AMD Ryzen 3 2200G
Is this APU all the chip a budget builder needs?
BUDGET BUILDERS have never been so spoiled. Not in every component choice— RAM and graphics card prices are still hideous—but definitely when it comes to processors. We’ve never had it so good. After years of marginal performance increases, we find ourselves handling chips that would have been highend a year ago. We’re talking quad-core as standard, at decent stock frequencies, with capable integrated graphics. And in the case of this new $100 chip, that latter point shouldn’t be understated.
The Ryzen 3 2200G, like the 2400G that we looked at last issue, uses architecture more readily found on AMD’s discrete graphics cards to power the chip’s 3D graphical grunt. Where the top-end Vega 64 has 64 compute units, and the 2400G has 11, here we’re dealing with just eight. That equates to a core configuration of 512 unified shaders, 32 texture mapping units, and 16 render outputs. Not heady numbers in terms of add-in graphics cards, but not bad for an integrated solution.
In real terms, this means you’re looking at 30–60fps in reasonably up-to-date games at 1080p, with sufficient tweaking of the game settings. We managed to hit a fairly smooth 60fps in Overwatch using the medium game settings, while we had to drop to low settings in Riseof theTomb Raider in order to hit an average 35fps. The integrated graphics on offer here aren’t going to challenge any serious discrete offering, but they are powerful enough to let you play modern games at a fraction of the price—a compromise many of us are willing to make.
In terms of raw processing, the Ryzen 3 2200G is surprisingly powerful, given its low cost. That C-note nets you a quad-core processor running at a tasty 3.5GHz, with a max turbo of 3.7GHz. And it will happily hit that max turbo a lot of the time, as well. It’s worth noting that because this is designated a Ryzen 3 processor, it doesn’t pack any multithreading cleverness, so those four cores equate to four threads, but still, that isn’t bad for a budget chip.
The Ryzen 3 2200G replaces the Ryzen 3 1200 that precedes it, squeezing a graphics core into its AM4 package and upping the operating frequency, while keeping the price pretty much the same (you can pick up the 1200 for $95 at the moment). Part of the reason for the upping of the operating frequency is down to the fact that the first generation chips use two core complexes, each with a pair of working cores, while the 2200G uses just a single core complex with a full quad-core make-up. The downside of this is that there isn’t as much L3 cache— 4MB down from 8MB—although the latency is improved, so you may not notice this drop in day-to-day usage.
As the Ryzen 3 1200 is being retired, that leaves two chips for any budding budget builder to pick from—the 2200G and the 1300X, the latter costing $125. A quick look at the performance table reveals that the 2200G has the edge over its more expensive sibling in all but one test, but that particular test is important because it highlights the one downside of the new chip: the drop from 16x PCI Express lanes down to 8x, to make way for the integrated graphics. This drop in bandwidth shouldn’t be an issue apart from at the very high end, but it is something worth bearing in mind if that’s your ultimate goal.
Performance-wise, the 2200G loses out to Intel’s Core i3-8100 in straight processor testing, but it does have the upper hand when it comes to integrated graphics performance. Which means that if you want to play the odd game, but don’t want to drop serious cash on a separate graphics card, then this new budget chip from AMD is the way to go. If gaming is of no interest to you at all, though, or you’re definitely going to go down the discrete graphics route, then the Intel chip has the edge over the Ryzen. It’s great to have genuine options once again.