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AMD Ryzen 5 8600G Application Benchmarks, the TLDR:
We boil down productivity application performance into two broad categories: single- and multi-threaded. These slides show the geometric mean of performance in several of our most important tests in each category, but be sure to look at the expanded results below for more granular analysis.
The Ryzen 5 8600G is clearly focused on gaming rigs but will also be used for more general-purpose workloads. However, similarly-priced processors designed primarily for standard PC work deliver more performance in CPU-bound workloads — you get fewer CPU cores and lower clock rates in exchange for the 8600G's extra integrated GPU horsepower. The Ryzen 5 8600G is also not quite as performant on a core-for-core basis due to its lesser clock rates, L3 cache capacity, and 65W thermal rating.
As expected, moving from Zen 3 to newer Zen 4 CPU cores delivers a huge gen-on-gen uplift; the 8600G is 44% faster in multi-threaded and 19% faster in single-threaded work than the prior-gen Ryzen 5 5600G.
The Core i5-13400 is slightly better in these disciplines, though; the 13400 is 6% faster in threaded work and ties in single-threaded work, yet costs about $20 less than the 8600G. The 8600G does make short work of the Core i3-13100, easily dispatching it in these tests.
The Ryzen 5 8600G has more than enough performance for its target market of budget gaming systems — we don't expect many with this class of machine to be too interested in productivity performance — but the strong gaming performance does come with the tradeoff of lower performance in productivity apps. The Ryzen 5 8600G also has stout competition from AMD's own AM5 lineup, including the Ryzen 5 7600X, not to mention the AM4 lineup of processors that are exceptionally capable and still drop into the cheaper AM4 platforms with DDR4 memory. As such, there are better options for those prioritizing performance in productivity applications.
Rendering Benchmarks on AMD Ryzen 5 8600G
The Ryzen 5 8600G is 33% faster than the previous-gen 5600G in the Cinebench 2024 multi-core test and 25% faster in single-threaded performance, giving us a good litmus for what to expect in this album of compute-heavy benchmarks.
Naturally, unlocking the power limits with overclocking yields a bit more horsepower in threaded workloads, but you shouldn't expect too much from an APU in heavy rendering workloads — these chips are designed to excel in gaming over productivity applications.
Encoding Benchmarks on AMD Ryzen 5 8600G
Our tests include single-threaded encoding benchmarks, like LAME and FLAC, but the SVT-AV1 and SVT-HEVC tests represent a newer class of threaded encoders.
Web and Office Benchmarks on AMD Ryzen 5 8600G
Web browser and office applications are ubiquitous the world over. Given its pricing and target audience, the Ryzen 5 8600G won't be noticeably slower in basic office and web apps than other like-priced chips in the chart.
Compilation, Compression, AI Chess Engines, AVX on AMD Ryzen 5 8600G
This selection of tests spans from massively parallel molecular dynamics simulation code in NAMD to compression/decompression performance. Y-cruncher computes Pi with the AVX instruction set, making for an incredibly demanding benchmark.
These tests aren't too relevant to the target audience for this class of chip, but we include them for completeness. They do highlight the generational gains from moving from the Zen 3 architecture to Zen 4, though.
