As a result of the high volume of inquiries I received regarding the procedures for Is AMD Athlon Good for Gaming in 2023, I decided to write this article in order to provide you with the fundamental information.
No one has thousands of dollars to spend on high-end gaming equipment. And what if you only had $50 to $60 to spend on the CPU and GPU together?
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The AMD Athlon comes into play here.
At this price range, you can get a dual-core APU with 4 threads and Vega 3 graphics that can be clocked faster. Let’s begin!
Where does AMD Athlon fit into the line of AMD CPUs?
AMD’s low-cost, first-level CPUs are called Athlon processors. They are made to do basic tasks and maybe some light gaming, but they are not as powerful as Ryzen 7 or 9, or especially their top-of-the-line Threadripper series processors.
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Check out the list below to see where Athlon ranks among AMD’s CPUs:
- AMD Athlon Series: The AMD CPU with the least power. Good for basic tasks like writing documents in Microsoft Word, watching videos, and looking at web pages. It is not a good idea to run games.
- AMD Ryzen 3: Ideal for doing simple things.
- AMD Ryzen 5: Ideal for casual gamers.
- AMD Ryzen 7: Good for AAA games made recently.
- AMD Ryzen 9: Ideal for a lot of streaming and gaming.
- AMD Ryzen Threadripper: Can take care of whatever you throw at it.
Popular AMD Athlon CPUs Benchmark Comparison
The AMD Athlon 3000G and Athlon 240GE processors fall between the Intel Celeron G6900 and Core i5-4460 in terms of performance. In the chart below, I show where the popular Athlon processors stand in comparison to other processors’ benchmarks.
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Here are some comparisons of AMD Athlon:
What Specs Do You Get in the AMD Athlon Processor?
The AMD Athlon processors have a 14 nm Zen 1 architecture with 2 cores, 4 threads, a CPU clock of 3.5 GHz, Vega 3 integrated graphics that run at 1100 MHz, and, most importantly, they can be overclocked.
In fact, the biggest difference between the Athlon 3000G and the Athlon 200GE, a previous-generation APU that costs about $25 more, is that the Athlon 3000G can be overclocked.
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I was able to get performance that was a bit better than stock after I overclocked. With a voltage of 1.37 volts, I brought the CPU clock speed from 3.5 GHz to 4 GHz. With a voltage of 1.35 volts, I was able to add 600 MHz to the Vega 3 GPU.
These are massive improvements over the out-of-the-box CPU.
Rainbow Six Siege’s average FPS went from 65 to 85 when the 3000G was overclocked, which is a 30% performance boost.
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So, if you get this processor, you should definitely try to speed it up.
Let’s see if that’s enough to run games.
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So Is AMD Athlon Good For Gaming?
Even though the AMD Athlon series CPUs are low-end, they can still run some light games. Especially, when overclocked, the Athlon processors can provide fairly smooth gameplay. For example, an Athlon 200GE that has been overclocked to 3.9 GHz is able to give 30 fps or more.
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Here’s how the AMD Athlon processors handle different games:
Fortnite
Starting out with 720p and everything on low, this chip could get around 60 FPS on average with Fortnite. Even though the game looked pretty bad with these settings, it worked pretty well.
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In comparison, the 3200G was able to play Fortnite at 1080p with Epic view distance at slightly above 60 FPS. It was just as smooth as 3000G, but it looked much better.
Overwatch 2
Moving on to Overwatch 2, the 3000G got an average of 77 FPS at 720p and low settings. I had a good time playing games, and I wouldn’t mind playing with this level of performance.
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Red Dead Redemption 2
In RDR 2, you’ll have to give up a lot of graphics to get 30 frames per second on the 3000G or the 200GE. You need to turn everything off or down, depending on the settings you have, run the game in 720p, and choose 50% render scale from the game menu.
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On the Athlon 3000G, I got about 33 FPS on average in Red Dead Redemption 2, and the 200GE gave me the same results.
CS GO
On 3000G, running CS:GO at 1080p with low settings everywhere, you’ll see 85 frames per second. Also, when I tested the game, I didn’t really notice any major frame drops, so I could happily play CS:GO online with this APU.
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With 720p and low settings, the 3000G chip can get up to 127 FPS on average, while the 200GE chip can only get 73 FPS on average.
PUBG
With a very low preset, even PUBG will be playable at 720p. On average, you’ll get 32 FPS with the Athlon 3000G. Even when I started going fast down the road on a motorcycle, the 3000G’s frame rate stayed pretty steady.
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As a comparison, you’ll see about 28 frames on average with the 200GE CPU.
Battlefield 5
Battlefield 5 had a few big stutters when it was set to 720p and low settings, especially during the first level. On the 3000G, the average FPS was 29 and on the 200GE, it was 25.
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Rainbow Six Siege
Lastly, I tested Rainbow Six Siege using the built-in benchmark at 720p low. The 3000G got an average of 65 FPS, which is pretty good. Compared to the 3200G, which plays this game at 1080p and gets an average of 76 FPS, this is a big improvement.
The average FPS of different games on Athlon 3200G, 3000G, and 200GE processors is shown in the chart below:
Should you think about getting an AMD Athlon for a gaming PC?
The AMD Athlon series processors are a good choice if you want to play some light games on your device but are on a tighter budget. Especially if you don’t have the money or can’t wait, you should be fine with the 3000G.
Even though it has integrated Vega 3 graphics, the gaming experience you will have with the 3200G will be significantly improved if you can set aside an additional $30 and purchase it.
You could also put that money toward a dedicated graphics card, even a budget model like the RX 460, which would deliver much improved performance if you do so. In comparison to the Vega 3, the RX 460, which is a more affordable graphics processing unit (GPU), is still a formidable opponent.
My computer was able to achieve an average of 192 frames per second in Rainbow Six Siege when it was equipped with an overclocked 3000G and an RX 460.
When compared to the stock 3000G configuration, which makes use of the integrated Vega 3 graphics, this represents a nearly 300% improvement in performance.
Having said that, the AMD Ryzen 3 2200G is, in my opinion, the APU that offers the finest combination of quality and price among all of AMD’s offerings. In my opinion, you shouldn’t bother with the Athlon CPUs unless you can obtain them at a price that’s far lower than the going rate.
Conclusion
The Athlon processors manufactured by AMD are inexpensive central processing units (CPUs) that are designed primarily for simple operations and are not appropriate for use in gaming contexts.
But, if you are willing to reduce the quality of the visuals and play games at a frame rate of no more than 30 frames per second, the Athlon processors will be adequate.
Hence, if you are looking for a low-cost, low-power central processing unit (CPU) and wish to play light games or even some heavier titles if you are feeling bold, an AMD Athlon may be the perfect choice for you.
If you have any further inquiries, please leave a comment below, and we will respond as soon as possible.
FAQs About Is AMD Athlon Good for Gaming
What is AMD Athlon good for?
Modern Athlons and Pentiums are made for low-level tasks like light web browsing and word processing, not high-performance tasks like high-resolution gaming and video editing.
Can I play GTA V with AMD Athlon?
Yes, you can. You can also play GTA 5 pretty well at 1366×768 + MEDIUM graphics settings + HIGH draw distance (that’s the distance scaling, NOT the extended distance scaling).
Does AMD Athlon need graphics card?
The AMD AthlonTM 3000G processor has AMD RadeonTM graphics built in, so you don’t need to buy a graphics card to play 720p games online with your friends.
Is AMD Athlon better than i3?
When it comes to running the latest games, the Intel Core i3-530 2.9GHz performs much better overall than the AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6400+.
Is AMD Athlon better than i5?
When it comes to playing the most recent games, the Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz performs far better than the AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+. This is especially true in terms of the overall gaming performance of the two processors.
