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Review: AMD Ryzen 5 2400G and Ryzen 3 2200G

by Tarinder Sandhu on 12 February 2018, 14:01

Tags: AMD (NYSE:AMD)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qadqis

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Conclusion

...the backbone of budget PCs that have reasonable CPU grunt and enough in the GPU department for entry-level, light gaming.

AMD today expands its desktop Ryzen ecosystem with the introduction of the Ryzen 5 2400G and Ryzen 3 2200G. These two chips offer broadly similar CPU performance as select Ryzen chips from last year but augment the value offering by including integrated graphics based on the latest Vega GPU architecture.

The Ryzen 5 2400G, priced at $169, uses a four-core, eight-thread design that's largely an imitation of the Ryzen 5 1500X. Pragmatically, this means single-thread performance that is somewhat slower than a rival Core i3-8350K, discrete gaming performance that's broadly on par, and multi-threaded performance that's around 20 per cent better. Building on last year's chip, the integrated graphics, Vega 11, ostensibly free, are 2-3x faster than the UHD 630 used by Intel. Fine for light gaming but not good enough to play some of the more graphically intensive games at a 1080p resolution, irrespective of quality.

Switching chips, the Ryzen 3 2200G, available for just $99, and fitting into the same AM4 platform we first saw last year, removes the SMT capability and reduces the graphics to Vega 8. That said, CPU performance is competitive against Core i3, graphics are obviously better, and, like other Ryzens, it remains unlocked.

We like these Ryzen chips as the backbone of budget PCs that have reasonable CPU grunt and enough in the GPU department for entry-level, light gaming. Both make decent cases for an HTPC-style PC.

Yet it's not all perfect as a few question-marks do remain. We have to mention some stability-related issues during testing, mostly ironed out during the course of the week, and we had hoped better since Ryzen has been out for the best part of a year.

It's interesting to note that no company dominates the budget space. Intel has more IPC, AMD has more GPU grunt, meaning the consumer has choice in which way to go. Neither is a bad bet, of course, so it's a win-win situation all round.

What we do come away with is the feeling that AMD has done well in tying together value, performance, a modern IGP and energy efficiency in one package. The Ryzen 3 2200G, in particular, is hard to beat when costing south of Ā£100.

The Good
 
The Bad
Very solid value
Best-in-class IGP
Intel-like energy efficiency
Increasing motherboard choice
 
Stability concerns still linger
Single-thread performance is lacking



AMD Ryzen 5 2400G and Ryzen 3 2200G

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The AMD Ryzen 5 2400G and Ryzen 3 2200G are available to purchase from Scan Computers.

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At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.



*UK-based HEXUS community members are eligible for free delivery and priority customer service through the SCAN.care@HEXUS forum.



HEXUS Forums :: 40 Comments

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I am sad to see that Hexus showed much more “discrete gaming” than IGP, knowing all good that these CPUs have been built for mostly only IGP case use.

It is most important feature but in this test has been showed as side feature.

One could think that Intel might have influence on these tests. Can wait to see how Intel+Vega chip will be tested. Discrete gaming will get more importance than IGP?

Normally you were suppose to show many IGP uses (gaming, media,…) and just mention discrete gaming as probably the least important information for this kind of products.

It would be good if you can rearrange the review.
I am adding more reviews to the review thread,and the 2400G can actually fight a GT1030 with DDR4?? Just,wow.

I am more impressed by the APUs then even the Ryzen CPU launch.

Does,FreeSync work OK with these APUs??

Edit!!

Hmm,on further reading there seems to be some niggles - not sure why AMD hasn't sorted them out yet as the the mobile versions have been around for a few months. Oh,well its to be expected from an AMD launch.

:p
Also,reading from other sites, it seems that there is a limit to how much of RAM can be assigned to IGP (2Gb).
What is your experience?

Do you think that 4Gb would dramatically change results for games or allowed higher quality modes?
Cause system with 16Gb of RAM, 12Gb will go for OS and 4Gb for IGP. Seems like good balance.

If you use 3200Mhz RAM, games should run better right?
darcotech
I am sad to see that Hexus showed much more “discrete gaming” than IGP, knowing all good that these CPUs have been built for mostly only IGP case use.

It is most important feature but in this test has been showed as side feature.

One could think that Intel might have influence on these tests. Can wait to see how Intel+Vega chip will be tested. Discrete gaming will get more importance than IGP?

Normally you were suppose to show many IGP uses (gaming, media,…) and just mention discrete gaming as probably the least important information for this kind of products.

It would be good if you can rearrange the review.

Hi there,

There are actually seven benchmarks for discrete and seven for IGP - it may look like more for the former because the graphs are taller. The reason for the full set of discrete is twofold: we already have all the numbers from other comparable chips and, given that even the Vega IGP cannot muster enough horsepower in major titles, we reckon many users will add a discrete card to a system.
These look fantastic for budget gaming rigs - capable alone for entry level gaming and enough CPU grunt to drive a dGPU comfortably later if needed.

Given the price of GPUs and the limited time I have for gaming now I'm strongly considering selling my i7-6700 and GTX1070 and just running one of these, then adding a GTX2050(Ti) or AMD equivalent whenever they appear. My Switch is getting more gaming use than my PC now too.

Edit: Thinking logically that would be a stupid thing to do, I'll just chuck my ancient 7870xt in and sell the GTX 1070. If I were buying now from scratch though, I'd definitely have a 2400G.