Review AMD Athlon 3000G / ASRock Desk Mini A300

Review AMD Athlon 3000G / ASRock Desk Mini A300  – Specs | Performance | Overclocking | Test – AMD during the month of November announced a new line of processors and two new models for the AM4 socket, which as well as AMD from the beginning said that it would be present until 2020. In the models released for AM4 socket, we have the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X and the new Athlon 3000G input model.

As the title of this review says, we will focus on the new Athlon 3000G, a processor that would be a version of Athlon in 12nm or Zen + with some differences from its predecessors.

This Athlon model will reinforce the AMD entry line bringing more performance to the same price range we had with the Athlon 200GE, we could say that taking the Athlon 240GE added 100MHz in GPU and increased the TDP all at the same price of the Athlon 200GE. It is not a bad strategy for this price range, however that increase in the TDP may be a limitation on the versatility of some platforms.

Specs.

First look.

The great advantage of this type of solutions offered by ASRock, is that of the AM4 socket, which allows the user to “upgrade” to a processor with better features, as long as it has built-in video.

Internally, the ASRock Deskmini has a motherboard based on the AMD A300 chipset in STX format, quite small without any PCI Express port of any size and SODIMM type memories.

The cooling system that this Athlon has, as well as the others, has enough dimensions to easily enter this small barebone.

Testing and Methodology Platform.

• Windows 10 Pro x64 operating system [Update 1903].
• The tests were performed in an environment with a temperature of approximately 25 ° C.
• The drivers used for graphics cards
• The resolutions of the synthetic tests are the default ones for each of the benchmarks.

2D tests

3D tests

Consumption and temperature.

As we can see in the specifications, we have a slight decrease in the manufacturing process from 14nm to 12nm, the difference is basically a refining of the process beyond a large-scale change of architecture.

We can see below the differences between the previous models in both consumption and temperature.

In the temperature, we have a correlation with consumption, we see an Athlon 3000G with up to 10 degrees more than the low consumption version, this is delivered to a greater extent by the increase in the GPU (since the temperature test is done stressing CPU and GPU at the same time).

Conclusion.

In the input range the price factor is the determinant, many users who point here usually look for a solution that provides sufficient performance for basic applications, office automation in the vast majority and internet browsing. It is here that the volume occurs in the market, so creating efficient processors is the great advantage, something that strangely AMD changed with the Athlon 3000G. After delivering a bed of processors under the suffix “GE” (processors with graphics and low consumption), AMD decides to take the “G” model so that we leave the low consumption factor out of it, however keeping the price of the Athlon model 200GE and Athlon frequency cap 240GE and additionally about 100MHz extra in this new Athlon 3000G model. Curiously, these changes provide a “more robust” processor but with greater consumption and an improvement in a graphic aspect that the input range does not tend to value much.

Aiming at the experience of this Athlon 3000G and in the use in an ASRock Deskmini, we see a totally consistent combination, offers a totally acceptable performance, and great versatility in the solution. A motherboard with A300 chipset, a cut-out version of the well-known A320 can deliver the full potential of such a processor, I can even support up to a Ryzen 5 3400G.

Graphically that extra 100 MHz if it delivered a help in the graphic performance, now if it is compared with the previous models it is still the main factor in the whole conception of this Athlon 3000G.

As we told you the price will continue to be the main thing for these processors, “matching” the price of the Athlon 200GE, this new Athlon will get a good performance at a lower price range, however AMD still does not develop a processor that competes even more Below for the Celeron segment of the competition, it seems AMD is not interested in competing with such basic models.

We have seen several results under the overclocking of this model that attract a lot of attention, however the Desk Mini platform limited us this aspect, so we will be developing an overcloking section of this Athlon 3000G to see the novelties that can be delivered which will obviously tell with a motherboard without these limitations.