AMD Ryzen 3000-Series APUs Reportedly Feature Solder, Overclock Better Too

Chiphell forum veteran 独月, who previously dissected the AMD Ryzen 3 3200G, has posted some new details about the forthcoming Ryzen 3000-series desktop APUs (accelerated processing units). His notes revealed that the AMD Ryzen 3 3200G comes with a soldered IHS (integrated heat spreader) and that it overclocks better than the existing Ryzen 3 2200G that's being replaced.

The Chinese user was greeted with an unpleasant surprise after delidding his first Ryzen 3 3200G sample. Apparently, AMD has decided to solder the IHS onto the company's upcoming Ryzen 3000-series desktop parts. AMD had previously glued the IHS to the Ryzen 2000-series chips with thermal paste, which was likely a move by the US chipmaker to reduce costs. Unaware of AMD's switcharoo, the forum poster had accidentally ripped off half of the processor die in his first attempt to delid the Ryzen 3 3200G. Luckily, he has like eight of these bad boys on hand.

After closely examining the Ryzen 3 3200G and Ryzen 3 2200G, 独月 discovered that the size of the dies between both chips is almost identical. As a matter of fact, even the capacitor is located in the same position. He also confirmed that the Ryzen 3000-series processors share the same core and cache configuration as their predecessors.

独月 confessed that although he's not a very experienced overclocker, the Ryzen 3000-series seemingly overclocks better than the current Ryzen 2000-series. Our guess is that this is probably the work of AMD's Zen+ microarchitecture and 12nm optimizations. Given the small sample size though, it might be too early to draw any concrete conclusions.

According to 独月's overclocking tests, he was able to get 300MHz and 320MHz overclocks of the Ryzen 3 3200G and Ryzen 5 3400G, respectively, at the same operating voltage, which in this case was 1.38V. What's really remarkable is that despite the higher overclocks, the Ryzen 3000-series didn't really run much hotter than the Ryzen 2000-series, which is likely the product of employing solder instead of thermal paste.

The Ryzen 3 2200G at 4,000MHz and Ryzen 3 3200G at 4,300MHz both hit the 75 degrees Celsius mark at full load. On the other hand, the Ryzen 5 3400G at 4,250MHz only runs one degree Celsius hotter than a Ryzen 5 2400G at 3925MHz. Overall, the results are pretty impressive.

As of yet, there's no word when AMD will release the Ryzen 3000-series desktop processors. We can only hope that AMD shows us something, even if it's a teaser, at Computex 2019 in late May.