AMD Zen now at 6W TDP: Dual Core for Education

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At the low-end of AMD’s portfolio, the company uses Athlon Gold and Silver naming for parts that offer fewer cores and lower power consumption. These parts are still based on Zen or Zen+ microarchitecture, paired with a small amount of Vega graphics, indicating that this market is best served with something that is at a low-cost to manufacture but still of sufficient performance for the markets intended. Sitting below those Athlons, two new APUs have popped up in some new Lenovo education-focused designs today.

The two new processors dispense with the Athlon naming, as AMD gets right into it – the AMD 3015e and 3020e use the same lower case ‘e’ ending we last saw on a product line in 2011, indicating the super low power that these processors are rated for. These processors are given a TDP of 6W with two cores and Vega 3 graphics, traditionally what we see in low cost laptops but sufficient for education-style designs.

The silicon these new processors are based on, we believe, is AMD’s Dali silicon. It is the smallest of all AMD’s Zen APU silicon offerings, already in the market as AMD Athlon Mobile. These new parts come in below those specifications.

AMD Dali-based Zen APUs
AnandTech Cores Threads Base Freq Turbo Freq GPU GPU Freq DDR4 TDP
Athlon Gold 3150U 2 / 4 2400 3300 Vega 3 1000 2400 15 W
Athlon Silver 3050U 2 / 2 2300 3200 Vega 2 1100 2400 15 W
Athlon 300U 2 / 4 2400 3300 Vega 3 1000 2400 15 W
Athlon Silver 3050e 2 / 4 - 2800 Vega 3 1000 2400 6 W
AMD 3015e 2 / 4 1200 2300 Vega 3 600 1600 6 W
AMD 3020e 2 / 2 1200 2600 Vega 3 1000 2400 6 W

If the set-up looks a bit odd, well, it is. The 3015e has simultaneous multi-threading but a much lower GPU frequency and DDR4 support compared to the 3020e. This might be the trade-off at the 6W power mode.

Lenovo is set to use the new AMD 3015e in two of its new education designs.

The Lenovo 100e 2[sup]nd[/sup] Gen will use this new chip, Windows 10, Wi-Fi 6, 64 GB eMMC, 4 GB DDR4, an 11.6-inch 13x7 display (250 nits), but offer a hard wearing design suitable for bumps and scrapes as well as ~12 hours of battery life, with quick charging providing 80% power in an hour.

The Lenovo 300e 2[sup]nd[/sup] Gen is a similar build but offers a 360-degree hinge, pen support, with an optional 128 GB SSD. Battery is 42 Wh, rated at ~12 hours.

The 100e will start at $219 and the 300e will start at $299, available from September. Both devices have a variety of student-focused software options focusing on teaching and security.
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