Zen 2 APUs/"Renoir" discussion thread

[Shivansps]

Really bad seems a bit hard. It's ~14% lower than the 3700X. That's not bad when you consider you get a functional iGPU. Would be be nice if spent some of that cut CU space on cache though. That doesn't seem to stop them from flying off the shelves as coercitiv mentioned.

Fair enoght, but as i said you cant compare mobile to desktop, they are two completely diferent markets.
In desktop you need to consider all the options, and you can buy a 3600 + RX570 for the same money of a 4750G, with that in mind is not that much of a value compared to a notebook were you really need the power efficiency.

To make it short, this whole idea of buying a 4700G and "add a dgpu later" is out of the window with that performance, specially considering the Zen 3 cpus should not be that far away.

 

[moinmoin]

Well we know the L3 is important for gaming now, are there any tests that other than gaming show 'less L3 + high clock memory(fclk)' vs 'more L3 + less clock memory(fclk)' difference?

If you are interested in the general effect a smaller L3$ has there's also the OEM exclusive Ryzen 5 3500 which compared to 3600 has half the L3$ (so 16MB instead 32MB). There are plenty benchmark videos of the 3500 on youtube.

It would be interesting to see a benchmark that pits 3600, 3500 and 4600G against each other. The significance of the L3$ and the possibility of other optimizations and weaknesses within Renoir should be more obvious then.

 

[Asterox]

Dang. I mean, it's not *bad*, but it is compromised enough that for a desktop I'd recommend getting a normal Zen2 and nearly any dGPU vs one of these if possible. I had hoped that it would be something where you got roughly equal performance, but with the bonus of a workable IGP, something to get you by during RMAs, or upgrade (eg; sell an RTX 20xx now, buy a new one next month or so).

Also missing an IGP made selling 6/8 core Zen2s in corporate desktop a little more difficult vs Intel where you had the unexciting yet competent Intel HD for business desktop use. This meant savings in complexity, cost, and reliability over dGPU setups when there is no need for one. This technically fixes that at least, even if it's muted a bit by the performance hit.

Renoir APU Mobile has more then enough CPU performanse for Desktop PC usage.Big L3 Cache is big no for Mobile, but again no problem at all.Renoir APU does great what it is original designed for.

This is ideal example or comparison, identical laptop hardware design comparison Renoir APU vs Intel.

I can imagine, what we can expect from 8/16( Zen 3 or Zen 4 CPU)Mobile APU "with only 8 or 10 CU RDNA 2/RDNA 3 GPU configuration".

 

[Arkaign]

I didn't say it was bad, but if you don't need IGP, it's absolutely worse than normal Zen2. That's the compromise. I had hoped it would be less severe.

 

[Thibsie]

I still think some people expect butter, butter's money, milk, cream, cow, farmer's (ok, I'll stop here) and feel cheated when they don't get it all for free.

 

[amd6502]

I didn't say it was bad, but if you don't need IGP, it's absolutely worse than normal Zen2. That's the compromise. I had hoped it would be less severe.

That works out well then, as the chiplet based SKU's face far less production constraints (under 75mm2 per part from TSMC).

To make it short, this whole idea of buying a 4700G and "add a dgpu later" is out of the window with that performance, specially considering the Zen 3 cpus should not be that far away.

Renoir isn't aimed anywhere near ultrabudget. Its AM4 parts are more for anyone wanting leading edge CPU with iGPU so that they can stick it in a SFF case without an exotic low profile low wattage dGPU. So this includes a few DIYs and many OEMs.

If on such a budget, yes, best to save up right there for a dGPU and go for the value sweet spot for CPU (either 2600 or 3600). Here in the US quite decent used dGPUs can be had for under $50 that will exceed iGPU and can get you by until you save up for your target dGPU.

Matisse is aimed at DT+server; so no surprise, DIY's building a leading edge CPU DT are usually best off with these. Budget oriented iGPU builder are going to be best off with Picasso. That full iGPU overclocked is excellent 768p material; OC'd i think it might match a RX 550. I really do hope they release at least another ≥6t Picasso SKU with ≥10C.

 

[Shivansps]

I still think some people expect butter, butter's money, milk, cream, cow, farmer's (ok, I'll stop here) and feel cheated when they don't get it all for free.

Expecting more performance for the same money on a new generation is something that has been done since we were using socket 7 motherboards, it does not have anything to do with AMD. What no one was able to explain why desktop Renoir has to be the exception to that rule.

 

[DrMrLordX]

What no one was able to explain why desktop Renoir has to be the exception to that rule.

Oh, don't worry. You'll be seeing more of that elsewhere.

 

[jpiniero]

Expecting more performance for the same money on a new generation is something that has been done since we were using socket 7 motherboards, it does not have anything to do with AMD.

And it does, from Tom's review the 4750G is 32% faster in the single threaded benchmarks and 28% faster in the dGPU benchmarks. Figure that the 4300G should be able to come close to that once you OC it.

 

[maddie]

Expecting more performance for the same money on a new generation is something that has been done since we were using socket 7 motherboards, it does not have anything to do with AMD. What no one was able to explain why desktop Renoir has to be the exception to that rule.

They are too scared/ashamed to admit that AMD is pushing for margins and damn the past. There are two sides here, owner (shareholder) and consumer. The arguments for and against higher prices and margins come from these two camps. Even though I'm a supporter of AMD, at the core I'm a consumer first, so I look at this price creep as trouble for the future. All the BS justifications are just that, BS.

 

[teejee]

Expecting more performance for the same money on a new generation is something that has been done since we were using socket 7 motherboards, it does not have anything to do with AMD. What no one was able to explain why desktop Renoir has to be the exception to that rule.

Renoir is the base for the first product for many years that really got the OEM's attention. The laptop line-up based on Renoir has become very popular.
It is in my opinion an excellent product.

But sure, the desktop variant based on Renoir have some compromises that aren't perfect. If you don't like those then choose another solution. Very simple!

AMD doesn't have to find niches like gaming oriented APU in order to sell anything anymore, now they compete in the biggest area of them all (laptops) for real. So a die shared with laptops will be balanced towards laptops.

But sure, in the future we might see APUs with big steps in gaming performance. But that was never the goal with Renoir.

 

[scannall]

They are too scared/ashamed to admit that AMD is pushing for margins and damn the past. There are two sides here, owner (shareholder) and consumer. The arguments for and against higher prices and margins come from these two camps. Even though I'm a supporter of AMD, at the core I'm a consumer first, so I look at this price creep as trouble for the future. All the BS justifications are just that, BS.

Currently AMD's net margins are %9.72, about a quarter of Intel's. And that's really low. Too low actually. Leaves very little room for errors of any kind. If they are going to continue thriving they need to get that up some. Doesn't need to be near as high as Intel's confiscatory margins, but in line with Apple and Google would be fine at around %21.

 

[AtenRa]

Renoir is the base for the first product for many years that really got the OEM's attention. The laptop line-up based on Renoir has become very popular.
It is in my opinion an excellent product.

But sure, the desktop variant based on Renoir have some compromises that aren't perfect. If you don't like those then choose another solution. Very simple!

AMD doesn't have to find niches like gaming oriented APU in order to sell anything, now they compete in the biggest area of them all (laptops) for real. So a die shared with laptops will be balanced towards laptops.

But sure, in the future we might see APUs with big steps in gaming performance. But that was never the goal with Renoir.

The problem is there is currently NO 2400G/3400G replacement at the same price.
So we are stack with 2400G performance for three years, talking about stagnation.........

Not only the APUs increased in price, mini-iTX B550 prices are out of this world.

This is the worst time to even think about building a mini-iTX iGPU gaming system.

In a few years from now , DIY desktop will only be full ATX custom builds that will cost 2-3K or more.
The rest will all be OEM/ODM based.

 

[teejee]

The problem is there is currently NO 2400G/3400G replacement at the same price.
So we are stack with 2400G performance for three years, talking about stagnation.........

Not only the APUs increased in price, mini-iTX B550 prices are out of this world.

This is the worst time to even think about building a mini-iTX iGPU gaming system.

In a few years from now , DIY desktop will only be full ATX custom builds that will cost 2-3K or more.
The rest will all be OEM/ODM based.

Yes, this is the consequence of AMD prioritizing laptops and fighting Intel on their home turf with Renoir.

I think this is a good prioritization for AMD overall, but it is of course not good for those who prioritizes APU gaming on desktop.

 

[NTMBK]

Yes, this is the consequence of AMD prioritizing laptops and fighting Intel on their home turf with Renoir.

I think this is a good prioritization for AMD overall, but it is of course not good for those who prioritizes APU gaming on desktop.

Nobody should be prioritising APU gaming on desktop. The dual channel memory bus is just too limiting to make it practical. Best bet is to get a discrete GPU and CPU.

 

[misuspita]

I think the GPU part of the equation is limited by memory. Fast memory is expensive and not nearly as good as dedicated gddr. I don't know how fast can on-board gpu's get without much faster RAM

 

[CluelessOne]

The problem is there is currently NO 2400G/3400G replacement at the same price.
So we are stack with 2400G performance for three years, talking about stagnation.........

Not only the APUs increased in price, mini-iTX B550 prices are out of this world.

This is the worst time to even think about building a mini-iTX iGPU gaming system.

In a few years from now , DIY desktop will only be full ATX custom builds that will cost 2-3K or more.
The rest will all be OEM/ODM based.

With desktop PC sales continue to contract that $2 - 3K PC build will be the reality. It's back to 1980s prices. The people who buys desktop PC are going to be the minority. The majority is well served by smartphones for their computing needs. Tablets running iOS or Android with keyboard maybe.

 

[amd6502]

Nobody should be prioritising APU gaming on desktop. The dual channel memory bus is just too limiting to make it practical. Best bet is to get a discrete GPU and CPU.

They've managed 720p-medium gaming quite well since the GCN based A-series. Then upped that some more with RR/Picasso. I imagine they handle 768p high well, and might even do a limited number of titles 1080p low.

As currently exotic expensive memory comes down to mainstream price (whenever that might happen...) that'd be another bump up to where 1080p low (and even low-med) is going to be done with just dual channel. Again, all they would need is another 12nm IO hub with a capable iGPU just slightly larger than Picasso's.

But yeah, performance equivalent to mainstream budget cards like 570 RX are not going to happen unless there's HBM or moving to a quad channel platform like TR4. And that would be too niche unless it were combined with datacenter (and assuming such demand would materialize).

 

[AtenRa]

Nobody should be prioritising APU gaming on desktop. The dual channel memory bus is just too limiting to make it practical. Best bet is to get a discrete GPU and CPU.

Why not ?? the majority of top 20 games played on Steam can be played at 1080p with an APU and dual channel memory.
And the problem with Ryzen 4300G is not memory bandwidth but lack of shader performance.

 

[NTMBK]

Why not ?? the majority of top 20 games played on Steam can be played at 1080p with an APU and dual channel memory.
And the problem with Ryzen 4300G is not memory bandwidth but lack of shader performance.

At 1080p with potato settings, sure.

I've been down this rabbit hole with the original Llano APU, when I built one for my sister. I made sure I got a nice fast RAM kit to squeeze out the last bit of performance, and it still wasn't that great. Ended up dropping in a cheap 750ti a few years later, and the difference was night and day. Though of course it was then held back by the CPU...

I understand building on a budget, but my advice is this: focus on the CPU first. Get a good CPU with enough IGP to get your system up and running (or reuse an old piece of crap GPU from a previous build). Don't spend extra money on a chip with a bigger IGP, or a fast RAM kit to squeeze another 10% out of the IGP. Save that money, and put it towards buying a budget GPU in a few months' time.

 

[AtenRa]

At 1080p with potato settings, sure.

You can play lots of them at 1080p Medium/High settings with the Ryzen 3400G and 3200 Memory.

 

[LightningZ71]

Using scaling, you can play a lot of them at 1080p res with high settings on a 2500u laptop with DDR4-2400 memory, using native 720p, scaling and sharpening up to 1080p. The performance is quite good and so is the image quality. I expect that the experience on a 4300g with DDR-3200+ is markedly better, mainly for the much more capable CPU cores.

However, I doubt that we're going to be seeing north of $50-$100 (new) class GPU performance in an APU ever. iGPUs are, for the foreseeable future, always going to suffer from three things: Memory bandwidth limitations due to the VASTLY different needs of the attached CPU and market that it plays in, Thermal/Power limits that are significantly lower than a dGPU because it has to share with the CPU cores, and finally, limited die space as it makes no sense to make the CPU package massive by attaching an overkill gpu section that would just be starved for bandwidth all the time anyway. DDR5 (at its max JDEC spec) won't fix it all the way, but, it's going to deliver what is effectively the same bandwidth as the first gen XBox One had from its EDRAM cache (a touch over 100GB/sec) , which was faster than the main system RAM (68GB/sec, similar to the minimum DDR5 JDEC spec). That should give you something useful for most games at 1080p.

Since Cezanne won't be on a markedly better process (though it will have some improvements), and since it will continue to use VEGA for the iGPU, I don't expect Cezanne to be revolutionary with its performance. With CPU cores that have higher ipc, it's likely that they will need fewer Mhz to achieve the needed CPU core performance for games, meaning that there will be more thermal/power envelope left for the iGPU section, which should help. With a further improvement in the N7 node, its possible that the gpu can run even faster. I doubt that it's going to get any bigger. I doubt that DDR4 will get notably faster.

Like I said before, if you want the absolute best iGPU performance in a micro ITX case that has no PCIe slot, then the 4700 is the best you can do. It'll give you essentially just short of RX 560 performance in most games. If you can't afford that, there are lesser parts on the stack. IF you don't have to live in an ITX case, why are you complaining when you can get a 3100 and a used 560/570 for about the same money and have something that is MILES better for gaming?

 

[amd6502]

You can play lots of them at 1080p Medium/High settings with the Ryzen 3400G and 3200 Memory.

So stick with a 3400g or something like it rather than some very rare die salvage part like the 4300g. These are not mass produced parts. They are far more rare than 3300x (which at least have a large volume of chiplets backing it) which are always out of stock because they were underpriced and underproduced.

I now really think the 4300g should really stay strictly OEM only so that people don't have the expectation that it is a 3400g replacement.

 

[Shivansps]

AMD did always prioritize mobile over desktop in APUs, from Llano to Renoir, Renoir is not diferent than any of the older APUs in that aspect... The reason for that is desktop and mobile shares most of the APU necesities, the only diference is that desktop does not need to be super power effecient.

What is getting confused for mobile priority is the fact that AMD should not be releasing a Vega 6 SKU to desktop at $150 price point, when Picasso had Vega 11 at that price and it does perform faster in graphic heavy games and the $99 Vega 8 is really close to it. Thats a business decision that has nothing to do with notebooks.

And it does, from Tom's review the 4750G is 32% faster in the single threaded benchmarks and 28% faster in the dGPU benchmarks. Figure that the 4300G should be able to come close to that once you OC it.

yeah, well... at $150 vs $309 it better be faster in all fronts. But the fact still remains that you can actually buy a 3600+RX570 for that money, APUs stops to make sence for most uses after a certain price point, and thats one of them. Specially if you really dont need to be super power efficient like in a notebook.

If AMD really launches the 4300G at $150 it would be a $150 4/8 APU with lower perf than Zen 2 and similar IGP perf in several cases compared to the 2017 2400G in 2020/21, with Zen 3 CPUs around the corner and other, faster 4/8 CPUs already existing below $140...

Im sorry, but the 4300G is the generational upgrade to the 3200G, it has the CPU power below of current 4/8 Zen 2 CPUs, one of them priced at $99 and below the Intel 10100. In IGP it is a minimal upgrade compared to the $99 3200G, and is below in several cases to the $150 3400G. So why they attempt to price it at $150? because they can, and at that price you cant avoid to compare it to the 3400G and thats where is going to lose in some cases. And thats a clear break in the rule we always, as consumers used in new products: A new product most offer better performance than the older product it is replacing at that price point.

 

[Thunder 57]

yeah, well... at $150 vs $309 it better be faster in all fronts. But the fact still remains that you can actually buy a 3600+RX570 for that money, APUs stops to make sence for most uses after a certain price point, and thats one of them. Specially if you really dont need to be super power efficient like in a notebook.

OK, let's just forget the fact that you get four more CPU cores that are better than the ones in the 3400G. In MT that Renoir was a full 225% faster than the 3400G. I know you are focused on iGPU performance but there are other things to consider. If they had more fab capacity maybe we'd see a cheaper 4C, 8CU chip with high iGPU clocks. I have a feeling that with the next gen consoles around the corner they don't have much room for a SKU like that.

If AMD really launches the 4300G at $150 it would be a $150 4/8 APU with lower perf than Zen 2 and similar IGP perf in several cases compared to the 2017 2400G in 2020/21, with Zen 3 CPUs around the corner and other, faster 4/8 CPUs already existing below $140...

Lower performance than Zen 2, despite being Zen 2. I get it, you meant gaming performance. I don't expect a 4300G to be similar iGPU-wise to a 2400G. Zen 3 CPU's are near but Zen 3 APU's? If anything Cezanne looks to be a loser with 8 Vega (still!?) CU's. Other faster 4/8 CPU's, but will a crap iGPU.

Im sorry, but the 4300G is the generational upgrade to the 3200G, it has the CPU power below of current 4/8 Zen 2 CPUs, one of them priced at $99 and below the Intel 10100. In IGP it is a minimal upgrade compared to the $99 3200G, and is below in several cases to the $150 3400G. So why they attempt to price it at $150? because they can, and at that price you cant avoid to compare it to the 3400G and thats where is going to lose in some cases. And thats a clear break in the rule we always, as consumers used in new products: A new product most offer better performance than the older product it is replacing at that price point.

4300G has SMT whereas the 3200G doesn't. It's also Zen2 vs Zen+. That is a generational upgrade. Minimal upgrade to the iGPU vs the 3200G? Well, I haven't seen any trustworthy reviews, but I'll concede that.

That "new product" rule that you say isn't exactly true either. Sticking with AMD, they raised prices considerably with K7, K8, and dual core K8. They also raised the price a bit with the FX-8150 vs Thuban. That didn't go over well. And more recently they raised prices by far with Zen vs FX. This is AMD's best laptop chip ever and has gained them considerable market share. They are going to charge a premium for it.