Curiously Named "Athlon Gold" Surfaces on Geekbench Database

[btarunr]

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.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[john_]

Maybe AMD is moving the Athlon brand to 4 digits, meaning that, for example while on desktop Athlon CPUs had a 3 digit model number, the last one had a 4 digit, matching the model numbering of the Ryzen CPUs (Athlon 3000G). I see there is an Athlon 300U for mobiles and now we are getting a 3150U, matching the branding of Ryzen mobile CPUs.


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.

 

[Cheeseball]

Zen+ still? They need to work on Zen 2 APUs already.

 

[seronx]

Athlon Gold 3150u appears to be a rebrand of the Athlon 300u. (Same base, same boost, same family model)

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

 

[megamanxtreme]

Zen+ still? They need to work on Zen 2 APUs already.

It's not bad if they release those for low budget laptops.

What is everyone's prediction for the Zen 2 mobiles variants?

 

[Cheeseball]

It's not bad if they release those for low budget laptops.

What is everyone's prediction for the Zen 2 mobiles variants?

They just need to match i5-9300H (it currently beats the 3750H as it's only a Zen+ quad-core with SMT) and they should have a good mid-range mobile CPU. I would guess a 3600H and 3800H as the naming convention for Zen 2 parts?

I don't think they have anything to match the i7-8750H/9750H yet.

 

[Ruru]

Zen+ still? They need to work on Zen 2 APUs already.

APUs are always one generation behind the "real" CPUs.

 

[Kaotik]

While it says "Raven Ridge", it's probably Banded Kestrel. "Officially" only couple Ryzen Embedded chips use Banded Kestrel, but in reality it's used in at least 3000-series low power variants like 3200U
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)

 

[notb]

I would guess a 3600H and 3800H as the naming convention for Zen 2 parts?

Unless the naming strategy changes, Zen 2 mobile chips will be 4000-series - to make you think they're as modern as 4000-series desktop SoCs.

 

[megamanxtreme]

Unless the naming strategy changes, Zen 2 mobile chips will be 4000-series - to make you think they're as modern as 4000-series desktop SoCs.

I'm down for that, give the performance of those H-series processors but capable of staying high in a 15W envelope, I hope they at least try to boost the graphics portions, Vega 4(R3 4200U) - Vega 7(R3 4300u) for the R3 laptops.

 

[prtskg]

It's not bad if they release those for low budget laptops.

What is everyone's prediction for the Zen 2 mobiles variants?

15% improved performance, better efficiency, battery power, etc and coming next year in first half

 

[TheLostSwede]

Zen+ still? They need to work on Zen 2 APUs already.

Q1 2020.

 

[Chrispy_]

If this is Raven Ridge, that means the silicon has 4C/8T and 11 Vega compute units so it is heavily disabled to strip out half of the CPU and eight of the thirteen Vega CUs.

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.

 

[Gasaraki]

Why don't AMD just fire the marketing team and follow Intel's naming scheme for everything? It can save them even more money.

 

[Kaotik]

If this is Raven Ridge, that means the silicon has 4C/8T and 11 Vega compute units so it is heavily disabled to strip out half of the CPU and eight of the thirteen Vega CUs.

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.

Like I posted earlier, this is probably Banded Kestrel, not Raven Ridge, just like 3200U which "should be" Picasso (aka Raven Ridge v2) but is really Banded Kestrel (or Dali, which would be "Banded Kestrel v2 like Picasso is RRv2)

 

[Chrispy_]

Like I posted earlier, this is probably Banded Kestrel, not Raven Ridge, just like 3200U which "should be" Picasso (aka Raven Ridge v2) but is really Banded Kestrel (or Dali, which would be "Banded Kestrel v2 like Picasso is RRv2)

Hmm, interesting; I didn't realise AMD had actually made a smaller die for their low-end stuff.

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.