ryzen apu | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Thu, 30 Mar 2023 09:09:05 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png ryzen apu | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 AMD Ryzen 7 5700G APU (Zen 3/Vega 8) Review https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/luke-hill/amd-ryzen-7-5700g-apu-zen-3-vega-8-review/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/luke-hill/amd-ryzen-7-5700g-apu-zen-3-vega-8-review/#respond Tue, 03 Aug 2021 13:00:33 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=525676 AMD's Ryzen 5000 series of APUs are finally available to DIY users - but is the 5700G any good?

The post AMD Ryzen 7 5700G APU (Zen 3/Vega 8) Review first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
Today we are looking at a much-anticipated product from AMD; the Ryzen 5000G desktop – Cezanne – APUs are finally available for DIY PC builders to purchase. We have the Ryzen 7 5700G in for testing which is AMD’s new flagship APU product that boasts 8 CPU cores with 16 threads, integrated Vega8 graphics, and a $359 USD or £310 price tag.

In a world where the discrete GPU market is still completely broken, perhaps an APU with reasonable built-in graphics capability makes more sense than ever?

00:00 Start
00:15 Introduction / pricing
01:19 5700G details (and cooler)
03:33 PCIe Gen 3 ?
03:55 Motherboard support
04:32 Test system / Methodology
06:11 Comparison Thoughts
07:41 Clock speed / OC
10:23 Performance results
12:58 Summary of CPU focused performance
13:20 iGPU gaming – AAA titles
16:01 Summary of iGPU gaming performance
16:43 Gaming Performance with RTX 3080
17:38 Power Consumption
18:00 Temperatures
18:17 Summary
19:52 Luke’s Closing Thoughts

Focusing on the CPU side to start with, the Ryzen 7 5700G features eight cores and 16 threads of Zen 3 architecture. The chip clocks at 3.8GHz base and 4.6GHz max rated boost. You get 0.5MB of L2 cache per core, as with all Zen 3 – so 4MB total L2.

But L3 cache capacity is only 16MB, which is a halving compared to single-CCX Zen 3 desktop CPUs such as the Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 7 5800X. That is likely to have a notable negative impact as it – in essence – reverts us back to Zen 2 levels of compute performance in some respects.

On the GPU side, AMD equips the 5700G with 8 Compute Units clocked up to 2GHz. This sounds pretty promising, until you realise that the same old – somewhat ancient – Vega architecture is being used.

No RDNA/RDNA2 here – old Vega that really isn’t too dissimilar to the 11 CU, albeit slower clocked, Vega iGPU of the Ryzen 5 3400G from 2019! This is disappointing, irrelevant of what AMD has done to improve the core Vega architecture.

Why no RDNA2 like consoles?

The GPU does however support useful tech such as FreeSync and FSR.

And then on the SoC side of things, the 5700G has a 65W TDP and is bundled with the Wraith Stealth which is cheap and disappointing when Wraith Spire is entirely justifiable for $359. The old Ryzen 5 3400G got the bigger Wraith Spire back in the day.

The roughly 180mm2 SoC design features 10.7 Billion transistors fabbed on the 7nm TSMC process node. The use of a single monolithic die for this APU, unlike the Core Chiplet Die and IO Die chiplet approach for Ryzen 5000 desktop processors, is potentially advantageous for latencies when reaching out for IO operations.

This is essentially the same silicon as the Ryzen 5000 mobile APUs, albeit with subtle desktop versus laptop differences and typically higher power budgets.

AMD equips the 5700G with 24 PCIe lanes but they are only Gen 3! Ryzen 5000 desktop and even Intel's competing solutions have Gen 4 now – how can AMD justify the application of older PCIe tech on a still expensive processor?

As expected, the new Ryzen 7 APU drops into the AM4 platform with a BIOS update. B550 motherboards will undoubtedly be the sensible go-to option for buyers. Though do pay attention to video outputs on the rear IO when picking a motherboard.

We get the usual Zen 3/AM4 memory support, and that’s important given the tie-in for GPU memory speeds to the system RAM clock. So 3600MHz should work fine out of the box, 3800MHz with 1900MHz Fabric Clock should be fine, and 4000MHz with 2000MHz Fabric Clock is worth trying but without guarantee that a chip will do 2GHz FCLK.

In the motherboard BIOS we can carve off how much RAM we would like to allocate to the GPU. Take that into consideration when deciding what capacity kit to opt for. We chose 4GB as a sensible option.

In terms of competition for the $359 Ryzen 7 5700G, it is an interesting one.

We have the Ryzen 7 5800X from AMD’s own stable, but that does not have an iGPU and is more expensive.

We have the Core i7-11700K which is around £30-40 more expensive, so that’s a valid competitor as it has the Intel UHD 750 32EU iGPU. Plus, this chip acts as a good proxy for the direct competitor – the Core i7-11700 non-K.

We have the Ryzen 5 5600X for around £60 less currently, so that leaves budget to buy a *GULP* GT 730 graphics card brand new (ignoring 2nd hand for now).

And of course you could go with a cheaper Core i5 and a dGPU, but that’s getting a bit away from real APU comparisons for people actually interested in APU benefits.

Be sure to check out our sponsors store EKWB here

The post AMD Ryzen 7 5700G APU (Zen 3/Vega 8) Review first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/luke-hill/amd-ryzen-7-5700g-apu-zen-3-vega-8-review/feed/ 0
AMD Ryzen 5 3400G (Zen+ & Vega 11) APU Review https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/luke-hill/amd-ryzen-5-3400g-zen-vega-11-apu-review/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/luke-hill/amd-ryzen-5-3400g-zen-vega-11-apu-review/#respond Wed, 07 Aug 2019 11:04:14 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=420885 It's a Zen+ APU with Vega 11 graphics, priced at £139.99. Does Luke rate it?

The post AMD Ryzen 5 3400G (Zen+ & Vega 11) APU Review first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
Codenamed Picasso and combining a four-core, eight-thread Zen+ CPU with an 11 CU slice of Vega graphics, AMD’s £140 Ryzen 5 3400G is an evolution from the Ryzen 5 2400G of last year. Boosting up to 4.2GHz on the single-CCX CPU component and 1400MHz for the Vega 11 GPU, clock speed increases are the most noteworthy change from last year’s Ryzen 5 2400G. Another important adjustment is the reduction in MSRP by $20, making the Ryzen 5 3400G slightly more affordable.

Despite the Ryzen 3000 naming scheme, it is important to remember that the current APUs are not Zen 2 architecture and are fabbed using a 12nm Global Foundries process, not the 7nm TSMC FinFET technology of their CPU brothers.

Is £140 for a four-core Zen+ CPU with simultaneous multi-threading, an on-chip Vega 11 GPU, plus the 95W-rated Wraith Spire cooler a solid deal for budget buyers and HTPC gamers?

Most of the information from our review of the Ryzen 5 2400G from last year still holds true with the Ryzen 5 3400G. As this update from Zen to Zen+ is more of a die-shrink with minor adjustments than the evolution to Zen 2 (which will perhaps arrive in 2020), the differences will be minor. Check out that review for additional details HERE.

It is important to understand the position of an APU in today’s market. Last year, the high GPU prices and supply issues driven by the cryptocurrency mining boom meant that even low-end GPUs were either severely overpriced or hard to come by. This year, however, those issues are non-existent (for now) and the APU regains its position as an entry-level option to cash-strapped gamers.

Another key market for APUs is for those who are looking for a stop-gap gaming machine before upgrading to a discrete GPU in the future. Of course, HTPC usage is also an ideal environment for APUs, thanks to the on-chip GPU’s media decoding capabilities.

AMD is clearly targeting 1080P gamers on a budget with the Ryzen 5 3400G. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect 60 FPS at 1080P in modern AAA titles. However, less-demanding games, older AAA titles, and those that simply aren’t too graphically intensive should all run fine. That’s more than can be said for the iGPU capabilities of competing Intel chips at this price point. The word ‘competing’ there is perhaps slightly misused as there is realistically no Intel competition for these APUs.

For £140, the six-thread Intel Coffee Lake Core i5-9400F should net you higher CPU performance but lower GPU performance that translates into largely unplayable gaming experiences. If you want a balance between a decent level of CPU performance and an integrated GPU that allows for gaming, the AMD APUs are the only real option without going down the discrete GPU route.

According to AMD, video encode and decode is handled by the Video Core Next, or VCN for short, silicon present in the Vega GPU. Video decode of common resolutions and media formats, such as 4K60 MPEG2, 4K60 H.265, and 4K60 HEVC are all supported.

AMD’s table highlights that VP9 8 bits per channel and VP9 10 bits per channel are both supported at up to 4K60. HDCP 2.2 is supported by the APU, though keep an eye on this specification when choosing a motherboard with built-in video outputs.

We tested video content relating to these formats, resolutions, and frame rates and found media playback to be perfectly fine in general. Our 4K30 100Mbps H264 content played without hiccups through VLC media play on Windows 10. The same can be said for 1440P60 50Mbps H264 media and also 4K60 80Mbps H265 footage taken from a GoPro Hero 6.

Testing with YouTube, 1080p60 and 1440p60 ran smoothly. 4K30 was also perfectly fine using Google Chrome and 4K60 had dropped frames here and there but they were generally induced by me messing about with the monitoring software at the same time.

8K footage on YouTube was not smoothly playable. That is perhaps something to bear in mind for those hoping to keep this APU for a long time. By comparison, the Intel UHD iGPU generally handles 8K30 and 8K60 YouTube footage fine, based on our testing with a Whiskey Lake-equipped Dell XPS 13 and the Intel UHD 630 on a Core i5-8600K.

Be sure to check out our sponsors store EKWB here

The post AMD Ryzen 5 3400G (Zen+ & Vega 11) APU Review first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/luke-hill/amd-ryzen-5-3400g-zen-vega-11-apu-review/feed/ 0