The AMD Ryzen 3 2200G Review: Vega Barrels Into Budget Gaming

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Solid performance for under $100.

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Far Cry Primal

We were a bit surprised to see Far Cry Primal in AMD's list of suggested benchmarks, so we decided to give it a shot using the lowest-quality settings possible.

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As it turns out, this game is playable on Ryzen 5 2400G and Ryzen 3 2200G processors at 720p.

Intel's Pentium G4620 also serves up great frame rates with Nvidia's GeForce GT 1030 installed. The G4620 is fast enough to not bottleneck performance, making it a smart pairing with entry-level discrete graphics cards.

Unfortunately, a smooth experience at 1080p is still out of reach for all of these configurations.

Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V finds the Core i5-8400 averaging a ridiculous 166.7 FPS at 720p. This result was so far beyond our expectations that we re-tested using several measurement utilities to confirm. We're still not sure how to explain the outcome.

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The Core i3-8100 and i3-7100 demonstrate odd frame time spikes in our tests at 1280x720, emphasizing why you should consider average and minimum frame rates incomplete without frame time data. The Pentium G4620 also suffers through this benchmark. Strangely, the anomalous results vanish when we re-test at 1920x1080.

Ryzen 3 2200G does well at 720p, though, and it gets better after overclocking. In fact, we even record playable frame rates from AMD's $100 processor at 1080p (albeit with low-quality settings). But it's the Ryzen 3 1300X that surprises us most by taking the lead at 1080p.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt plays surprisingly well on most systems. AMD's Ryzen 3 2200G performs well enough at 720p, though we're not happy enough with its 1080p results to consider them playable.

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Paul Alcorn
Paul Alcorn
Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech

Paul 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.

26 Comments Comment from the forums
  • wh3resmycar
    add mid/high 30 fps target for FC and witcher 3 and see if it can hold its own against a ps4. that would make more sense instead of playing it at 60 fps - low.
    Reply
  • salgado18
    "In the end, there's no way we'd recommend a Pentium's two physical cores over Ryzen 3 2200G's four. And the dead-end Z270 chipset does little to help Intel's case. Coffee Lake-based Pentium processors can't get here fast enough. Even then, though, it's a safe bet they won't arrive with on-die graphics capable of battling AMD's Radeon Vega."

    There, so you guys stop saying the G4560 is better.
    Reply
  • drinkingcola86
    Did you run these processors with the standard bios or did you change the limit of the video side of it to 2 gig from the 512meg that it is defaulted to?
    Reply
  • Shumok
    I would like to see the APU's tested with 1080ti's to see how they hold up when the user upgrades to discrete eventually.
    Reply
  • nate1492
    20713408 said:
    "In the end, there's no way we'd recommend a Pentium's two physical cores over Ryzen 3 2200G's four. And the dead-end Z270 chipset does little to help Intel's case. Coffee Lake-based Pentium processors can't get here fast enough. Even then, though, it's a safe bet they won't arrive with on-die graphics capable of battling AMD's Radeon Vega."

    There, so you guys stop saying the G4560 is better.

    Would you really suggest the Ryzen 3 2200g or the Ryzen 5 2400g to someone over a G4560 and a 1050 (200 quid!)? Heck, take the AMD 1200 and the 1050, doesn't matter, I couldn't suggest gaming at low 720p to anyone, we are talking 90 quid, 140 quid, or 200 quid here. If you can't pony up 200 quid, just wait longer.

    And at this price point, who is even considering upgrading CPUs in short order?
    Reply
  • logainofhades
    20713566 said:
    Would you really suggest the Ryzen 3 2200g or the Ryzen 5 2400g to someone over a G4560 and a 1050 (200 quid!)? Heck, take the AMD 1200 and the 1050, doesn't matter, I couldn't suggest gaming at low 720p to anyone, we are talking 90 quid, 140 quid, or 200 quid here. If you can't pony up 200 quid, just wait longer.

    And at this price point, who is even considering upgrading CPUs in short order?


    US pricing is far different apparently. The cheapest 1050, on pcpartpicker, is $154.98.

    The G4560 is a great chip, but is on a dead platform, and hyperthreading can only do so much.

    @$99, the 2200g gets you in the door, for low budget gaming, and has enough horsepower to handle a midrange graphics card, once GPU prices get back to normal. Ram price difference isn't much different between the slower and higher clocked models, 3200 and lower. Also you have ability to go up to a higher cored Ryzen 5 or 7, if the need arises. Also current AM4 boards are supposed to be compatible with Ryzen II, with a bios update. With the Pentium G, you are stuck with a 7700k at best, and most likely will have a board that cannot even overclock it. A decently priced B350, on the other hand, can overclock.

    AMD has the low end locked in, for now. Once coffee lake Pentiums and we get non Z chipset boards, the tables will probably turn, to some degree. That is the beauty of competition though, and that is a good thing.
    Reply
  • BulkZerker
    "Then again, we don't expect anyone to run a multi-GPU config on an entry-level platform."

    Cryptomining enthusiasts non-withstanding
    Reply
  • ghettogamer
    not an xbox one killer , but you can build a mini itx & get into pc gaming with this cpu for almost the same price albeit at 720p custom medium-low settings. This cpu is probably the power plant of the future ps5/xbox2, great for console fans!
    Reply
  • AlistairAB
    20713566 said:
    20713408 said:
    "In the end, there's no way we'd recommend a Pentium's two physical cores over Ryzen 3 2200G's four. And the dead-end Z270 chipset does little to help Intel's case. Coffee Lake-based Pentium processors can't get here fast enough. Even then, though, it's a safe bet they won't arrive with on-die graphics capable of battling AMD's Radeon Vega."

    There, so you guys stop saying the G4560 is better.

    Would you really suggest the Ryzen 3 2200g or the Ryzen 5 2400g to someone over a G4560 and a 1050 (200 quid!)? Heck, take the AMD 1200 and the 1050, doesn't matter, I couldn't suggest gaming at low 720p to anyone, we are talking 90 quid, 140 quid, or 200 quid here. If you can't pony up 200 quid, just wait longer.

    And at this price point, who is even considering upgrading CPUs in short order?

    Reply
  • AlistairAB
    20713566 said:
    20713408 said:
    "In the end, there's no way we'd recommend a Pentium's two physical cores over Ryzen 3 2200G's four. And the dead-end Z270 chipset does little to help Intel's case. Coffee Lake-based Pentium processors can't get here fast enough. Even then, though, it's a safe bet they won't arrive with on-die graphics capable of battling AMD's Radeon Vega."

    There, so you guys stop saying the G4560 is better.

    Would you really suggest the Ryzen 3 2200g or the Ryzen 5 2400g to someone over a G4560 and a 1050 (200 quid!)? Heck, take the AMD 1200 and the 1050, doesn't matter, I couldn't suggest gaming at low 720p to anyone, we are talking 90 quid, 140 quid, or 200 quid here. If you can't pony up 200 quid, just wait longer.

    And at this price point, who is even considering upgrading CPUs in short order?

    The 2400G is 10 (single core) to 120 (multicore) percent faster as a CPU after a mild OC. It costs $275 for a G4560 and a GTX 1050 in Canada, much more than $210 for the Ryzen 2400G, which almost has GTX 1050 level graphics as it easily outperforms the gt 1030.

    As for the 2200G, an extra $30 gets you a modern motherboard platform, a better cooler, more multi core performance, and easy upgrade-ability. Kind of funny criticizing it's lack of 1080p chops, when everything works perfectly at 900p. (Can't even play Overwatch at 360p properly with Intel integrated graphics).

    Reply