AMD Ryzen 7 1700 vs AMD Athlon Silver 3050e

AMD Ryzen 7 1700

The AMD Ryzen 7 1700 is a fast desktop processor with 8 cores and SMT (16 threads) that was introduced in early 2017. It is based on the new Zen architecture and it is the slowest model at the time of announcement. With 65 Watt it is also less power hungry than the Ryzen 1700X.

The CPU cores clock from 3 base speed up to 3.75 GHz (XFR). The 2-core Turbo is specified at 3.7 GHz and using all 8 cores, the CPU can reach up to 3.2 GHz. The clock rate and TDP rating is the only difference to the faster Ryzen 7 models.

The performance in applications that can make use of all 8 cores is very competitive to high end Intel CPUs at a very good price point. However, non optimized apps like many games can't make full use of the new architecture.

A detailed look at the new Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X and 1700 can be found in our review.

AMD Athlon Silver 3050e

The AMD Athlon Silver 3050e (Codename Dali) is a mobile APU that integrates two Zen cores (with SMT, therefore 4 threads) clocked at 1.4 to 2.8 GHz. The TDP is specified at 6 Watt and therefore the chip can be passively cooled. The integrated Radeon graphics card offers 3 CUs at up to 1000 MHz (Radeon RX Vega 3). The dual channel memory controller supports only DDR4-2400. The chip is manufactured on a 14 nm node and officially counted to the 3000 series of mobile processors.

More information on Raven Ridge can be found in our launch article.

Performance

The average 3050e in our database is in the same league as the Celeron N4120, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. In other words, a slight amount of the AMD Zen magic has not helped this chip much. Its performance can be described as fairly slow, as of mid 2023.

Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are.

Power consumption

Much like Intel's N-class Celeron and Pentium processors, the AMD 3050e has a 6 W TDP (also known as the long-term power limit). This is not much at all and thus good enough for passively cooled tablets, laptops, mini-PCs.

This APU is built with a 14 nm process making for poor, as of early 2023, energy efficiency.