The $60 CPU Question: AMD Athlon 200GE or Intel Pentium Gold G5400? A Review
by Ian Cutress on January 14, 2019 8:00 AM ESTPower Consumption: TDP Doesn't Matter
Regular readers may have come across a recent article I wrote about the state of power consumption and the magic 'TDP' numbers that Intel writes on the side of its processors. In that piece, I wrote that the single number is often both misleading and irrelevant, especially for the new Core i9 parts sitting at the top of Intel's offerings. These parts, labeled 95W, can go beyond 160W easily, and motherboard manufacturers don't adhere to Intel official specifications on turbo time. Users without appropriate cooling could hit thermal saving performance states very quickly.
Well, I'm here to tell you that the TDP numbers for the G5400 and 200GE are similarly misleading and irrelevant, but in the opposite direction.
On the official specification lists, the Athlon 200GE is rated at 35W - all of AMD's GE processors are rated at this value. The Pentium G5400 situation is a bit more complex, as it offers two values: 54W or 58W, depending on if the processor has come from a dual-core design (54W) or a cut down quad-core design (58W). There's no real way to tell which one you have without taking the heatspreader off and seeing how big the silicon is.
For our power tests, we probe the internal power registers during a heavy load (in this case, POV-Ray), and see what numbers spit out. Both Intel and AMD have been fairly good in recent memory in keeping these registers open, showing package, core, and other power values. TDP relates to the full CPU package, so here's what we see with a full load on both chips:
That was fairly anticlimactic. Both CPUs have power consumption numbers well below the rated number on the box - AMD at about half, and Intel below half. So when I said those numbers were misleading and irrelevant, this is what I mean.
Truth be told, we can look at this analytically. AMD's big chips have eight cores with hyperthreading have a box number of 105W and a tested result of 117W. That's at high frequency (4.3 GHz) and all cores, so if we cut that down to two cores at the same frequency, we get 29W, which is already under the 200GE TDP. Scale the frequency back, as well as the voltage, and remember that it's a non-linear relationship, and it's quite clear to see where the 18W peak power of the 200GE comes from. The Intel chip is similar.
So why even rate it that high?
Several reasons. Firstly, vendors will argue that TDP is a measure of cooling capacity, not power (technically true), and so getting a 35W or 54W cooler is overkill for these chips, helping keep them cool and viable for longer (as they might already be rejected silicon). Riding close to the actual power consumption might give motherboard vendors more reasons to cheap out on power delivery on the cheapest products too. Then there's the argument that some chips, the ones that barely make the grade, might actually hit that power value at load, so they have to cover all scenarios. There's also perhaps a bit of market expectation: if you say it's an 18W processor, people might not take it seriously.
It all barely makes little sense but there we are. This is why we test.
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Ratman6161 - Monday, January 14, 2019 - link
One issue is though that at my favored place to buy CPU's (microcenter.com) The 2200G isn't $40 more, its only $30 more. The 200GE is $49.99 and the 2200G is $79.99. Add to that you can get a B450 motherboard for $59.99. So for just $30 more for the total system price and the fact that the 2200G/B450 combo guarantees overclocking capability, I couldn't really see going with either of the CPU's in this review.eastcoast_pete - Monday, January 14, 2019 - link
Fully agree, and, at those prices (2200G at $ 79.99, plus mobo for $59.99), it's even more a closed and shut case. Neither the Athlon nor the Pentium come anywhere near the 2200G, especially if the iGPU is "it", which is likely for a budget system. The only scenario I can see for a builder to chose the Athlon or the Pentium is if they a. are on sale, and b. if it's for one's parents or grandparents, and all they want to do is browse the web and some occasional light office work. But, even there, if one can swing the extra $30, why not get the much more capable 2200G? With the added ability to play some games, maybe you'll visit more often (:GreenReaper - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
I was thinking this throughout - "wow, this review is a great advertisement for the 2200G!"Personally I'd like to wait for a chip with AV1 support, Navi and PCIe 4.0, but it seems likely that you'll be able to upgrade to all of that at a later date if you pick your motherboard right.
DominionSeraph - Monday, January 14, 2019 - link
Can you put the venerable i5 2500 in the new Bench? With used systems available for $90 it's the price/performance champion.jordanclock - Monday, January 14, 2019 - link
On the Overclocking page:"In recent weeks, motherboard manufacturers have been releasing BIOS firmware that enables overcooking on the Athlon 200GE."
I know OCing can increase temperatures, but calling it overcooking might be a little strong.
mczak - Monday, January 14, 2019 - link
Ian,I think you might want to rephrase every paragraph which has "AVX" in it. From your wording it sounds like you're surprised the pentium doesn't benefit much from the use of AVX, whereas the truth is it doesn't support AVX at all, hence even if you use avx-optimized binaries it's still going to use an sse-only path.
This is of course a reversal of the other Core chips vs. Ryzen - intel typically benefits quite a bit more from AVX code, since it actually has simd units which are physically 256bit wide, whereas Ryzen only has simd units which are 128bit wide.
GreenReaper - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
I agree, I was a little confused when I saw talk of AVX for the Pentium - don't get me wrong, SSE optimizations can provide great benefits (compare 'openssl speed -evp' to 'openssl speed' on a Celeron), and probably they are used by the "optimized" path but it's not going to give the same results.As you say, "supports" is debatable on Ryzen. But even if a CPU didn't really support it on a hardware level at all (which is not the case), its use might result in improvements due to the ability to provide a microcode equivalent than is faster than the SSE-based alternatives.
silverblue - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
It's not really debatable in my eyes - it may be half-speed, but there's no AVX offset - as far as I can tell - to worry about. When Zen 2 pops up, perhaps it'll have to behave more like Intel's implementation.eastcoast_pete - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
Agree. After all, in the Intel universe, the absence of AVX is a key differentiator between the Pentium and the core i3; if you want hardware-supported AVX extensions, you have to fork over the extra $$$ and get at least the entry-level core chip.kkilobyte - Monday, January 14, 2019 - link
I'd like to know where one would find the G5400 at 60$, or even at the same price as the 200GE.I don't seem to be able to find the G5400 in Europe for less than 75€. On the other hand, I can get a 2000GE at 55-60€.
For example, Materiel.net - one of the most popular online shops in France and Belgium, has the cheapest Intel i3, the G4900, at 67.95€, while the 200GE is 57.95€. And the G5400? They list it as 'out of stock', at more than 100€ (!)
If both where at the same price, indeed, the Intel CPU would be more interesting. But if it's either unavailable or 20-50% more than the price given in the article, what's the point?