Question Question about energy efficiency for a R5 1600 vs a R5 5300G

[Indus]

I have a secondary rig that is primary used for HTPC and stuff that is currently operating with a R5 1600 with a GTX 660 video card and it stays on pretty much 24/7 365.

I've thought about upgrading to a R5 5300G and totally removing the video card as it may be more energy efficient than the video card + cpu combo.

What do you guys think? Is it worth doing or I'll end up spending more on the cpu than I would saving the video cards energy?

 

[Hitman928]

It would definitely be more efficient. Obviously you should make sure the integrated graphics are good enough and compatible with whatever htpc tasks you need it to run.

 

[mikeymikec]

How did you get hold of a 5300G? I thought they were OEM only.

I don't think it's worth the money, not unless you expect energy prices to go through the roof. Let's say it consistently saves 10W. I bet it would take a long time for your energy tariff to bill you the cost of the processor.

That's just aside from the fact that you would then end up with a likely spare/useless graphics card and processor.

 

[Indus]

How did you get hold of a 5300G? I thought they were OEM only.

I don't think it's worth the money, not unless you expect energy prices to go through the roof. Let's say it consistently saves 10W. I bet it would take a long time for your energy tariff to bill you the cost of the processor.

That's just aside from the fact that you would then end up with a likely spare/useless graphics card and processor.

Saw some on ebay for $60 or thereabouts.

I was a bit surprised since 3200g was the most likely replacement till now.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

That old GTX lacks modern codec support. The 5300G's Vega iGPU only gets security updates now. You can just use the Radeon.ID community drivers if you hit a snag at some point. It still lacks AV1 support. Make certain your bios is updated to support 5000 series APUs if you go that route.

The other way to go is buy the ARC A310 - https://www.newegg.com/asrock-low-p...-gddr6/p/N82E16814930111?Item=N82E16814930111
Full media support and capabilities including AV1 encode and decode; sips power from the PCIe slot. Costs more is the only downside.

How did you get hold of a 5300G? I thought they were OEM only.

Working pulls. They probably swap in the more desirable 5600G for a faster sale.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Saw some on ebay for $60 or thereabouts.

I was a bit surprised since 3200g was the most likely replacement till now.

Stay away from that old 4 core 4 thread CPU in late 2024. The 1600 is much more capable at brute forcing playback when the GPU lacks support. The A310 solves all of the issue and keeps you with a CPU that isn't going to get 100% usage just from windows running updates. The 5300G is a good choice if you don't care about driver updates or full media support.