The purple crew this week launched the AMD Raven Ridge desktop APUs, with the Ryzen 5 2400G standing proud because the top-end halo half, however what of the lower-spec Ryzen three 2200G? What has this $99 (£88) quad-core obtained to supply? Well, rather a lot really.
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The Ryzen three 2200G has the bottom spec of the 2 present Raven Ridge APUs, however there are supposedly extra Athlon-branded APUs on their means, with a multi-threaded dual-core sporting a possible Athlon 200GE title being noticed within the ever-reliable SiSoft Sandra database. Good ol’ Sandy.
The 2200G, nonetheless, is a full quad-core Ryzen processor with a surprisingly efficient Radeon Vega GPU element inbuilt. Unlike its 2400G sibling it doesn’t have AMD’s simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) enabled, so it’s only a 4 core, 4 thread design. Still, these cores are clocked comparatively excessive, with the bottom clock of the 2200G working at three.5GHz and the utmost enhance clock set at three.7GHz.
While this chip is supposedly changing the Ryzen three 1200, these clockspeeds really give it the identical specs because the dearer $125 (£110) Ryzen 3 1300X – latterly our decide of one of the best funds gaming CPUs round right now. Not precisely the identical specs because the 1300X, nonetheless, principally as a result of AMD switched from utilizing a pair of quad-core CPU complexes (CCX) to make up their total 1000-series Ryzen chips. Previously each chip, irrespective of the core-count, had the identical dual-CCX make up, with the related variety of cores turned off to make the ultimate spec.
With the Raven Ridge chips they’ve opted for a less complicated single CCX design for causes of complexity, price, and area. AMD have gotten to squeeze in an entire Vega GPU beneath that heatspreader, you recognize. That means you get half the general L3 cache (there’s 4MB of L3 per CCX), however the trade-off is that there shouldn’t be any of the latency points that generally occurred inside video games whereas chucking information throughout the Infinity Fabric bridge which related the 2 CCX of Ryzen.
The Vega GPU element of the second-tier Raven Ridge chip is a extra cut-down variant, with the Vega eight nomenclature. That’s to point its eight compute models (CUs), which in flip means there are 512 GCN cores contained in the GPU. That’s a very good chunk lower than the 2400G, and the cores are working slower too, however when it comes to precise gaming efficiency there’s surprisingly little between them.
Considering the low body charges at excessive 1080p settings that’s not an enormous shock, however even once we’re speaking concerning the relative 720p gaming efficiency of the low-end 2200G you’re nonetheless getting completely playable body charges in some actually demanding video games. That hole will get even smaller while you issue within the overclocking potential of the Vega GPU element. Admittedly you must knock the settings again to medium to get there, however contemplating the Xbox One and PS4 nonetheless wrestle to nail 1080p gaming with complete regularity that’s not dangerous.
AMD’s Vega structure was at all times designed with excessive clockspeeds in thoughts and so the nominal 1,150MHz base clock of the Vega eight silicon appears to be extra about making a distinction between the excessive and low-end Raven Ridge APUs than any real limitation. We fortunately overclocked the 2200G’s graphics core as much as 1,500MHz with out downside, and at that velocity there’s solely actually a couple of frames in it, with the Ryzen three APU providing severe gaming efficiency. GTA V was even in a position to hit 60fps working at 1080p and at ‘normal’ settings.
That means the Ryzen three 2200G can be a very slightly succesful foundation for a funds gaming PC by itself, sans discrete graphics card, and for an awesome worth. The vaguely price-equivalent Intel processor, the Core i3 7350K is a dual-core processor, having to faux it to make it a four-threaded CPU. But that’s solely obtained Intel’s personal flimsy graphics tech put in, which is rarely going to present good recreation, so completely has to have a discrete GPU connected to it.
And while you do have a discrete GPU connected to the Ryzen three 2200G it additionally turns into an awesome funds gaming CPU. While it’s meant to be retiring the Ryzen three 1200, it really trades gaming benchmark blows with the pricier 1300X.
For the funds PC gaming crew then it virtually doesn’t matter whether or not you’re on the lookout for a low-cost APU to construct a 720p gaming rig round, or whether or not you’re merely on the lookout for a funds CPU to drop in subsequent to your mainstream graphics card, the 2200G is a good low-cost possibility.
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