Marrying Vega and Zen: The AMD Ryzen 5 2400G Review
by Ian Cutress on February 12, 2018 9:00 AM ESTConclusion: Raising the Bar for Integrated Graphics
The march on integrated graphics has come and gone in rapid spurts: the initial goal of providing a solution that provides enough performance for general office work has bifurcated into something that also aims gives a good gaming experience. Despite AMD and NVIDIA being the traditional gaming graphics companies, in this low-end space, it has required companies with x86 CPUs and compatible graphics IP to complete, meaning AMD and Intel. While going toe-to-toe for a number of years, with Intel dedicating over half of its silicon area to graphics at various points, the battle has become one-sided - Intel in the end only produced its higher performance solutions for specific customers willing to pay for it, while AMD marched up the performance by offering a lower cost solution as an alternative to discrete graphics cards that served little purpose beyond monitor output devices. This has come to a head, signifying a clear winner: AMD's graphics is the choice for an integrated solution, so much so that Intel is buying AMD's Vega silicon, a custom version, for its own mid-range integrated graphics. For AMD, that's a win. Now with the new Ryzen APUs, AMD has risen that low-end bar again.
If there was any doubt that AMD holds the integrated graphics crown, when we compare the new Ryzen APUs against Intel's latest graphics solutions, there is a clear winner. For almost all the 1080p benchmarks, the Ryzen APUs are 2-3x better in every metric. We can conclude that Intel has effectively given over this integrated graphics space to AMD at this point, deciding to focus on its encode/decode engines rather than raw gaming and 3D performance. With AMD having DDR4-2933 as the supported memory frequency on the APUs, assuming memory can be found for a reasonable price, it gaming performance at this price is nicely impressive.
When we compare the Ryzen 5 2400G with any CPU paired with the NVIDIA GT 1030, both solutions are within a few percent of each other in all of our 1080p benchmarks. The NVIDIA GT 1030 is a $90 graphics card, which when paired with a CPU, gets you two options: either match the combined price with the Ryzen 5 2400G, which leaves $80 for a CPU, giving a Pentium that loses in anything multi-threaded to AMD; or just increases the cost fo the system to get a CPU that is equivalent in performance. Except for chipset IO, the Intel + GT 1030 route offers no benefits over the AMD solution: it costs more, for a budget-constrained market, and draws more power overall. There's also the fact that the AMD APUs come with a Wraith Stealth 65W cooler, which adds additional value to the package that Intel doesn't seem to want to match.
For the compute benchmarks, Intel is still a clear winner with single threaded tests, with a higher IPC and higher turbo frequency. That is something that AMD might be able to catch up with on 12nm Zen+ coming later this year, which should offer a higher frequency, but Zen 2 is going to be the next chance to bridge this gap. If we compare the multi-threaded tests, AMD with 4C/8T and Intel 6C/6T seem to battle it out depending if a test can use multi-threading appropriately, but compared to Kaby Lake 4C/4T or 2C/4T offerings, AMD comes out ahead.
With the Ryzen 5 2400G, AMD has completely shut down the sub-$100 graphics card market. As a choice for gamers on a budget, those building systems in the region of $500, it becomes the processor to pick.
For the Ryzen 3 2200G, we want to spend more time analyzing the effect of a $99 quad-core APU the market, as well as looking how memory speed affects performance, especially with integrated graphics. There's also the angle of overclocking - with AMD showing a 20-25% frequency increase on the integrated graphics, we want to delve into how to unlock potential bottlenecks in a future article.
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sonicmerlin - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Now if only AMD had a competent GPU arch. The APU performance could be given a huge boost with Nvidia’s techdr.denton - Thursday, February 15, 2018 - link
They do. It's called Vega. Very efficient in mid- to low range and compute, and if I'm not mistaken that's where the money is. Highend gaming is just wi**ie waving for us geeks.HStewart - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Check out performance of up and coming i8809G with Vega Graphics compare to Ryzen 7http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7...
Keep in mine this is a mobile chips - this is new mobile chips is quite powerful - I thinking of actually getting one - only big concern is compatibility with Vega chip.
haplo602 - Wednesday, February 14, 2018 - link
the i8809G is a desktop chip, 100W TDP ....hansmuff - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Any idea where I could buy the MSI B350I Pro AC? I have searched every retailer I've ever bought from and can not find the damn thing. I'm hoping it can run a 2400G out of the box, at least to update to the newest BIOS.Dragonstongue - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
they REALLY should not have cut back the L3 cache SO MUCH...beyond that, truly are amazing for what they are...they should have also made a higher TDP version such as 125-160w so they could cram more cpu cores or at very least a more substantial graphics portion and not limit dGPU access to 8x pci-e (from what I have read)Graphics cards and memory are anything but low cost.
2200 IMO is "fine" for what it is, the 2400 should have had at least 4mb l3 cache (or more) then there should have been "enthusiast end" with the higher TDP versions so they could more or less ensure someone trying to do it "on a budget" really would not have to worry about getting anything less than (current) RX 570-580 or 1060-1070 level.
many cpu over the years (especially when overclocked) had a 140+w TDP, they could have and should have made many steps for their Raven Ridge and not limit them so much..IMO...they could have even had a frankenstein like one that has a 6pin pci-e connector on it to feed more direct power to the chip instead of relying on the socket alone to provide all the power needed (at least more stable power)
AM4 socket has already been up to 8 core 16 thread, and TR what 16 core 32 thread says to me the "chip size" has much more room available internally to have a bigger cpu portion and/or a far larger GPU portion, now, if they go TR4 size, TR as it is already has 1/2 of it "not used" this means they could "double up" the vega cores in it to be a very much "enthusiast grade" APU, by skimping cost on the HBM memory and relying on the system memory IMO there is a vast amount of potential performance they can capture, not to mention, properly designed, the cooling does not really become an issue (has not in the past with massive TDP cpu afterall)
anyways..really is very amazing how much potency they managed to stuff into Raven Ridge, they IMO should not have "purposefully limited it" especially on the L3 cache amount, 2mb is very limiting as far as I am concerned especially when trying to feed 4 core 8 thread at 65w TDP alojng with the gpu portion.
Either they are asking a bit much for the 2400g or, they are asking enough they just need to "tweak" a bit more quickly to make sure it is not bottlenecking itself for the $ they want for it ^.^
either way, very well done....basically above Phenom II and into Core i7 level performance with 6870+ level graphics grunt using much less power...amazing job AMD...Keep it up.
SaturnusDK - Wednesday, February 14, 2018 - link
Well done AMD. Well done.Both these APUs are extremely attractive. The R5 just screams upgradable. You get a very capable 4 core / 8 thread CPU packaged with an entry level dGPU for less than the competition charges for the CPU (with abyssmal iGPU) alone. In the current market with astronomical, even comical, dGPU prices this is a clear winner for anyone wanting to build a powerful mid-tier system but doesn't have the means to fork out ridiculous cash for higher tier dGPU now.
The R3 scream HTPC or small gaming box. A good low end CPU paired with a bare bones but still decently performing iGPU. Add MB, RAM, PSU, and HDD/SSD and you're good to go. I imagine these will sell like hot cakes in markets with less overall GDP and in the brick'n'mortar retail market.
The question is now. Is Intel ever going to produce a decent iGPU for the low end market? They've had plenty of time to do so but before Ryzen, AMD APUs just wasn't that attractive. Now though, you really have to think hard for a reason to justify buying a low end Intel CPU at all.
yhselp - Wednesday, February 14, 2018 - link
"Now with the new Ryzen APUs, AMD has risen that low-end bar again."You had to do it. I understand. And thank you.
dr.denton - Thursday, February 15, 2018 - link
<3Hifihedgehog - Wednesday, February 14, 2018 - link
I have been doing some digging and found that although current-generation AM4 motherboards lack formal HDMI 2.0 certification, just like many HDMI 1.4 cables will pass an HDMI 2.0 signal seamlessly without a hitch, the same appears to be the case for these boards whose HDMI traces and connectors may indeed be agnostic to the differences, if any. Could you do a quick test to see if HDMI 2.0 signals work for the Raven Ridge APUs on the AM4 motherboards you have access to? For further reference on the topic, see this forum thread “Raven Ridge HDMI 2.0 Compatibility — AM4 Motherboard Test Request Megathread” at SmallFormFactor.