AMD Ryzen 7 2700X vs AMD Athlon Silver 3050U

AMD Ryzen 7 2700X

The AMD Ryzen 7 2700X is a high-end desktop processor with 8 cores (16 threads) that was announced early 2018. It is based on the revised Zen+ cores and at launch the fastest Ryzen CPU. The CPU cores clock at 3.7 GHz base and using Precision Boost 2 up to 4.3 GHz. All 8 cores and 16 threads can clock up to 4 GHz. The 8 cores are divided in two cluster (4 cores each with own L3 cache) connected via Infinity Fabric.

Compared to the older first Ryzen generation (e.g., Ryzen 5 1700X), the second generation is manufactured in an improved process (12nm called), offers and improved Precision Boost 2 (especially in partial load of the cores) and faster cache and memory speeds.

See our second generation Ryzen review for detailed benchmarks and information.

AMD Athlon Silver 3050U

The AMD Athlon Silver 3050U is a mobile processor for thin and light entry level laptops. It is based on the Picasso series (e.g. Ryzen 3000U APUs) and offers two Zen cores clocked at 2.3 to 3.2 GHz without SMT (two threads at once) and 4 MB of L3 Cache. The integrated graphics card is called Radeon RX Vega 2 and offers only 2 CUs (128 shaders) clocked at up to 1,100 MHz.

In Chromebooks, AMD calles the APU AMD Athlon Silver 3050C, but with the exact same specifications (and performance).

Performance

We have not tested a single system built around the 3050U, as of August 2023. Expect the chip to be just a few percentage points slower than the Athlon 3150U (two Zen cores, 4 threads, up to 3.3 GHz). This kind of performance should suffice for most day-to-day tasks but not much more than that.

Power consumption

This Athlon series chip has a default TDP of 15 W (also known as the long-term power limit). Laptop makers are free to change that to anything between 12 W and 25 W with clock speeds and peformance changing accordingly as a result. Either way, that's a tad too high to allow for passively cooled designs.

Last but not the least, the APU is built with a 14 nm process leading to poor, as of early 2023, energy efficiency.