For a short time now appears among the most popular processors at the large price comparison portal Curmudgeon a rather unknown face: the Ryzen Pro 4650G. Also at Amazon’s current bestsellers ends up with the Ryzen 3 4300GE a model before the Ryzen 5 5600X, which one would not necessarily expect there.
What is special about these processors? These are APUs or “Accelerated Processing Units”. This is the name of AMD processors with an integrated graphics unit. Here you can see the most important key data in comparison with Ryzen 3000 APUs, which also rely on the Zen 2 architecture:
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Ryzen Pro 4650G |
GPU Core / Rhythm: 0,448/1,9 GHz |
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Ryzen 5 3400G |
GPU Core / Rhythm: 0,704/1,4 GHz |
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Ryzen 3 4300GE |
GPU Core / Rhythm: 0,384/1,7 GHz |
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Ryzen 3 3200G |
GPU Core / Rhythm: 0,512/1,25 GHz |
The Ryzen 4000 APUs do not normally appear in such top lists because they are primarily intended for the OEM market and are often rather difficult to buy than individually. In addition, the integrated GPU is significantly slower than most dedicated graphics cards.
As described in the following article, the situation on the graphics card market is currently extremely tense – and this is exactly what the APUs should now benefit from.
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Current graphics cards: Could it be even more expensive?
Greatly reduced claims, a lot of money saved
In times when even a four-year-old entry-level graphics card such as the Geforce GTX 1050 Ti is sometimes sold more expensive than when it was released, it can be particularly worthwhile to do without a dedicated graphics card.
How fast are the APUs? Vega graphics units are used in most of the reasonably current AMD APUs. They can certainly deliver enough power to play games in Full HD. This is shown by our benchmarks of the Ryzen 5 3400G, whose GPU is as fast as the model in the Ryzen Pro 4650G:
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Ryzen 5 3400G in the game test
Gambling with an APU is often only possible with significantly reduced graphic details. In more demanding titles, it may also be necessary to lower the resolution further. But you can still have fun playing with a less opulent look. The fact that APUs are currently increasing in popularity fits well into the overall picture.
At around 230 dollars, the Ryzen Pro 4650G is around 40 dollars more expensive than its technical counterpart without an integrated GPU in the form of the Ryzen 5 3600. If you consider the current prices for graphics cards and lower your own requirements, the surcharge can be worthwhile .
What to look out for when buying an APU
APUs do not have their own memory. Your performance is therefore significantly influenced by the fact that there is enough system memory that is as fast as possible. An APU can also be used with only 8.0 GB of RAM and DDR4-2666 memory, but 16.0 GB and DDR4-3200 (or higher) are more recommended.
Ryzen 5000 and Ryzen 6000: what’s next?
AMD’s new Ryzen-5000-APUs with Zen 3 architecture, like their predecessors, were initially only available for the OEM market, but sooner or later they will also be available individually.
The Ryzen 6000 successor should bring the integrated graphics unit to AMD’s much more up-to-date RDNA2 architecture of the RX 6000 graphics cards. This could make them even more interesting for gamers, but these APUs are not expected until 2022.
Due to the current situation, is playing with an APU an option for you? Or are the compromises in terms of graphic quality, resolution and performance too big for you overall? Feel free to write it in the comments!
