Marrying Vega and Zen: The AMD Ryzen 5 2400G Review
by Ian Cutress on February 12, 2018 9:00 AM ESTiGPU Gaming Performance, Continued
Rise of the Tomb Raider
One of the most comprehensive games in the gaming benchmark suite is Rise of the Tomb Raider (RoTR), developed by Crystal Dynamics, and the sequel to the popular Tomb Raider which was loved for its automated benchmark mode. But don’t let that fool you: the benchmark mode in RoTR is very much different this time around.
Visually, the previous Tomb Raider pushed realism to the limits with features such as TressFX, and the new RoTR goes one stage further when it comes to graphics fidelity. This leads to an interesting set of requirements in hardware: some sections of the game are typically GPU limited, whereas others with a lot of long-range physics can be CPU limited, depending on how the driver can translate the DirectX 12 workload.
The GT 1030 sweeps the top spot against AMD here, though only by small margins most of the time. The AMD APUs still offer a commanding 2-3x performance jump over Intel's product line, and even more when price is factored into the equation.
Rocket League
Hilariously simple and embodying the elements of pick-up-and-play, Rocket League allows users to jump into a game with other people (or bots) to play football with cars with zero rules. The title is built on Unreal Engine 3, which is somewhat old at this point, but it allows users to run the game on super-low-end systems while still taxing the big ones. Since the release in 2015, it has sold over 5 million copies and seems to be a fixture at LANs and game shows. Users who train get very serious, playing in teams and leagues with very few settings to configure, and everyone is on the same level. Rocket League is quickly becoming one of the favored titles for e-sports tournaments, especially when e-sports contests can be viewed directly from the game interface.
With Rocket League, there is no benchmark mode, so we have to perform a series of automated actions, similar to a racing game having a fixed number of laps. We take the following approach: Using Fraps to record the time taken to show each frame (and the overall frame rates), we use an automation tool to set up a consistent 4v4 bot match on easy, with the system applying a series of inputs throughout the run, such as switching camera angles and driving around.
As the more eSports oriented title in our testing, Rocket League is less graphically intense than the others, and by being built on DX9, also tends to benefit from a good single thread performance. The GT 1030 wins again here, most noticably in the 99th percentile numbers, but the AMD chips are hitting 30 FPS in that percentile graph, whereas in the last generation they were getting 30 FPS average. That is a reasonable step up in performance, aided both to the graphics and the high-performance x86 cores. It will be interesting to see how the memory speed changes the results here.
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Fritzkier - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Well not really. While they using Pentium G with GT 730 or lower, many uses AMD A-series APU too (since they no need to use low end discrete GPU to be on par)And Ryzen 2200G also priced the same as Pentium G with GT 730 tho. The exception is RAM prices...
watzupken - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
If AMD uses a beefier Vega IGPU, are you willing to pay for it is the question? I feel iGPU will only make sense if the price is low, or if the power consumption is low. Where Intel is using AMD graphics, is likely for a fruity client. Outside of that, you won't see many manufacturers using it because of the cost. For the same amount of money Intel is asking for the chip only, there are many possible configuration with dedicated graphics that you can think of. Also, the supposedly beefier AMD graphics is about as fast as a GTX 1050 class. You are better off buying a GTX 1050Ti.iwod - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Well unless we could solve the GPU Crypto problem in the near future ( Which we wont ) I think having better Vega GFx combined with CPU is good deal.Gadgety - Monday, February 12, 2018 - link
Will these APUs do HDR UHD 4k Bluray playback (yes I know it's a tiny niche), or is that still Intel only?GreenReaper - Wednesday, February 14, 2018 - link
Probably best to just get an Xbox One S for it. As a bonus you could play a few games on it, too!watzupken - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
I feel the R3 2200G is still a better deal than the R5 2400G. The price gap is too big relative to the difference in performance. And because these chips are over clocking friendly, so despite the R3 being a cut down chip, there could be some performance catchup with some overclocking. Overall, I feel both are great chips especially for some light/ casual gaming. If gaming is the main stay, then there is no substitute for a dedicated graphic solution.serendip - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
The 2200G is a sweet because it offers most of the 2400G's performance at a sub-$100 point. For most business and home desktops, it's more than enough for both CPU and GPU performance. And with discrete GPUs being so hard to get now, good-enough APU graphics will do for the majority of home users. Hopefully AMD can translate all this into actual shipping machines.I'm going to sound like a broken record but AMD could send another boot up Intel's behind by making an Atom competitor. A dual-core Zen with SMT and cut-down Vega graphics would still be enough to blow Atom out of the water.
msroadkill612 - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Its a pity they dont get hbcc.msroadkill612 - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Simply put, amd now own the entry level up to most 1080p gaming, and its a daunting jump in cost to improve by much.Its polite and nice of this review to pretend intel has competitive products, and include them for old times sake.
serendip - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Looks like AMD owns the good-enough category. As I said previously, let's hope this translates into actual machines being shipped, seeing as OEMs previously made some terrible AMD-based systems at the low end.