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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speely - Monday, February 12, 2018 - link
"Where is the i5-8400 that has the same price as the 2400G?Oh, yeah, they totally left it out from the benchmarks since it would have proved an absolute supremacy of the Intel offering.
Ops."
In which benchmarks do you expect to see the i5-8400 prove its "absolute supremacy" where the i5-7400 didn't? Seriously, I'd like to know.
Because what I see is either the i5-7400 beating the 2400G or going punch to punch with it, or being thoroughly decimated by it.
If the i5-7400 beats or competes with the 2400G, the i5-8400 refresh chip will do the same. If the i5-7400 gets trounced by the 2400G, the i5-8400 refresh chip isn't suddenly and magically going to beat it.
I fail to see anything in the article to indicate a pro-AMD bias on AT's part, either intentional or unintentional.
What I do see is a fanboy who's upset to see his team losing some benchmarks.
Kamgusta - Monday, February 12, 2018 - link
Ehm sir, 7400 is 4 core and 8400 is 6 core.Other reviews shows a 30% performance dominance of i5-8400 over the 2400G.
speely - Monday, February 12, 2018 - link
Fair point, and my apologies. I keep forgetting that they upped the i5's to 6 cores after a decade of 4c4t i5's (including the 4690K I currently use).That being said, the i5-8400 itself is the same price as the 2400G, but getting the i5-8400 running is not the same price as getting the 2400G running. The 2400G was tested on an MSI B350I Pro AC (https://www.anandtech.com/show/12227/msi-releases-... which is new and doesn't yet have a publicly-known MSRP, but is built and featured like other $70-80 B350 motherboards. What motherboards are on the market today for $70-80 that support the i5-8400?
So we've taken into account the additional 2 cores and the subsequent boost to the CPU-focused benchmarks, which the 7400 sometimes lost and sometimes won against the 2400G, and put a couple small notches into the 8400's belt. For another 50 bucks or so on the motherboard just to use the 8400, that's not too bad I suppose. It's what I would expect pitting a 6c6t CPU against a 4c8t CPU in CPU benchmarks. It's certainly not "absolute supremacy" but it's something, right?
Were you expecting that "absolute supremacy" to show up in iGPU gaming? I'll just laugh about that and move on.
Sure, the 8400 could probably step past the 2400G in gaming and graphics if you paired it with a $120-or-so graphics card (assuming you can find one at $120 or so), but then you're comparing a dGPU to an iGPU and you're still only barely stepping past.
So the only real way to make the 8400 show "absolute supremacy" over the 2400G is to cherry-pick just the benchmarks you like, and bolster the 8400 with another $200 of additional hardware.
"Absolute supremacy".
Manch - Monday, February 12, 2018 - link
No it's not.In regards to vs the 8400, its a mixed bag. For programs that favor Intel CPU's there is a clear advantage. For programs that favor AMD the advantage swings the other way. For everything else that's generally proc agnostic they tie, pull ahead slightly or gets beat relatively evenly in regards to CPU performance.Now GPU wise, it gets crushed. That's obvious that is gonna happen.
If you plan on getting a DGPU with some beef, either is good, If you looking to game on the cheap, which is the target of the AMD proc in this review, its the hands down winner. Comparable perf, but with a beefier iGPU that can hang with a 1030. Also it gives you the option of adding a DGPU later when you need more grunt. It's clearly the better buy this go around. No other site that Ive seen has argued against this.
dromoxen - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Are these going to get a 12nm refresh , as all the other ryzen cpus? I am thinking of upgrade either i58400 or r5 1600/1700 or possibly 2400g.. decision decisions ...Manch - Wednesday, February 14, 2018 - link
Originally it was labeled as 12nm, now referred to 14nm+.Probably will be updated.cheshirster - Monday, February 12, 2018 - link
You need Z370 for the "supremacy" to work.Ops.
bug77 - Monday, February 12, 2018 - link
That will be fixed when lower tier 300-series chipsets launch. However, it's a significant problem for those wanting to build a cheap setup until then.Ian Cutress - Monday, February 12, 2018 - link
I used the chips I have on hand for the tests, forgot to add already tested chips - we haven't tested the i5-8400 IGP, but the CPU results are on hand in Bench. I can add those results to the graphs when I get a chance.Manch - Monday, February 12, 2018 - link
Ian, I dont know if fhis is just when browing from a phone but the bench when listing CPUs while alphabetic, bc of the chips names ~lake, etc. The listing jumps all over the place. 8 series before 4 seriez then 7 series. Can yall fix this? Thanks