YouTuber Tests Starfield on AMD Athlon 3000G, Ryzen 7 5700G APUs
AMD's Athlon 3000G is a bit hopeless, but the Ryzen 7 5700G does a lot better.
Yesterday we pondered over YouTubers testing Starfield on the Steam Deck, and sharing their mixed feelings. Today, there's an interesting video from budget video gaming centric Random Gaming in HD. In the video, the Starfield performance on two desktop APUs is tested: the AMD Athlon 3000G with Vega 3 graphics, and the Ryzen 7 5700G, with Vega 8 graphics.
Introducing his video, Random Gaming in HD admitted that Starfield was quite a demanding title, so gamers with an APU shouldn't set their expectations too high. Indeed, the Steam Deck itself features an AMD APU, albeit running in a much tighter power budget with less capable cooling.
APU |
Athlon 3000G |
Ryzen 7 5700G | Steam Deck (Valve Aerith) |
---|---|---|---|
CPU |
Zen 1, 2C / 4T, 3.5 GHz |
Zen 3, 8C / 16T, up to 3.8 GHz |
Zen 2, 4C / 8T, up to 3.5 GHz |
GPU |
3 Vega CUs at up to 1.1 GHz |
8 Vega CUs at up to 2.0 GHz |
8 RDNA 2 CUs at up to 1.6 GHz |
Memory tested |
DDR4-2666 | 32 GB DDR4-3200 | 16 GB LPDDR5-5500 |
TDP |
35W |
65W |
Up to 15W |
Firing up the AMD Athlon system first, running at 720p with a multitude of performance improving choices in the game's settings, users still need to prepare themselves for potato mode. It may not be a slideshow, but it comes rather close.
Even with all the image quality reductions, 50% scaling, dynamic resolution, and FSR2 applied, Starfield limped along at between 10 and 20 fps. A screenshot from this Athlon 3000 APU run, above, shows how blurry and pixilated the imagery is. Random Gaming in HD says overclocking the integrated APU to 1.6 GHz didn't help break through the 20 fps barrier using the same settings.
Next up was the much more capable AMD Ryzen 7 5700G. RGINHD characterized this processor as "one of the best desktop APUs available," and it does indeed offer a well balanced mix of CPU and GPU cores for those who don't really need a dedicated GPU.
Using what appear to be the same settings as in the Athlon attempt, but pumped up to 1080p, the beefier Ryzen 7 5700G has an observed performance range of 20 to 35 fps in Starfield. The YouTuber noted his system might have done a little better with faster memory. FYI the system featured 32 GB of dual channel DDR4-3200 RAM.
In a repeat of yesterday's Steam Deck observations, Starfield performance held up nicely (~30fps) most of the time in open areas during less intense escapades. However, warned about visits to various cities challenging the APU performance. In New Atlantis City, for example, frame rates were typically well below 30 fps, sitting more in the mid- to low-20s.
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Again this video ends with the hope that Bethesda, and graphics card driver developers, can improve Starfield performance in a meaningful way over the coming weeks and months.
Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
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Order 66 I seem to remember motherboards releasing that allowed the 3000g to be overclocked. I wonder if that would help performance in this case.Reply -
artk2219
Maybe if it could be overclocked 100%, its just too little performance for what its trying to run. Eh maybe an OC with some more tweaking, still, its an uphill battle.jaydenmiller1 said:I seem to remember motherboards releasing that allowed the 3000g to be overclocked. I wonder if that would help performance in this case. -
artk2219 The end result looks like an early PS2 game or XBOX game, it has its charm I guess. I imagine it gets in the way of playing sometimes since things just lack so much of their detail, like if a person with very bad vision took off their glasses.Reply -
JamesJones44 Those with lower CPUs aren't missing much. It's a lot like Fallout, only in space this time. Complete with abandoned facilities and crap spread all over the floor for fun :DReply -
Order 66
as someone who didn't even know what Fallout was until a few years ago, I was excited to play Starfield on my relatively high-end system since it is my first Bethesda game.JamesJones44 said:Those with lower CPUs aren't missing much. It's a lot like Fallout, only in space this time. Complete with abandoned facilities and crap spread all over the floor for fun :D -
JamesJones44
Don't get me wrong, it's a decent game. It's just a lot more like Fallout4/76 than I was expecting, even a lot of the sounds/FX are the same as the ones they used in Fallout 76.jaydenmiller1 said:as someone who didn't even know what Fallout was until a few years ago, I was excited to play Starfield on my relatively high-end system since it is my first Bethesda game. -
Order 66
I love the fact that it allows you to use console commands, after which I immediately preceded to give myself 2.1 billion credits. :)JamesJones44 said:Don't get me wrong, it's a decent game. It's just a lot more like Fallout4/76 than I was expecting, even a lot of the sounds/FX are the same as the ones they used in Fallout 76.