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

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By Paul Alcorn
last updated

Solid performance for under $100.

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Adobe Creative Cloud

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AMD's Ryzen 5 2400G beats the Ryzen 3 2200G in our Adobe suite, though the stock 2200G does pull off a few slight wins in Photoshop.

We do spot hiccups coming from the Raven Ridge processors, though. Ryzen 3 1300X beats both chips in several workloads, including Adobe Illustrator. The 1300X even beats the overclocked 2200G in that benchmark.

Intel's Pentium G4620 also performs well, beating Ryzen 5 2400G by a slim margin and opening up a larger lead over the Ryzen 3 2200G. 

Web Browser

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Web browser tests may not be the most demanding ones in our suite, but they are indicative of responsiveness in a common desktop computing task.

The Krakken suite measures JavaScript performance using several workloads, including audio, imaging, and cryptography. It tends to go Intel's way due to the Core architecture's better per-core performance. Indeed, it takes an aggressive overclock for Ryzen 3 2200G to land in front of Intel's Pentium and Core i3s. Otherwise, a stock 2200G trails the modern pack.

The MotionMark benchmarks, which focus on testing graphics rather than JavaScript performance, are very sensitive to clock rate and IPC throughput. Ryzen 3 1300X carves out another win over its replacements, which may be due to more power being allocated to Raven Ridge's on-die Radeon Vega block. Regardless, the AMD CPUs (even the overclocked ones) cannot catch Intel's Pentium, Core i3, and Core i5.

Productivity

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The start-up test calculates load times for several types of applications, such as word processors, GIMP, and Web browsers, in both warm- and cold-start conditions. This metric historically favors Intel's processors, so it's no surprise that they take the top four spots. Once again, Ryzen 3 1300X leads the AMD bunch, edging out an overclocked Ryzen 5 2400G.

Video conferencing measures performance in single- and multi-user applications that utilize the Windows Media Foundation for playback and encoding. It also performs facial detection during the workload. This time, Ryzen 3 2200G gets ahead of Intel's Pentium G4620 (though just barely). But the stock Ryzen 3 2200G and Ryzen 5 2400G both trail AMD's Summit Ridge-based Ryzen 3 1300X, which isn't slowed down by an on-die GPU processing video output.

The photo editing benchmark measures performance with Futuremark's binaries that use the ImageMagick library. Common photo processing workloads also tend to be parallelized. So, with its Radeon Vega block unencumbered, Ryzen 3 2200G jumps ahead of the Pentium G4620 and Ryzen 3 1300X.

The spreadsheet workload favors high clock rates and IPC throughput, so Intel's processors lead convincingly. Ryzen 3 1300X again takes a lead over the Ryzen 3 2200G.

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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.

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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