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Final Thoughts
Our mission today was to determine if AMD's Ryzen 5 2400G could truly play games at 1920x1080 using low-quality settings. The answer is yes, though your mileage may vary depending on the title. Vega or not, we're still dealing with integrated graphics. So, the fact that this sub-$200 piece of highly integrated hardware gets us there at all is impressive. Raven Ridge-based processors aren't going to make you swear off add-in cards any time soon. But they do serve up playable frame rates, satisfying their mission in life.
In comparison, the locked multipliers you find on Intel's low-cost CPUs hurt their value proposition among budget-minded enthusiasts. The company did make a half-hearted attempt to court power users with an unlocked K-series Core i3, but the thing is too expensive, no way around it. Moreover, it requires a Z-series chipset for overclocking and doesn't even include a heat sink. Hard pass.
Meanwhile, every AMD CPU is overclockable on B350 and X370 motherboards. Specifically, our Ryzen 5 2400G sample overclocked easily. With some extra time, we think we could have squeezed even more performance from it. That's particularly important because AMD needs the helping hands of enthusiasts to beat Intel in benchmarks it'd otherwise lose at stock settings.
AMD made some significant changes to Raven Ridge's architecture compared to the Zeppelin die. It reduced L3 cache capacity and latency, moved to a single-CCX layout, and bumped clock rates higher thanks to a refined 14nm+ manufacturing process. The result is a more competitive entry-level processor than anything we've seen from AMD before in our CPU-focused application workloads. Ryzen 5 2400G's ability to work on eight threads concurrently help it battle effectively, whether you're looking at highly parallelized workloads or simpler tasks like LAME encoding.
But the addition of AMD's Vega-based graphics engine is what everyone was holding their breath for. That combination of new Zen cores with modern 3D capabilities played well together throughout our benchmark suite at 1280x720. It also earned approving nods in most of the 1080p-based tests. The previous-generation A10-9700 and Intel's current UHD Graphics solution simply get slaughtered when they show up in the same charts.
We're impressed with Ryzen 5 2400G's overall performance story, especially in light of the chip's $170 price tag. It's a solid value paired with an inexpensive motherboard and a fast memory kit. As with APUs of the past, this processor gives you the ability to buy one chip without the expense of an add-in card. You can imagine the integration does some interesting things for builders and small form factors, too. Ryzen 5 2400G would be great in a mini-ITX box next to your TV.
AMD’s value pitch has long consisted of more cores for less money, and Raven Ridge brings that same philosophy to integrated graphics. The Ryzen 5 2400G is a surprisingly good processor for those looking for a capable gaming build on the lower end of today's pricing scale.
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