The new Ryzen 2000 series is in the market for some time now except for the Threadrippers that too are soon to be released. These include the low-end and mid-end APUs and the whole range of CPUs that are not revolutionary this time but provide efficient incremental benefit over the last gen Ryzen CPUs/APUs.
AMD is finally getting ahead of Intel in all compartments of processing, single core performance while the multicore performance lead is getting bigger and bigger. The high-end Ryzen 7 2700X got ahead of the Intel Core i7-8700K in every benchmark during the testing which is only the icing of the cake the foundations of which is formed by the low-end Ryzen 3 and mid-range Ryzen 5 APUs.
The higher of these Accelerated processing units, Ryzen 5 2400G is our focus for today since they provide the benefits of a fully functional low-end discreet Graphics card in a single package. AMD is saying that the new VEGA CUs can provide 1080p 30FPS in every esports and some AAA titles too. Let’s see the CPU and GPU performance of these chips and see how Ryzen has improved itself.
Architecture
These chips are made with an improved version of the original Zen architecture fabbed with the 12nm FinFET process at Samsung and Global foundries that give the incremental boost to the process with the added benefits of denser chips and less power consumption.
The integrated VEGA graphics which was one of the biggest selling points of the last gen Ryzen APU is also in the Ryzen 5 with better configuration and less power draw than the previous processors. Despite Ryzen 5 being the mid-range name, it has the best VEGA graphics as there are no APUs in the Ryzen 7 lineup, Ryzen 5 2400G will be the best performer in the graphics department.
AMD had achieved a lot since the arrival of Ryzen, before the arrival AMD was left behind in the single core and the Graphics performance, mainly because of Intel’s better single core design and embedded DRAM for better graphics. But Ryzen’s better single core architecture and VEGA graphics outperform its biggest rival in silicon manufacturing at every computational department possible.
Improvements
The improvements Zen+ provides are mainly focused on the single and multicore clock speeds of the CPUs. The precision boost allows all processors to work at higher clock speeds while maintaining stability and lower thermals. The XFR boost works similarly, but it can adjust the clock speeds from 25MHz to 100MHz depending upon the cooling, in other words, if you have a better CPU cooler you will see better XFR boots. On a side note AMD is providing the coolers this time around depending upon the chips, e.g., the Ryzen 7 2700X comes with a high-end Wraith prism cooler with RGB lighting, and wraith stealth and Spire are in the box for subsequent models.
Specifications
Specifications of these APUs are also improved over the last generation especially the VEGA graphics department of the new Ryzen 5 2400G. The quad-core processor now has eight threads and a base clock speed of 3.6GHz and the boost clock of 3.9GHz. The CPU supports faster 2933 MHz dual-channel DDR4 DRAM.
The VEGA graphics are also improved, and it now has 11 VEGA compute units with the same shader core configuration as every other AMD Graphics card 64 shader cores per Compute unit which makes a total of 704 shader processors in the device which are clocked at a stable frequency of 1250MHz.
The GPU cores are overclockable, but XFR decides automatically according to cooling and workload whether to overclock the CPU cores or the GPU cores. Additionally, with the new processors, AMD has also released the new chipset, these new Ryzen processors are fully compatible with the older AM4 sockets. However, to get the full benefits from the processors, AMD recommends the new chipset.
Performance
To test both CPU and GPU performance from the accelerated processing units we performed comprehensive tests that will tax both CPU and GPU and lastly, we tested some games.
To test the multi-threaded performance we ran the 3D particle movement 2.1 stress test which engages multiple threads of the CPU at the same time while making it run at its highest clocks peed, surprisingly the Ryzen 5 got better results than the 8th gen Core i5 processor that is much expensive.
To test multicore performance, we ran Agisoft photoscan benchmarking tool, here the 6-core intel’s core i5 processor got the top position, while Ryzen 5 got the second spot. To test the integrated VEGA GPU we ran the Rise of Tomb Raider at low 1080p settings, and we got frames in mid-twenties, if you don’t mind in playing the game at the 900p resolution we got locked 30 FPS at 900p low settings with anti-aliasing turned off. GTA V is also playable at 900p medium settings.
Conclusion
All in all, if you are in the market of a very low-end graphics card than Ryzen 5 2400G should be your choice since at only $169 it works as a good mid-range CPU and the best low-end GPU. Check out the price on Amazon here.