Tom's Hardware Verdict
If you don't want to use a discrete GPU and you're willing to accept the limitations, like a limited selection of titles and lower fidelity settings, the AMD Ryzen 7 8700G brings unbeatable integrated GPU gaming performance to budget PCs. Unfortunately, higher memory and motherboard pricing, not to mention stiff competition from CPU+GPU combos, muddies the value prop.
Pros
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Best iGPU performance on the market
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Passable 1080p, solid 720p gaming
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Hyper-RX support
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Bundled coolers
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Power efficiency
Cons
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Higher DDR5 pricing, no 8GB options
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AM5 motherboards remain pricey
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Some CPU+GPU combos are cheaper/faster
Why you can trust Tom's Hardware
AMD's new $329 Ryzen 7 8700G and $229 Ryzen 5 8600G "Phoenix" chips bring the company's latest Zen 4 and RDNA 3 architectures to bear in the company's first APU refresh since 2021, promising limited 1080p-capable gaming and impressive 720p gaming for budget PC builds that don't have a discrete GPU. AMD says the 8000G series can handle most AAA games at 1080p, albeit at reduced fidelity settings, and we found several cases where that proved true. These chips aren’t intended to compete with or replace discrete GPUs, but they do deliver unmatched iGPU performance for desktop PCs.
AMD’s previous-gen Ryzen 5000G series, launched three years ago, set a high bar for entry-level gaming systems on the AM4 platform — one that Intel still hasn’t matched even with its newest processors. In keeping with tradition, AMD's new APU designs hail from the company's mobile processor lineup, leveraging the strength of the powerful in-built GPU to forge specialty chips for desktop PCs that will vie for a spot on our list of the Best CPUs for gaming.
AMD's new 65W APUs take a tremendous step forward — the company's older Ryzen 5000G 'Cezanne' series leveraged the Vega GPU architecture, while the new Ryzen 7 8700G rockets forward three generations to RDNA 3-powered Radeon 780M/760M graphics. That brings huge performance improvements in sheer graphical horsepower and supports new features, like AMD's Hyper-RX (aka HYPR-RX) suite, which includes Radeon Super Resolution (RSR) upscaling and AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF) frame generation. These features are certainly welcome in the budget space where limited GPU horsepower, low resolutions, and low fidelity settings reign supreme.
CPU | Arch. | Price | Cores/ Threads (Zen 4 + 4c) | Base/ Boost Freq. (Zen 4 cores) | Base/ Boost Freq. (Zen 4c cores) | TDP | L3 (MB) | GPU / Cores | GPU Freq. (MHz) |
Ryzen 7 8700G | Zen 4 | $329 | 8 / 16 | 4.2 / 5.1 | N/A | 65W | 24 | Radeon 780M - 12 CU | 2900 |
Ryzen 5 8600G | Zen 4 | $229 | 6 / 12 | 4.3 / 5.0 | N/A | 65W | 22 | Radeon 760M - 8 CU | 2800 |
Ryzen 5 8500G | Zen 4 + Zen 4c | $179 | 6 / 12 (2 + 4) | 4.1 / 5.0 (3.5 GHz global base) | 3.2 / 3.7 | 65W | 22 | Radeon 740M - 4 CU | 2800 |
Ryzen 3 8300G | Zen 4 + Zen 4c | OEM only | 4 / 8 (1 + 3) | 4.0 / 4.9 (3.4 GHz global base) | 3.2 / 3.6 | 65W | 12 | Radeon 740M - 4 CU | 2600 |
The CPU cores have also seen an upgrade from the Zen 3 CPU architecture with the 7nm process node to new Zen 4 CPU cores on the much more refined TSMC 4nm process. AMD also moved the chips from the AM4 platform with DDR4 memory to newer AM5 motherboards with DDR5 memory and upgraded connectivity options.
AMD splits the Ryzen 8000G series into two tiers: The high-end eight-core 16-thread Ryzen 7 8700G and six-core 12-thread Ryzen 5 8600G are armed with full-featured Zen 4 cores, but the lower-end Ryzen 5 8500G and Ryzen 3 8300G have a mix of both standard Zen 4 cores and slower density-optimized Zen 4c cores, which we'll cover further below.
The two new flagship Ryzen 8000G APUs processors are also the world’s first desktop CPUs with an integrated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) engine to boost performance in AI workloads. That marks the second time AMD has beaten Intel to the punch with new AI features — AMD was also the first x86 chipmaker to bring an NPU to laptops. The XDNA NPU focuses on power efficiency over raw compute horsepower, so it's a better fit for laptops than the desktop PC, where power isn't as much of a concern and other forms of compute, like the GPU, offer much more performance.
The Ryzen 7 8700G offers heretofore unseen levels of gaming performance from the integrated graphics unit on a desktop PC processor, but the continued higher cost of DDR5 and AM5 motherboards muddy the value proposition for a chip that targets the low end of the market. Other options, like Intel's Core i3 series paired with discrete GPUs, also offer stout competition. Even though Intel doesn't have a directly comparable competitor, that only leaves a small niche for the Ryzen 7 8700G to thrive.
AMD Ryzen 7 8700G Specifications and Pricing
Interestingly, the new APUs come with a blue PCB that's differentiated from the standard Ryzen 7000 models, which come with a green PCB. AMD crafts the Ryzen 7 8700G and 8600G from a single monolithic piece of silicon with 25.4 billion transistors spread across 178mm^2. This is a significantly different design than the standard Ryzen 7000 processors, which have a combination of 5nm compute dies (6.5B transistors, 70mm^2) and a 6nm I/O die (3.4B transistors, 122mm^2).
The standard Ryzen 7000 processors have more aggregate die area and, therefore, have more room for higher amounts of L3 cache, which boosts performance in compute-bound workloads. The Ryzen 7000 chips are also designed for higher power envelopes and have higher frequencies, whereas the 8000G APUs are taken from the lower-power mobile-first design for the Ryzen 8000G "Phoenix" series and placed on a package that drops into the AM5 socket. This design is then tuned to a higher 65W TDP (88W peak) to boost performance; AMD also fully unlocks the 8000G chips for overclocking.
All 8000G APUs have a 65W TDP, but on a core-for-core basis, the Ryzen 7000 processors are still faster in pure CPU performance due to the L3 cache advantage. The Ryzen 7 8700G comes with a bundled Wraith Spire cooler, while the 8600G and 8500G come with the Wraith Stealth cooler.
CPU | Arch. | Price | Cores/ Threads (Zen 4 + 4c) | Base/ Boost Freq. (Zen 4 cores) | Base/ Boost Freq. (Zen 4c cores) | TDP | L3 (MB) | GPU / Cores | GPU Freq. (MHz) |
Ryzen 7 8700G | Zen 4 | $329 | 8 / 16 | 4.2 / 5.1 | N/A | 65W | 24 | Radeon 780M - 12 CU | 2900 |
Ryzen 7 5700G | Zen 3 | $359 | 8 / 16 | 3.8 / 4.6 | N/A | 65W | 16 | RX Vega 8 | 2000 |
Ryzen 5 8600G | Zen 4 | $229 | 6 / 12 | 4.3 / 5.0 | N/A | 65W | 22 | Radeon 760M - 8 CU | 2800 |
Ryzen 5 5600G | Zen 3 | $259 | 6 / 12 | 3.9 / 4.4 | N/A | 65W | 16 | RX Vega 7 | 1900 |
Ryzen 5 8500G | Zen 4 + Zen 4c | $179 | 6 / 12 (2 + 4) | 4.1 / 5.0 (3.5 GHz global base) | 3.2 / 3.7 | 65W | 22 | Radeon 740M - 4 CU | 2800 |
Ryzen 3 8300G | Zen 4 + Zen 4c | OEM only | 4 / 8 (1 + 3) | 4.0 / 4.9 (3.4 GHz global base) | 3.2 / 3.6 | 65W | 12 | Radeon 740M - 4 CU | 2600 |
Ryzen 3 5300G | Zen 3 | OEM only | 4 / 8 | 4.0 / 4.2 | N/A | 65W | 8 | RX Vega 6 | 1700 |
AMD has split its 8000G series into two tiers: The Ryzen 7 8700G and the Ryzen 5 5600G are built on the Phoenix die with standard Zen 4 cores and the XDNA AI engine. The lower APUs, Ryzen 5 8500G and Ryzen 3 8300G, use Phoenix 2 (see below).
The previous-gen 5000G series chips supported DDR4-3200 and snapped into the AM4 platform, forging a true budget system. The value proposition isn't quite as clear with Ryzen 8000G: These chips drop into the AM5 platform with DDR5-5200 memory (and plenty of overclocking headroom). The AM5 motherboard ecosystem remains pricey, and DDR5 memory is still more expensive than DDR4. The Ryzen 8000G chips support 600-series chipsets, and this class of chip is best paired with the B650 chipset, though the A620 is also attractive.
The Ryzen 7 8700G and Ryzen 5 8600G’s XDNA AI engine runs at 1.6 GHz, a 60% improvement over the inaugural Ryzen 7040 mobile series (those processors never came to the desktop PC). The XDNA engine delivers roughly the same 16 TOPS of INT8 (only) performance as the mobile variants, though it is possible some workloads could generate more performance as a result of the PC’s higher power thresholds. AMD says the chips' CPU, GPU, and XDNA engines combine to deliver up to 39 TOPS of overall AI inference performance.
The standard Ryzen 7000 desktop processors expose 24 usable PCIe 5.0 lanes to the user, but the Phoenix products only expose 16 usable PCIe 4.0 lanes, which is a big step back on available bandwidth due to both fewer lanes and a reduction in PCIe interface speed. However, the x8 PCIe 4.0 connection to the CPU won't be a constraint with current GPUs — though make no mistake, these chips aren't really meant to be used with a discrete GPU — and the system has two x4 NVMe SSD connections available. This should be enough connectivity for a lower-end platform.
The previous-gen Ryzen 7 5700G and Ryzen 5 5600G come with less powerful Vega graphics with either 7 or 8 CUs. However, only one compute unit (CU) and 100 MHz separated the graphics engines on the prior-gen models. In contrast, the new Ryzen chips have a much larger gap: The 8700G's Radeon 780M iGPU has 12 CU compared to the 8600G's Radeon 760M with eight CU. This resulted in a larger performance gap between the two models than we saw with the prior gen. However, since memory bandwidth is the primary constraint for the iGPUs, overclocking the lower-end model could help level the playing field.
Phoenix 2
AMD uses the Phoenix 2 die with the Ryzen Ryzen 5 8500G and Ryzen 3 8300G, meaning these two lower chips have a mix of both standard Zen 4 cores and slower density-optimized Zen 4c cores. They also don't come with the AI accelerator, so they won’t have the Ryzen AI badge on their product box. We aren't reviewing these chips yet, but they'll be under the microscope soon. Given the massive difference in architecture, it is wise to understand the differences if you're considering these as lower-cost options.
AMD’s Ryzen 5 8500G has two Zen 4 cores paired with four density-optimized Zen 4c cores, while the Ryzen 3 8300G has one Zen 4 core with three Zen 4c cores. As with Intel's E-cores, AMD's Zen 4c cores are designed to take up less space on a processor die than the regular Zen 4 cores while providing enough horsepower for less demanding tasks. This saves power and delivers more computing performance per square millimeter than was previously possible (deep dive here). But the similarities end there.
Unlike Intel, AMD employs the same microarchitecture and supports the same features with its smaller cores as it does with the larger cores. However, the Zen 4c cores do run at lower clock speeds and deliver less peak performance than standard cores. Notably, the maximum boost frequency of the Zen 4c cores is actually lower than the base frequency of the standard Zen 4 cores, which stands in contrast to Intel's approach. We'll put this arrangement to the test soon.
Both of these chips come with a Radeon 740M iGPU with a mere four CUs. The Phoenix 2 chips come with 10 usable PCIe 4.0 lanes, with four dedicated to graphics and the other six split across M.2, USB, and WiFi. AMD says the M.2 SSD should have a x4 connection with the rest of the I/O split across two lanes, but the end configuration is up to the ODM.
For now, let's take a look at how the Ryzen 7 8700G fares in our gaming benchmarks.
Current page: The Return of the APU
Next Page AMD Ryzen 7 5700G Hyper-RX, Power Consumption, Overclocking, Test SetupPaul Alcorn is the Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.
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usertests AMD Ryzen 7 5700G Hyper-RX, Power Consumption, Overclocking, Test SetupReply
Hyper-RX -> HYPR-RX
"The Ryzen 7 8700G utterly destroys the previous-gen Ryzen 7 8700G"
This review appears to be much more favorable to the 8700G. AnandTech did all testing at DDR5-5200.
Gamers Nexus found an issue with STAPM being enabled and degrading performance. That's Skin Temperature Aware Power Management, which obviously is not relevant to desktop APUs in a desktop computer.
There have been good bundles in the US with 7600X/7800X3D + motherboard + DDR5. Micro Center obviously but also Newegg.
https://slickdeals.net/f/17261224
If you do live near a Micro Center, take note of the stupidly low open box prices on DDR5-6000 kits. These returns aren't happening because the memory is bad. Maybe it's because they were included in so many bundles:
https://www.microcenter.com/category/4294966965/desktop-memory-ram?storeid=181 -
suryasans I will wait another year to buy Ryzen 8000G series as these APUs are still not a good value in terms of price/performance.Reply -
suryasans The included AI accelerator needs to be exposed in Gaming. It Will become a break through if the Ryzen 8700G GPU+NPU can be combined with discrete Graphics like Radeon RX 7600 to accelerate ray tracing effects in Gaming in the same FPS like Ray tracing effects disabled.Reply -
logainofhades For the price of an 8700g, 32gb ddr5 ram, and motherboard, you could build something like a 5700x, 32gb ddr4, b550 board, and an RX 6600, that would destroy the IGP in the 8700g. The price is simply too high.Reply -
jxdking 8700G is weird.Reply
Only with half the L3 cache of 7700x, it doesn't perform well in game even with a dgpu. -
logainofhades jxdking said:8700G is weird.
Only with half the L3 cache of 7700x, it doesn't perform well in game even with a dgpu.
Some of those issues may be related to what GN discovered, as mentioned earlier. -
Tom Sunday
The kids in their 'VANS T-Shirts' at GameStop are of a different opinion regarding all of the hoopla being now offered on the various tech channel reviews. Their argument is that the 8700G will not in real life have the same juice or capability of a (2019) GTX 1650 mobile and which so far allowed them playing quite satisfactory 80%+ of their mostly outdated and now starkly reduced on-sale games. And no matter what AMD is now promising the new 'Phoenix' chips are being capable off!suryasans said:I will wait another year to buy Ryzen 8000G series as these APUs are still not a good value in terms of price/performance.
For me these new Phoenix editions are essentially pointless as well. The three-star rating here in way telling the story! The Phoenix line I also think represents a niche product and the niche here is even smaller than with the once mighty Threadripper. Making me wonder why AMD would even bring this kind of new product to the market! Talking about niches:
Office PC: Too much GPU performance
Gaming PC: Much too little GPU performance
Parents PC: Too much GPU performance
Multimedia PC: Marginal at best
Children's PC (simple games): PossibleAccording to current rumors, Zen5 x3D will not come onto the market until 2025 and which would be my first consideration all things considered. Finally it will be curious to see in see how AMD sells or will market these new APUs through their strategic partners. -
usertests
16 TOPS is weak. It has an efficiency advantage in laptops when it can be used. I don't think there's any chance that it can make upscaling or raytracing better.suryasans said:The included AI accelerator needs to be exposed in Gaming. It Will become a break through if the Ryzen 8700G GPU+NPU can be combined with discrete Graphics like Radeon RX 7600 to accelerate ray tracing effects in Gaming in the same FPS like Ray tracing effects disabled.
We'll see how XDNA 2.0 does at a significantly higher 45-50 TOPS. But I would still bet that it is not utilized by games anytime soon, or for offloading functions that are already handled by a dGPU. (I would love to be proven wrong, I still think it's a neat accelerator to have.)
Should be interesting to see how Strix Point does with increased 24 MiB L3 cache, but also a dual-CCX design.jxdking said:8700G is weird.
Only with half the L3 cache of 7700x, it doesn't perform well in game even with a dgpu. -
artk2219 AM5 really does need a cost reduction on the chipset, to help lower motherboard pricing since you cant do much about the RAM cost. Hopefully that can be addressed whenever they release the x700 series, i'm sure theyre also not worrying about it as its selling anyway, even with the high price. In the long run it's likely not sustainable, hopefully they figure that out before they have another socket 939 moment.Reply