How an amd athlon 220 / 240ge performs with a dedicated graphics card

After having analyzed the most efficient Athlon from AMD, we have found it interesting to make a comparison between AMD Athlon 220 / 240GE with a dedicated graphics card. The objective? Analyze and buy the performance offered by the Radeon Vega 3 integrated graphics of these new processors against a dedicated mid-range GPU such as the Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti, specifically the Asus ROG Strix model.

Index of contents

In our opinion, it will be interesting to know the performance of a processor as cheap as this Athlon oriented to multimedia stations is to which we are going to incorporate a GTX 1660 Ti to mount what would be a basic Gaming PC with a relatively powerful card. Do you think the performance improvements will be very large?

Power of an IGP vs dedicated graphics card

Obviously the graphic power of an IGP integrated in a processor as basic as this Athlon is compared to a GPU that costs almost 300 euros more than this CPU is obvious, we know. But the idea of ​​this comparison is to see how far these integrated three-core graphics and 192 shaders with Vega architecture can go, compared to a new generation card oriented to mid-range gaming PC.

In the same way, we will see if it really would be worth sacrificing the power of a Core i5 or Ryzen 5 CPU saving our money to the benefit of a powerful dedicated card for a hypothetical basic gaming PC inside a small ITX chassis.

For this, we will first see the technical sheet of the elements that come into play and then we will do tests with synthetic tests (benchmarks) and measuring the FPS in current games. Without further ado, let's start this comparison between AMD Athlon 240GE vs dedicated graphics card.

Recall that the results with the AMD Athlon 220GE in games were exactly the same, so this comparison is extensible to this model.

Technical characteristics and test equipment

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	AMD Athlon 240GE
Base plate:	MSI B350-I PRO AC
RAM:	16 GB G.Skill Sniper X (3600 MHz)
Heatsink	Stock sink
HDD	Adata SU750
Graphic card	Integrated / Asus ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
Power supply	Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1000W

Well here we have the main credentials of the components that we are going to use to obtain the performance results and benchmark scores.

On the part of the CPU that will give life to the test bench, we have a chip with second-generation Zen architecture and a 12nm manufacturing process in which AMD has incorporated a three-core Radeon Vega 3 (IGP) integrated graphics with a count of 192 active shaders, remembering that it can offer up to 704 in the most expensive models.

Obviously it is a CPU oriented to be used in small fixed desktop computers for the purpose of web browsing, multimedia content playback and even very basic gaming or at least that is the objective of the brand. The ideal chassis and board configuration will be the ITX format, since it is a CPU with a very low TDP and little heating.

From the Nvidia GPU we have little to say at this point. It is a mid-range graphics card with a relatively high cost and 12nm Turing architecture. His field of comfort will be gaming in Full HD resolution (1080p) with medium / high graphics as demonstrated in his respective review, although with a much more powerful CPU than the one we are dealing with today.

Benchmarks and synthetic tests

Well, nothing, let's go to see the results we have obtained in the synthetic tests of our team with and without a graphics card. The following programs have been tried:

• 3Dmark Fire Strike (normal) VRMark

Being such a basic CPU, the list of benchmarks is reduced quite a bit, although we will give some extra results comparing them with other registers delivered by the GTX 1660 Ti on the day of its review.

The drivers are updated to their latest version in both cases, version 430.64 for Nvidia and Radeon Adrenalin 19.4.3.

Well, this is what an Athlon CPU of 67 euros is capable of doing if we insert a dedicated card, and the truth is that it is not bad at all.

For starters, it is quite evident that the GPU integrated in the Athlon is no match for a whole GTX 1660 Ti, and the truth is that we expected a little more from this Athlon, perhaps if some shaders had been activated, the results would have improved somewhat. It is true that the reproduction of multimedia content in Full HD and 4K is good, but you can get a little more out of these three graphic cores for this price.

In numerical terms, we have a graph 429% more expensive than a CPU, and the results shown are 60% more performance with the GTX in Fire Strike and 614% in VRMark. They are certainly disparate, but always far superior.

And as extra data, we have also used the rest of the typical tests with 3DMark Fire strike Ultra and Time Spy.

We have compared them with those that once threw this GPU in our test bench with a 500 Core Intel Core i9-9900K processor. And look how close the synthetic results are, in Fire Strike Ultra and Time Spy, which shows that a dedicated GPU, in certain tasks, will perform well almost independently of the CPU. Of course, in normal Fire Strike (benchmark in 1080p) the difference is greatly expanded and this will translate into many more FPS in Full HD resolution.

Gaming performance

Well now we will see what will be most interesting to users and is the performance in games. Can an Athlon really handle current games to a minimum?

The truth is that definitely not, but we have made this table with our six most used games today. In it we collect first, the FPS results recorded by the AMD Athlon with its GPU integrated in low graphics at 720p, in the second, the Athlon with the GTX and identical graphic quality and in the third place, the results of the Athlon + GTX in Full HD resolution in high quality.

You already know that more than 50 FPS implies a good or very good gaming experience.

Definitely in this comparison we can say one thing, it is possible to play decently at 1080p and high quality with an Athlon CPU and a dedicated GPU, and this is demonstrated by the data. We have in all cases an FPS count greater than 50, and in some cases we touch 100 as in DOOM. So, if any user has a hypothetical old PC or has the right budget for a new Gaming PC, enjoyment is possible. In addition, there are 1660 Ti on the market cheaper and of equal performance, so let's be practical, an ITX card here would do us great.

Regarding the values ​​in 720 and low quality with the GTX, it is true that we get more FPS, but the difference with 1080p is very small and the quality goes up a lot. This only shows that buying a GTX to play 1280x720p is not an option.

Finally we have the performance of the Radeon Vega 3 integrated GPU of the Athlon 240GE. Clearly it does not measure up, with absolutely everything to a minimum we do not exceed 20 FPS, so the gameplay is mediocre. Of course, we can think of a couple of interesting uses for gaming with only the integrated GPU, the first using emulators from Nintendo, MS-DOS and arcade machines and enjoying those mythical games, and the second, playing puzzle titles, platforms and others from previous generations like Prince Of Persia. These will be enjoyable, so let's be creative, there are options.

Conclusion about the comparison of AMD Athlon 220 / 240GE with dedicated graphics card

Well, we come to the end of this small comparison, and if something has become clear to us, it is that an integrated GPU does not measure up for use in gaming. They are 3 cores at 1000 MHz, and have a performance very similar to the integrated Intel UHD Graphics GPU, but lower than the Intel UHD Graphics 630, and we would have liked it not to be. In fact, it would be very interesting to face these two IGPs with two similar CPUs, such as these Athlon and Celerons or Pentium Golds, so we will do our best to bring it.

But we can also get another second question in clear, and that is that it is possible to mount a gaming PC capable of moving graphics at 1080p and high quality with the combination of a mid-range card and a simple Athlon with a normal ITX board and 16 GB of memory also normal. Something very interesting for a user with very tight budgets and that their only option is to sacrifice CPU performance for a good GPU.

And for your part, what do you think of this comparison? Do you think this Athlon CPU is a good option against more expensive CPUs? Did you expect more from the IGP Radeon Vega 3? You can comment on your conclusions in the comment box.