Monday, January 29th 2024
AMD Ryzen 7 8700G Loves Memory Overclocking, which Vastly Favors its iGPU Performance
Entry level discrete GPUs are in trouble, as the first reviews of the AMD Ryzen 7 8700G desktop APU show that its iGPU is capable of beating the discrete GeForce GTX 1650, which means it should also beat the Radeon RX 6500 XT that offers comparable performance. Based on the 4 nm "Hawk Point" monolithic silicon, the 8700G packs the powerful Radeon 780M iGPU based on the latest RDNA3 graphics architecture, with as many as 12 compute units, worth 768 stream processors, 48 TMUs, and an impressive 32 ROPs; and full support for the DirectX 12 Ultimate API requirements, including ray tracing. A review by a Chinese tech publication on BiliBili showed that it's possible for an overclocked 8700G to beat a discrete GTX 1650 in 3DMark TimeSpy.
It's important to note here that both the iGPU engine clock and the APU's memory frequency are increased. The reviewer set the iGPU engine clock to 3400 MHz, up from its 2900 MHz reference speed. It turns out that much like its predecessor, the 5700G "Cezanne," the new 8700G "Hawk Point" features a more advanced memory controller than its chiplet-based counterpart (in this case the Ryzen 7000 "Raphael"). The reviewer succeeded in a DDR5-8400 memory overclock. A combination of the two resulted in a 17% increase in the Time Spy score over stock speeds; which is how the chip manages to beat the discrete GTX 1650 (comparable performance to the RX 6500 XT at 1080p).
Sources:
BiliBili, HXL (Twitter)
It's important to note here that both the iGPU engine clock and the APU's memory frequency are increased. The reviewer set the iGPU engine clock to 3400 MHz, up from its 2900 MHz reference speed. It turns out that much like its predecessor, the 5700G "Cezanne," the new 8700G "Hawk Point" features a more advanced memory controller than its chiplet-based counterpart (in this case the Ryzen 7000 "Raphael"). The reviewer succeeded in a DDR5-8400 memory overclock. A combination of the two resulted in a 17% increase in the Time Spy score over stock speeds; which is how the chip manages to beat the discrete GTX 1650 (comparable performance to the RX 6500 XT at 1080p).
63 Comments on AMD Ryzen 7 8700G Loves Memory Overclocking, which Vastly Favors its iGPU Performance
Additional cost savings:
CPU power is so low, that it doesn't matter the cooling solution
Total system power is <200W, since no GPU, any PSU/case is good. Such low power means any motherboard will do, you just pick features.
The cost savings keep piling up
The i3-12100 + RX 6600 XT system is idling at 40 W and gaming at 240 W. If you care to cripple the gaming performance the way it consumes 150 W it will still be faster than 8700G.
To save $40 a week in Canada given the 90 W difference and median 0.2 CAD a kW, you need to play 2222 hours weekly. That's a little bit impossible.Like I elaborately showed, savings are negative. Traditional CPUs are MUCH cheaper, so is DDR4. 12100+6700 XT isn't much more expensive than 8700G. Sometimes, it's even cheaper. 6700 XT also allows you for some 4K gaming. What can this iGPU do? Die at 1080p? Yeah, of course.You forget the fact you're paying roughly the same for a 8600G as you'd pay for 12400F+MB+RAM combined. 12100F+MB+RAM is cheaper than this APU alone. Factor more expensive DDR5 and you get a vastly different price tag. And 12700K laughs at 8600G's IPC and overclocking thanks to having more real cores and also having "fake" E-cores. It's also cheaper.
1. AMD APUs have a real market to innovate not just because they basically were the first to succeed with a PC based handheld but now Intel have entered that market.
2. If AM4 is anything to go buy it makes complete sense to get into AM5. The current and next Gen of consoles will have AMD hardware if 2023 Console ports are anything to go by RDNA3 is the way to go for Gaming.
At the end of the day there will be plenty of people that agree with my position and get these on day one. Your opinion is appreciated but not relevant to the success of this product. Just imagine it's 2025 and now DDR5 7200 is $100 for 32GB and you can buy that over the 6000 MHZ that you have to get a noticeable upgrade in performance. This is not 2020.
A decent AM4 motherboard is $80.
A Ryzen 5600 CPU is $110.
A kit of two reasonably fast 8 GB DDR4 sticks is $50.
CPU cooling will resound $30.
A reasonable PSU will cost you $60.
An RX 6700 XT will be about $350.
Total: 680 USD.
A decent AM5 motherboard is $150.
A Ryzen 8700G CPU is $330.
A kit of two fast 16 GB DDR5 sticks is $150.
CPU cooling is $30.
A PSU will cost you $40.
Total: 700 USD.
I don't see how this APU will compete with 6700 XT in games. I don't see how 6 cores of 5600 will be worse than the iGPU of 8700G. Buying a CPU+dGPU is win-win if we only count $$$. I do not, I repeat, I do not argue with these APUs being a cool thing and making a lot of sense in limited space scenarios. But for gamers who are on budget, they are bad value.
You can buy a 450 Watt PSU for this so try again
It comes with a cooler
I priced out a case, MB and RAM at $398 Canadian. The cheapest 6700XT in Canada is $439. AM5 is new AM4 is old.
The 8700G might make sense for some niche uses, but at its launch price I don't see the general appeal.
I was thinking of getting an 8700G for shits'n'giggles, but seeing the HU video, I'll stick to my spare 6500 XT on the shelf and save the money.
If you already have a graphics card it doesn't really make sense to get.
Edit: I do think it's impressive that an iGPU can match an only one generation old 90 W dGPU. It's just pointless for my use case, unfortunately.
RTX4090 (MSFS 4K 60fps / DLSS 120fps) -> 7600G iGPU (AFMF Upto 240fps) -> Monitor
*Assign game EXE to dGPU and output the video from iGPU.