AMD Ryzen 5000G: Zen 3 APUs for Desktop Coming August 5th

Back in April of this year, AMD announced its new series of Ryzen 5000G processors with integrated graphics. These processors were an upgrade over the previous generation of 4000G hardware by using AMD’s newest Zen 3 cores coupled with Vega 8 integrated graphics. At the time those processors were released for the pre-built system market only, with promises that retail versions would be made available later in the year. Today AMD is announcing two Ryzen 5000G models for retail, coming to market worldwide on August 5^th.

Ryzen 5000 Gets a G

AMD runs two lines of processors: those without integrated graphics, which are often targeted for higher performance markets with a chiplet design, and those with integrated graphics which use higher powered versions of the equivalent mobile monolithic silicon. Normally we differentiate between the two by calling the first a CPU and the second an APU, and AMD gives the latter easily identifiable product names because they all end in a G, for graphics.

AMD has launched several generations of APUs built upon its Ryzen architecture:

• Ryzen 2000G (Raven Ridge), built on 14nm Zen with Vega 11
• Ryzen 3000G (Picasso), built on 12nm Zen+ with Vega 11
• Ryzen 4000G (Renoir), built on 7nm Zen 2 with Vega 8
• Ryzen 5000G (Cezanne), built on 7nm Zen 3 with Vega 8

The names in brackets are the official codenames for each of the processors. Because these APUs use the same silicon as the equivalent mobile processors, these desktop parts have the same codename as the mobile variants.

Both the 2000G and 3000G families were offered at retail, and the 3400G/2400G have both been popular processors. By contrast, we never saw a formal retail launch of Ryzen 4000G. This product line was focused for the pre-built market, especially for business ‘PRO’ use – AMD even stated at launch that these would likely never be offered for retail. The only way to get them has been to wait for hardware to filter through the resale market or hope that some pre-built vendors ordered too many and are selling them direct to end users. We ended up obtaining three of the APUs in this market, and put them to the test.

Testing The World’s Best APUs: Desktop AMD Ryzen 4750G, 4650G and 4350G

When the Ryzen 5000G family was first formally announced, AMD was again leading with the pre-built market. What made that launch different was that AMD also committed at the time to bringing the processor line to retail, so end-users could buy them on shelves in official retail packaging with a full warranty.

Out of the six processors that were initially launched, two of them are coming to retail on August 5^th. AMD claims a worldwide launch.

Both of the launched processors come from AMD’s 65 W TDP line, so unfortunately we won’t have retail versions of the 35 W models right now. Both processors also have 24 lanes of PCIe 3.0 and will support DDR4-3200. These processors will be supported in 500-series motherboards with appropriate BIOS updates for full performance - 400-series support will depend on the manufacturer.

The top processor coming to retail is the Ryzen 7 5700G, with eight cores and sixteen threads, with a suggested retail price of $359. This processor has a base frequency of 3.8 GHz, a single core turbo frequency of 4.6 GHz, and will enable the full Vega 8 graphics at 2000 MHz.

The other processor is the Ryzen 5 5600G, with six cores and twelve threads, and a suggested retail price of $259. At a base frequency of 3.9 GHz and a single core frequency of 4.4 GHz, this processor will enable 7 compute units in the Vega integrated graphics at 1900 MHz.

Being based on the mobile cores means that these processors will have only 16 MB of L3 cache, which is half of the CPU variants without integrated graphics. Ironically enough usually a larger L3 cache helps integrated graphics, but as we are using the same silicon for mobile processors and APUs, some tradeoffs are made, mostly for the mobile side which is the bigger market for this silicon.

Comparing to Desktop CPUs

We've been asked to showcase the difference between the CPUs and APUs.

If we put side by side the Ryzen 5 5600X, the CPU, with Ryzen 5 5600G, we see a lot of similarities. Both have six cores and 12 threads, both run at 65 W, and both have 24 PCIe lanes.

However, there are a number of differences as well. The 5600X CPU has an extra +200 MHz on the turbo frequency, whereas the 5600G APU has +200 on the base frequency and it also has integrated graphics. On top of this, the CPU has PCIe 4.0 rather than PCIe 3.0, and the CPU has double the cache.

The price difference puts the 5600X as more expensive by $40, but likely still the processor of choice for anyone wanting a fast discrete graphics card system.

If we go up to the 8-core parts, then that disparity changes a little. 

For this comparison, there is no base frequency difference, but the turbo is higher on the 5800X. The APU still has the integrated graphics, but is only PCIe 3.0 off the processor and not PCIe 4.0 like the CPU. We still have the cache difference.

So the question is which would you rather have - 100-200 MHz extra CPU frequency, double the L3 cache, and PCIe 4.0, or would you rather have integrated graphics? At a price differential of $90, now it suddenly got interesting.

Ryzen Pro 5000G and Full Ryzen 5000-Series Desktop Processor List

Alongside the two new Ryzen 5000G processors coming to retail, AMD is also announcing today a few additions to the Ryzen Pro stack at both the 65W and 35W power points. These are easily identifyable by the '50G' at the end of the name, and the 65 W models are identical to the non-Pro counterparts.

Adding in the pricing to our full processor list gives the following:

AMD has not commented about any other OEM-only processors coming to retail at this time.

Retailed Reading

• AMD APU Product Page
• Testing The World’s Best APUs: Desktop AMD Ryzen 4750G, 4650G and 4350G
• Best CPUs for Gaming: March 2021
• AMD Ryzen 9 5980HS Cezanne Review: Ryzen 5000 Mobile Tested
• A Broadwell Retrospective Review in 2020: Is eDRAM Still Worth It?