to the Athlon brand could denote performance rivaling mobile versions of Pentium Gold found in entry-level full-size notebooks.
Moving on to the test itself, and we see the Athlon Gold 3150U being listed as a "Raven Ridge" derivative featuring a 2-core/4-thread CPU and Radeon graphics (likely "Vega 3" as with its desktop counterpart). The CPU is shown having a 2.40 GHz base frequency, and 3.30 GHz boost, 512 KB L2 cache per core, and 4 MB shared L3 cache. The chip scores 3,559 single-core points, and 7,336 points multi-core, comparable to entry-level dual-core processors from this generation. This makes us wonder what the Athlon "Silver" could be, and whether AMD is working on a new low-power microarchitecture in the near future.
Source:
Geekbench Database
Moving on to the test itself, and we see the Athlon Gold 3150U being listed as a "Raven Ridge" derivative featuring a 2-core/4-thread CPU and Radeon graphics (likely "Vega 3" as with its desktop counterpart). The CPU is shown having a 2.40 GHz base frequency, and 3.30 GHz boost, 512 KB L2 cache per core, and 4 MB shared L3 cache. The chip scores 3,559 single-core points, and 7,336 points multi-core, comparable to entry-level dual-core processors from this generation. This makes us wonder what the Athlon "Silver" could be, and whether AMD is working on a new low-power microarchitecture in the near future.
15 Comments on Curiously Named "Athlon Gold" Surfaces on Geekbench Database
PS
"Intel uses the "Gold" and "Silver" brand extensions to "
make it harder for consumers to identify Atom processors. People buy a Pentium Silver and they think they are buying the "good stuff", not an Atom.
There was suppose to be a launch of the A9-9435/A6-9235. Those could be rebranded to Athlon Silver potentially.
Ryzen 3 3200u => 2.6/3.5
Athlon Gold 3150u/(Athlon 300u) => 2.4/3.3
Athlon Silver upper model => 3.2? GHz/3.8? GHz
Athlon Silver lower model => 2.7? GHz/3.1? GHz
What is everyone's prediction for the Zen 2 mobiles variants?
I don't think they have anything to match the i7-8750H/9750H yet.
Banded Kestrel physically has 2C (4T with SMT) and Vega 3 (or at least all models use Vega with 3 CUs, could have 4 with 1 disabled I suppose) and it's notably smaller chip than Raven Ridge
Banded Kestrel 3200U
vs
Raven Ridge 2200U
edit:
Here's size accurate size comparison of Ryzen Embedded chips based on Banded Kestrel and Horned Owl (latter is really same as Raven Ridge)
Given that competition is so tight down at the ultrabudget end of the spectrum, I'm surprised AMD haven't opted for something in between Athlon 2Core CPU / 3CU IGP and Ryzen 4Core CPU / 8CU IGP
Perhaps they're only doing it to counter Intel's product stack, but I'd imagine there are plenty of dies that can be enabled to 3C/6T and 6CU graphics. It wouldn't cost AMD anything but it would spank the Pentium Golds and win doubtless favour and recommendation for many reviewer's and streamer's budget build guides.
I guess the embedded market is big enough that it was worth the effort. I wonder if the smaller die variants are more efficient, or harder to cool due to having zero dark silicon.