Gadgetory

it's been about two weeks since a launch of AMD's Raven rich apos and we here at Harbor Canucks have been hard at work benchmarking these guys and the results are really fascinating considering their price now before I get into the technical details I want to quickly go over what exactly an APU is well the expanded term for that is accelerated processing unit it was initially introduced with the Llano architecture and it has evolved through subsequent generations and the idea behind an APU is to offer good x86 performance along with class-leading graphics capabilities and I think Raven Ridge might finally bring the dream of APU success to a reality now these Raven Ridge apos are a slightly updated version of the Xen architecture and while the 2000 series branding might cause a slight confusion with the 12 nanometers n+ architecture it's not it's just not it's basically a first generation rise in desktop CPU with Vega graphics and if you're interested in learning more about the nuts and bolts of these new AP use make sure to check out our Raven Ridge explained video right over here plus if you are interested in learning more about the performance and how it compares to the rest of the Rison series processors including the Rison 5 1500 X and of course the 1400 I'll leave a link to our website article in the description down below so you can check that out these EPS are supposed to be different from previous generations since those feature weak processing cores and Xen has improved a lot of that in some cases it could be almost double the performance of previous generation Bristol rich ap use and that's pretty awesome you see Raven Ridge is a potential avenue for entry-level users who are thinking about going through a system building in several steps basically they can pick up one of these new views that feature respectable graphics and get away with some light 1080p gaming and they can obviously expand the performance by adding a discrete graphics card once prices start to normalize because you know miners the main reason behind this video is to actually find out how good the internal GPU is in games that people play the most but most importantly we're going to be focusing a little bit on x86 performance as well I should also mention that these ApS can be easily adapted into all-in-one desktop systems as well as notebooks pretty relatively affordable price point but the ultimate question is can you actually game on a $99 APU let's find out but first a quick message from our sponsor say goodbye to cables it's time to enjoy wireless audio with the corsair void RGB gaming headset with the light and come full frame low profile mic on headset volume control and mic mute + dual side illumination check out the void RGB by corsair the perfect way to hear your game let's quickly go over the specs of these Raven Ridge eight views starting with the $170 horizon 520 400 G it features four cores with eight threads comes with a base clock of 3.6 gigahertz with a boost up to 3.9 you may also notice that AMD has reduced the amount of l3 cache on the 2400 G when compared to the Rison 5 1400 which by the way has been pushed to an end-of-life status alongside the Rison 3 1200 the reduction of cache and internal memory latencies has allowed the new CPU package to achieve higher memory speeds up to 29 33 megahertz on dual channel kits and even higher with overclocking the Bizon 320 200 G is a pretty tempting option for $99 it's a quad-core CPU without hyper threading yet it offers significantly higher bass and boost frequencies when compared to the Rison 3 1200 and as mentioned earlier it can also support memory speeds as far as 29 33 megahertz so that's pretty cool I should also mention that these ApS are replacing the 1400 and 1200 respectively and should offer more performance perhaps the biggest loss and something the AP used to share in common with Zen based Athlon processors is the lack of 16 dedicated graphics lanes for discrete GPUs this was done to save dye space simplify manufacturing and push towards a lower pricing structure now granted today's mid-range GPUs don't really need an X 16 link even in our testing GT X 1080 isn't bottlenecked by pcie 3.0 X 8 interface but the optics of it are quite poor and not to complete the Raven Ridge apu puzzle is of course going over the Vega based graphics processors that are integrated into their dye package their code named Vega 11 and Vega 8 with respect to 2400 G and 2200 G and they imply the number of compute units Vega 11 has 704 stream processors 16 ro PS and 44 texture units which puts it about one-fifth as powerful as aim DS own Vega 56 GPU Vega 8 is a slightly cut-down version of that and that's obvious given its nine dollar price tag these GPUs can reserve up to two gigabytes worth of system memory that can be set in the BIOS but their default configuration is 512 megabytes now those specs might not sound like much but in the onboard graphics realm it's pretty impressive plus given the architectural improvements of Vega over the r7 generation used in Bristol Ridge the difference will be like night and day let's discuss compatibility with aim for motherboards these chips should work on X 370 be 350 and a320 chipsets but as you can see the number of i/o are limited as you go down by chipset for example X 370 provides for SATA and 8 PCI gen 2 lanes while be 350 cuts that down to 2 SATA and six PCI gen 2 there are also some limitations with USB 3.1 gen2 connectivity but if you think about it pairing these new ap use with a B 350 or a 320 motherboards makes a lot more sense as they give you the best bang for your buck technically you could opt for an X 370 motherboard but in all honesty that platform seems to overkill when paired with a ribbon rich APU next up is platform cost and this is an interesting one so if you combine the cost of the $99 2200 G and a similarly priced be 350 motherboard your memory investment is going to be closer to the combined pricing for the CPU and motherboard which is kind of insane especially if you plan on using a 16 gigabyte kit which is the minimum we would run welcome to 2018 my friends okay so like I mentioned in the beginning this video is not going to discuss on how Raven Ridge alliance with the rest of processors and the reason behind that is because apu stopped processors are meant to compete in a market where Intel has no competition we really want to see how well these processors particularly the one that cost $90 performs in games above everything else because I'm sure that's why you're here but we also wanted to do some real-world tests to see how well these apos could deliver you know respectable productivity performance because I'm sure you'd be using this for other tasks apart from gaming now for gaming benchmarks we also decided to throw a basic gtx 1050 to simulate a lower end GPU scenario and it's also a good point of reference for you guys if you're interested in comparing the performance differences now unfortunately we didn't get a chance to get our hands on with gtx 1040 which is invidious lower end GTX 10 series graphics cards but as of right now I think we're just gonna stick with the GT x 1050 our test setup involves an msi be 350 ITX motherboard and Noctua NHS 12 cooler to cool the AP use 16 gigabytes of Corsair Vengeance lpx dual channel ddr3 memory at 26 66 megahertz with these timings and we used two gigabytes in BIOS for IGP partition alright let's roll out those results starting with Adobe Media encoder we see the higher clock speeds are heavily utilized and they're able to deliver pretty good results you may also notice that we did overclock the processor to see how that could affect the real-world benchmarks and the results really do speak for themselves the lower l3 cache found on the 2400 G and the 2200 G doesn't really affect performance with blender as you can see the 2400 G runs almost neck-to-neck with the risin 5 1500 X while costing less moving on to handbrake and the 2400 G continues to offer our performance that's similar to the 1500 X but the 2200 G starts falling behind a 1300 X okay moment of truth how do these apos play well with gaming well as you can see there are a hell of a lot better than the integrated solution from Intel 3dmark Cloud Gate and sky diver performed really well on the 2400 G with Vega 11 graphics and the 2200 G with Vega 8 it's obviously not gonna match gtx 1050 performance but that shouldn't disappoint you take dota 2 for instance at 1080p set to medium preset lead 2411 graphics dishes out well over 60 frames per second wildly 2200 G with slightly lower compute units isn't too shy from these 60 frames per second mark Wolfenstein at 1080p set to medium also does a pretty good job on both ap use averaging around 40 frames per second and 33 frames per second respectively here's a quick look at Civilization six very respectable performance at 1080p set to low settings now in the past integrated graphics illusions have benefited immensely from higher memory speeds so we decided to apply an XMPP profile of 32 hundred megahertz going anywhere above this range could result in BSL ease unless timings loosened so we remained here at 14 14 14 32 and guys check this out we're looking at a 12 to 18 percent framerate improvement entitled select civilization 6 doom and overwatch and that certainly isn't something to sneeze at our next step was to address the core frequencies of the horizon 5 2400 G's GPU itself because overclocking the integrated graphics contributes to the overall overclock of the entire processor unfortunately our 2200 G had some issues with stability when overclocking the integrated graphics so that isn't going to be in these charts with the 2400 G it wasn't really an easy thing overclocking due to the terrible beta bios on the MSI bt-50 motherboard but AMD's rising master software took some of that stress away and we ended up with a constant 14:38 megahertz which was the maximum that could be achieved without black screening during game testing or applying excessive voltage as you can see the overall performance did indeed improve but nothing like it did with faster memory it could be than memory speeds where once again the culprit and ended up limiting GPU throughput or this could have been just a law of diminishing returns either way frame rates were certainly impressive for an integrated graphics solution also don't forget about power consumption as well overclocking these apos contributes to the power current and thermal limit of the processor and due to that the integrated graphics chip will be capped at lower than expected limits many times as for cooling these chips the stock cooler that comes with these apos do a pretty good job keeping temperatures under control while overclocking but we recommend something like the Noctua NHL 9 series since it's quieter and performs really well when compared to stock solutions so Candy's a POS really play 1080p at a lower price point the answer is yes absolutely but there are some limitations with the risin 5 2400 G and the risin 320 200 G especially with the way how they rely on memory frequencies for example you know it's stock settings both apos do a pretty good job yielding comfortable frame rates especially in titles like dota 2 csgo civilization 6 Vega 11 and Vega 8 does not have a problem firing through those titles provided that you do some image adjustments but if you are interested in slightly demanding tales like doom or watch Wolfenstein Destiny - overclocking the memory can significantly increase the performance and we've seen that by the results not to mention even bumping up the core speed on the IGP contributed to that as well now investing in a dual channel thirty-two hundred megahertz memory kid might sound like a good idea but from a price to performance ratio it just doesn't make any sense pairing it up with a raven rich apu because you'd be paying a lot more for the ram with the combined costs of the APU and a motherboard because drm pricing it's a thing it's a thing in 2018 personally I think Raven Ridge is an excellent solution for people who are looking to build their systems by steps so for example they can pick one of these a POS and start gaming or get away with some light 1080p gaming and if they want to increase their performance they can obviously add a discrete GPU given that prices normalize given how the current cryptocurrency market is and how it has affected the pricing on GPUs I think Raven Ridge might be a temporary solution if you consider from that perspective but if you are looking to also build your very first computer and if you don't if you're on a tight budget this is definitely a great option because you really don't have to invest on a discrete GPU you can definitely just start gaming on it right away with your CPU memory and motherboard and of course the rest of components apart from a discreet graphics card I do have to mention that there are some limitations with this platform especially with i/o so for example you can throw in two nvme SSDs put them in raid or go through a quad or dual channel SLI setups that just doesn't make any sense with these Raven Ridge ApS and you've seen that with the i/o list that I talked about earlier in the video so at the end of the day there two questions that needs to be answered one are these apu is really worth a price - is it really worth upgrading from a 1500 x or 1300 x let me answer question 1 i think if you are looking to build your very first gaming computer you should definitely consider these new Raven Ridge AP use and B to answer your second question you should probably not consider upgrading from a 1500 X to the 2400 G or even the 2200 G coming from a thirty-minute X because the performance difference isn't that drastic but what I'm really excited about is wait how oh yeah man fractures are going to implement these a POS on their products for example all-in-one desktop systems and portable laptops because that would be an interesting I think that would be an interesting way to approach gaming or mainstream gaming I would say at a relatively affordable price point so what do you guys think about Raven Ridge APU specifically the 2400 G and E 2200 G let me know in the comments down below I'm he bar with hurricane X thank you so much for watching and we'll see you in the next one