1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,600 In our look at AMD's Ryzen 8000G series processors, 2 00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:09,640 we are gonna be laser focused on the two SKUs that AMD actually wants anybody talking about, 3 00:00:09,640 --> 00:00:13,580 the 8700G and the 8600G. 4 00:00:13,580 --> 00:00:17,980 And the reason for that is the other ones are really a lot less exciting. 5 00:00:17,980 --> 00:00:21,020 AMD didn't mention this to me when we covered these chips 6 00:00:21,020 --> 00:00:28,680 at their announcement at CES this year, but the two lower end chips not only use Zenfors C cores, 7 00:00:28,720 --> 00:00:32,360 the more compact ones, they also have fewer PCIe lanes, 8 00:00:32,360 --> 00:00:36,080 which could be a problem for the future expandability of your system. 9 00:00:36,080 --> 00:00:41,400 If you kind of see our conclusion on these chips, you're gonna see why we think is a pretty big problem. 10 00:00:41,400 --> 00:00:44,920 For now though, let's focus on the 8600G and 8700G. 11 00:00:44,920 --> 00:00:48,760 They come packaged about like you'd expect from AMD. Got your little sticker in there. 12 00:00:48,760 --> 00:00:52,960 And as with any of their AM5 socket processors, 13 00:00:52,960 --> 00:00:58,360 there are no pins on the back. Instead, it uses an LGA or pad style mounting mechanism 14 00:00:58,360 --> 00:01:02,800 with the pins being inside the CPU socket. They don't come with much in the way of accessories, 15 00:01:02,800 --> 00:01:07,800 but unlike AMD's X series chips, they do at least come with a cooler. 16 00:01:07,800 --> 00:01:11,920 It's a simple aluminum heatsink with what appears to be a 92 millimeter fan. 17 00:01:11,920 --> 00:01:16,960 Of course, if you step up to the Ryzen 7 variant, you get a simple aluminum heatsink 18 00:01:16,960 --> 00:01:21,040 with a 90 millimeter fan, but taller. 19 00:01:21,040 --> 00:01:25,520 Which it doesn't need to be. Its height was fine as it was the way before. 20 00:01:25,520 --> 00:01:28,680 No, and I'll seriousness, being taller is better in this case, 21 00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:30,280 more heat dissipation. 22 00:01:33,920 --> 00:01:39,760 In all seriousness, the main claim to fame of these chips is not that they have better CPU performance. 23 00:01:39,760 --> 00:01:43,420 They use the same Zen 4, or in the case of the lower end ones, 24 00:01:43,420 --> 00:01:47,880 Zen 4C chips that we've seen in AMD's previous processors, 25 00:01:47,880 --> 00:01:51,840 but they're a new model year. So they get a new number 26 00:01:51,840 --> 00:01:56,640 because that's apparently how AMD does things now. And they have onboard graphics 27 00:01:56,640 --> 00:02:01,320 that is now on par with what AMD has been shipping in their mobile solutions. 28 00:02:01,320 --> 00:02:04,360 So just like we've seen in mobile consoles, 29 00:02:04,360 --> 00:02:07,480 like the ROG Ally and the Lenovo Legion Go, 30 00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:10,600 we can run AAA games. 31 00:02:10,600 --> 00:02:15,600 Okay, not high details, 120 FPS, but 1080p low, 32 00:02:16,840 --> 00:02:21,280 30 to 60 FPS, does that seem realistic? Maybe even a little faster, 33 00:02:21,280 --> 00:02:27,120 because we're running in a desktop form factor now, which means we can unlock a little bit more power budget. 34 00:02:27,120 --> 00:02:30,280 Although my understanding is that most of this has gone 35 00:02:30,280 --> 00:02:35,920 to enabling higher base clocks on the CPU portion of the chip rather than the GPU. 36 00:02:35,920 --> 00:02:40,620 Though it should be noted that only the 8,700G actually gets the higher base clocks. 37 00:02:40,620 --> 00:02:44,000 The 8,600G is on par with its mobile equivalent. 38 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:48,240 I've got a bunch of benchmarks from the Labs team, which we will take a look at very soon, 39 00:02:48,240 --> 00:02:52,600 because AMD claims that these things are in a similar performance class 40 00:02:52,600 --> 00:02:56,600 as an Intel CPU paired with a dedicated NVIDIA GPU 41 00:02:56,600 --> 00:03:00,360 at around the same price, which is a pretty bold claim indeed, 42 00:03:00,360 --> 00:03:04,320 230 to $330. 43 00:03:04,320 --> 00:03:07,920 That is a lot to spend on a CPU in a system 44 00:03:07,920 --> 00:03:12,080 where the budget didn't account for a dedicated graphics card. 45 00:03:12,080 --> 00:03:16,600 However, if we think of this as a CPU and a graphics card, 46 00:03:16,600 --> 00:03:22,800 well, all of a sudden it starts to become more reasonable. Now it should be noted that there are CPU-GPU combos 47 00:03:22,800 --> 00:03:26,600 that would net you a better value than this today, 48 00:03:26,600 --> 00:03:29,860 like if you were to go for AMD's own AM4 platform 49 00:03:29,860 --> 00:03:35,120 and then an RX 6,600GPU. But as long as this is close, 50 00:03:35,120 --> 00:03:39,320 I think it's a lot more compelling. And the reason for that is that 51 00:03:39,320 --> 00:03:42,680 you're not buying into a dead platform. 52 00:03:42,680 --> 00:03:47,920 And I'm an upgrade, right? Like I think of every PC as a PC of Theseus. 53 00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:52,720 So if there's something that I'm going to be able to add to over time, having Zenfone cores, 54 00:03:52,720 --> 00:03:56,120 having a more modern platform, that's something that's gonna appeal to me a lot. 55 00:03:56,120 --> 00:04:00,320 Immediately, I'm noticing that loading times are about what I would expect for a modern platform, 56 00:04:00,320 --> 00:04:04,200 which makes sense. You get anywhere from six to eight Zenfone cores 57 00:04:04,200 --> 00:04:09,800 with the two chips we're looking at today. And golly gee whizzikers, 58 00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:15,360 I don't have an FPS counterup, but this is Cyberpunk 2077, 59 00:04:15,360 --> 00:04:18,080 running at 1080p low. 60 00:04:18,960 --> 00:04:24,640 And if I had to guess, I'd say this is running at anywhere from 30 to 40 frames per second. 61 00:04:24,640 --> 00:04:30,640 Maybe even 40, 45. That is super cool. 62 00:04:30,640 --> 00:04:32,480 How about this cop? 63 00:04:35,640 --> 00:04:39,600 Look at that, I won. The power of AMD compels me. 64 00:04:39,600 --> 00:04:43,080 Now obviously AMD's being a little bit optimistic 65 00:04:43,080 --> 00:04:47,900 in their marketing materials for these chips. I mean, when they say 60 FPS, 66 00:04:47,900 --> 00:04:52,740 they mean with FSR, their upscaling technology. 67 00:04:52,740 --> 00:04:57,640 But if you can get 30 without upscaling technology, 68 00:04:57,640 --> 00:05:01,980 you will be experiencing Cyberpunk, gosh darn it, and without a GPU. 69 00:05:01,980 --> 00:05:06,420 All those years ago, AMD was all AMD fusion, man. 70 00:05:06,420 --> 00:05:09,620 We're gonna put CPUs with GPUs in the same chip, man. 71 00:05:09,620 --> 00:05:14,580 It's gonna be so cool. And here we are, what, 10, 11 years later, 72 00:05:14,580 --> 00:05:18,700 and they're finally doing it. And there's even workloads that really will take advantage 73 00:05:18,700 --> 00:05:23,660 of both of those elements of the chip. Okay, we didn't really test an event with the GPU, 74 00:05:23,660 --> 00:05:27,180 but we could have, and this really highlights what I was mentioning before 75 00:05:27,180 --> 00:05:32,180 about how much better it is to have a modern platform with modern cores compared to going AM4. 76 00:05:32,180 --> 00:05:36,260 A Ryzen 5,500, 600G falls way behind these chips. 77 00:05:36,260 --> 00:05:39,760 Also in Blender, they put up very competitive CPU numbers 78 00:05:39,760 --> 00:05:43,980 with in particular the 8,700G outclassing anything else 79 00:05:44,020 --> 00:05:47,780 in this kind of price range. If on the Intel side, you had to account 80 00:05:47,780 --> 00:05:52,660 for that you need a dedicated GPU because they do not have anything even near 81 00:05:52,660 --> 00:05:57,860 this kind of performance in onboard graphics. And as for 7-Zip, it's pretty much the same story. 82 00:05:57,860 --> 00:06:02,740 These are powerful CPUs with really decent GPUs on them. 83 00:06:02,740 --> 00:06:07,340 And some workloads like stable diffusion will make a lot of sense to run on the GPU. 84 00:06:07,340 --> 00:06:10,820 Actually, for that matter, they could make sense to run on the AI course, 85 00:06:10,820 --> 00:06:14,260 but much like AMD's promises 10 years ago with Fusion, 86 00:06:14,260 --> 00:06:18,900 we haven't seen too many consumer applications for these AI cores just yet. 87 00:06:18,900 --> 00:06:23,900 We're just kind of hoping that by the time we would use them every day, this chip is not completely irrelevant. 88 00:06:23,900 --> 00:06:27,300 Oh, what were the cyberpunk numbers? I never actually confirmed. We're pretty close. 89 00:06:27,300 --> 00:06:33,980 Oh man, I'm good. 46, 37 FPS, 1% lows, average 46, dang. 90 00:06:34,740 --> 00:06:38,780 I don't even need frame view, man. If we move on to something like Rocket League, 91 00:06:38,780 --> 00:06:43,060 I mean, this is 100 FPS easy. 92 00:06:43,060 --> 00:06:48,180 And it's not just the smoothness of the animations. A big part of what makes higher frame rates feel better 93 00:06:48,180 --> 00:06:51,980 is that there's less latency. So I can really feel that my inputs 94 00:06:51,980 --> 00:06:55,900 are being registered on the screen much more quickly. Having a look at the rest of our results, 95 00:06:55,900 --> 00:07:00,220 it's clear that whether you choose the 8700G or the 8600G, 96 00:07:00,220 --> 00:07:03,660 no, you're not going to be on par necessarily 97 00:07:03,660 --> 00:07:09,860 with an entry-level GeForce card. But what you will be is able to game now 98 00:07:09,860 --> 00:07:13,780 with the potential to upgrade to a real graphics card in the future, 99 00:07:13,780 --> 00:07:17,860 like one that comes on a card, while still retaining these high performance 100 00:07:17,860 --> 00:07:21,580 ZenFour CPU cores. Is this going to be the right path for everybody? 101 00:07:21,580 --> 00:07:27,060 No, I don't think so at all. If you are looking for the absolute best bang for your buck, 102 00:07:27,060 --> 00:07:31,500 I'm always going to advocate for going for what gives you the most FPS per dollar today. 103 00:07:31,500 --> 00:07:35,740 And a lot of the times that's going to be something that's not going to have as much of an upgrade path 104 00:07:35,780 --> 00:07:40,380 or it's going to be something that comes secondhand. In terms of something that could be reasonably future-proof, 105 00:07:40,380 --> 00:07:43,940 I love this as much as I did when AMD first announced it. 106 00:07:43,940 --> 00:07:46,980 Finally, something for the entry-level gamers out there, 107 00:07:46,980 --> 00:07:50,860 a viable option that isn't just, well, why don't you buy our old stuff? 108 00:07:50,860 --> 00:07:54,380 Which isn't to say that I don't have some annoyances with AMD about this launch. 109 00:07:54,380 --> 00:07:58,300 One of the things they glossed over when they did my briefing was the number 110 00:07:58,300 --> 00:08:05,300 of PCIe lanes on these chips. The 86 and 8700G do not have enough PCIe connectivity 111 00:08:05,300 --> 00:08:10,100 to connect a graphics card at the full Buy 16 link width. 112 00:08:10,100 --> 00:08:13,420 So you're limited to a Buy 8 link to your GPU. 113 00:08:13,420 --> 00:08:19,100 With PCIe being as fast as it is these days, it's probably not going to impact things too much 114 00:08:19,100 --> 00:08:23,860 unless you were putting a much older GPU on it, which you wouldn't because it has a powerful GPU on it 115 00:08:23,860 --> 00:08:28,180 already, but especially on the lower-end chips 116 00:08:28,180 --> 00:08:31,740 where they only get a Buy 4 link to a GPU, 117 00:08:31,740 --> 00:08:35,900 they're really shooting themselves in the foot if part of the value of these chips 118 00:08:35,900 --> 00:08:39,020 is supposed to be that PCIe upgrade story 119 00:08:39,020 --> 00:08:43,940 because I would not want to use a Buy 4 link to my GPU. 120 00:08:43,940 --> 00:08:47,620 Unless I was on a laptop using Thunderbolt or something like that. 121 00:08:47,620 --> 00:08:52,940 So still room for improvement, but overall, I'm happy to have an entry-level desktop option 122 00:08:52,940 --> 00:08:57,540 because that just hasn't made sense to me for so long that they have these great integrated GPUs on mobile, 123 00:08:57,540 --> 00:09:01,780 but we have to slum it on the desktop with these super cut-down versions. 124 00:09:01,780 --> 00:09:08,820 If you guys enjoyed this video, why don't you check out our unboxing of the RX7600XT, a new GPU from AMD that is an option. 125 00:09:10,100 --> 00:09:11,300 Subscribe to Shred Circuit.