AMD Ryzen 7 1700 vs AMD Ryzen 5 2400G vs AMD Athlon 300U

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 Ryzen 5 2400G

The AMD Ryzen 5 2400G is a desktop APU that was announced in early 2018. It is the fastest Raven Ridge APU at that time and features all four Zen cores (8 threads due to SMT support) clocked at 3.6 - 3.9 GHz with a Radeon RX Vega 11 graphics card with 11 CUs (all of the 704 Shaders on the chip) clocked at up to 1250 MHz. The integrated dual-channel memory controller supports up to DDR-2933. The TDP is specified at 65 Watt and the CPU, GPU and memory are unlocked for overclocking. More information on Raven Ridge can be found in our launch article.

AMD Athlon 300U

The AMD Athlon 300U is a mobile entry level dual core SoC that was announced in January 2019. It combines two Zen cores (with SMT / Hyperthreading so running 4 threads) clocked at 2.4 - 3.3 GHz with a Radeon RX Vega 3 graphics card with 3 CUs (192 Shaders) clocked at up to 1000 MHz. Specified at 15 Watt TDP, the SoC is intended for thin mid-range laptops. It is quite similar to the AMD Ryzen 3 3200U (2.6 - 3.5 GHz).

Compared to the Picasso APUs of the Ryzen 3000 series, the Athlon 300U is still based on the first generation of the 2000 series. Only the PRO variant is based on the new Zen+ microarchitecture that should lead to a 3% IPS (performance per clock) improvement.

The integrated dual-channel memory controller supports up to DDR4-2400 memory. As the features of the Picasso APUs are the same compared to the Raven Ridge predecessors, we point to our Raven Ridge launch article.

In contrast to the faster quad-core Picasso APUs, the Athlon 300U only supports 3 instead of 4 displays in total.

Performance wise, the Athlon 300 should be slightly slower than the Ryzen 3 2200U (2.5 - 3.4 GHz Dual Core with SMT).