AMD Ryzen 5000 G-Series APU Review: The AMD Ryzen 7 5700G, Ryzen 5 5600G & Ryzen 3 5300G Benchmarked

 

On this very page, we will benchmark the AMD Ryzen 3 5300G, Ryzen 5 5600G, and Ryzen 7 5700G and review them all to see if they’re worth your money. These much-awaited AMD Ryzen APUs combine the CPU power of the Zen 3 Ryzen 5000-series with integrated Vega graphics – providing an alternative for those looking to do some gaming who are struggling to pick up a graphics card in these uncertain days of GPU shortages.

One of AMD’s main intentions when marketing these APUs is that they can be used as a stop-gap solution for people who are intending to buy a separate, dedicated graphics card when they become more available, and would like something that they can play games on the lower settings with in the meantime, which they can later use purely as a CPU. We will be assessing each APU with this in mind in our benchmarks and letting you know whether or not they tick these boxes.

Read below to find out more!

Where Do The 5300G, 5600G And 5700G Rank In The Zen 3 Ryzen Range?

Previous generations of AMD Ryzen CPUs were aimed at the mid-range market, which is where they could often outperform Intel’s offerings in the same price range. With 2020’s Zen 3 however, AMD targeted their range squarely at the big league of performance gaming CPUs. Whilst this competition was welcome, it has meant that until now we have seen fewer Zen 3 offerings at the lowest end of the price scale.

The 5300G, 5600G and 5700G APUs are intended to plug some gaps in the CPU range, where, in previous generations, the ‘non-X’ SKUs would be found, so the Ryzen 3 5300G comes in right at the entry-level with an MSRP of $150, the Ryzen 5 5600G (MSRP $259) comes in just below the Ryzen 5 5600X (MSRP $279) in power and price (essentially taking the place of a 5600) and the Ryzen 7 5700G (MSRP $359) should come somewhere between the Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 7 5800X (MSRP $449), taking the place of the non-existent 5700.

As you can see in the below comparison table, the 5600G has the same number of cores and threads (6/12) as the 5600X and the same TDP (65W), but has half of the L3 cache (16MB instead of 32MB) and a 0.2GHz slower Boost Clock Speed, though obviously it has the advantage of coming with RX Vega 7 integrated graphics. Similarly the 5700G APU has the same number of cores and threads as the Ryzen 7 5800X (8/16) but a lower TDP of 65W compared to the 105W of the 5800X and a 0.1GHz slower boost clock frequency. The L3 cache of the more powerful 5700G APU is still only 16MB compared to the higher 32MB of the cheaper 5600X CPU – we will see how this affects workstation performance in our benchmarks below.

The 5300G, 5600G and 5700G come with all the benefits of the Zen 3 CPU architecture compared to the older Zen 2 Ryzen 5 3400G and Ryzen 3 3200G APUs – as a consequence, the performance of both is substantially improved over the older generations in CPU heavy tasks as we will see. It is a different story for graphics performance however.

5300G, 5600G And 5700G Specifications Comparison

How Good Are Vega Graphics In The 5300G, 5600G And 5700G?

Disappointingly, whilst the CPU technology within these APUs has been updated, the integrated graphics remains the same basic technology as used by the Ryzen 5 3400G and Ryzen 3 3200G, although the ‘enhanced’ RX Vega technology has been further optimized to make it more power-efficient than these older generation APUs.

You will notice that the 5600G only comes with 7 cores of RX Vega graphics (i.e. RX Vega 7), and even the more expensive Ryzen 7 5700G only comes with 8 cores, which is substantially less than the 11 cores of the Ryzen 5 3400G with RX Vega 11 integrated graphics. However, the aforementioned efficiency increases have compensated for this reduced number of cores, so the graphical performance of the new 7 core Vega is roughly equivalent to the 11 cores of the 3400G, as we will see in the benchmarking below. Still, it is disappointing that we haven’t seen new Vega graphics incorporating the RDNA 2 technology that is in the standalone RX 6000 graphics cards first released back in 2020.

Which Is Best? AMD Vega Vs Intel UHD Graphics

Intel’s integrated graphics come in two flavors: the older UHD graphics that are attached to desktop processors, and the newer Iris Xe which come with Intel’s 11th gen Tiger lake mobile CPUs (i.e. those within laptops).

In any graphics-heavy task, the AMD Vega 8 and Vega 11 graphics of even the older generation of 3200G and 3400G APUs both comfortably beat the best of the UHD range, the UHD Graphics 750, even when the latter is overclocked. Intel’s Iris Xe has more recently brought in better performance to the laptop space, providing a strong challenge to AMD, but we will save analysis of that for another time – here we are just focusing on desktop APUs.

In a desktop APU then, at the time of writing, there is no integrated graphics Intel produces which can compete with AMD Vega. The only comparable alternative for Intel users is to go with an Intel CPU and separate, dedicated graphics for around the same price. In our benchmarks below, we have attempted to compare the performance of the new 5600G and 5700G against the best pairings of Intel CPUs and dedicated Nvidia graphics for the same price to give you an idea of how they measure up.

AMD Ryzen 5 5600G Review

We put the new AMD Ryzen 5 5600G through its paces in various benchmarking scenarios. The first was to test the abilities of the APU as a full package – seeing its FPS performance in games when it was relying on both the CPU and its own integrated graphics. The second benchmark tested the performance of the CPU only when it was paired with an RTX 3090, compared to the 5600X paired with the same graphics card. Finally, we tested the 5600G on its own in a variety of workstation tasks compared to other APUs.

AMD Ryzen 5 5600G Game Benchmarks - Integrated Graphics

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As you can see in the graphs above, the 5600G performed more or less in line with the older 3400G in most games, pulling ahead significantly only in CS:GO, and even showing slight underperformance in our Rainbow Six Siege test.

This is ultimately a testament to the aforementioned fact that the RX Vega 7 graphics of the 5600G are old technology, even with the improved efficiencies, and that the cores are limited to 7. As games obviously heavily rely on the integrated graphics of the APU over the CPU, a substantial bottleneck is occurring as a result of the Vega graphics. CS:GO is fairly CPU intensive compared to the other games on this list, so it’s no coincidence that this is the only area of outperformance, as the newer Zen 3 CPU tech can come into play.

Although we do not have the benchmark graphs to show you just yet, we can confirm that the 5600G’s performance using integrated graphics is roughly comparable to that of a dedicated GeForce GT 1030 GPU paired with an Intel Core i3 10100F CPU – which you should be able to pick up for roughly the same price. As we will see below the performance of the Intel Core i3 10100F CPU in CPU heavy tasks like many workstation processes however is substantially inferior to the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G – so you’d be better off going with the AMD APU for this reason, not to mention the benefits of improved compatibility with the latest drivers.

AMD Ryzen 5 5600G Game Benchmarks - Dedicated Graphics

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As expected, the 5600G performed behind the 5600X when just used as a CPU paired with an RTX 3090. This was particularly apparent in the more CPU leaning games such as CS:GO, where the standalone 5600X CPU ranged between 18%-43% the superior choice in terms of average FPS performance (the difference increasing as the graphical settings were turned up) and also Rainbow Six Siege, where the difference ranged between 41%-52% (conversely. showing a bigger improvement on the lower graphical presets).

Outriders, a more GPU-focused game, showed smaller differences, though the 5600X was still the better performer, showing between 18%-26% uplift in FPS. Control proved to be a mix bag, with the 5600G actually outperforming the 5600X in terms of frame drops in the 0.1% and 1% levels, though the average FPS of the 5600X was still significantly ahead.

 

AMD Ryzen 5 5600G Workstation Benchmarks

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As you can see in the synthetic benchmarks above, the 5600G absolutely demolishes the best of the preceding generation of AMD APUs, the 3400G, when it comes to workstation tasks, pulling ahead by 52% in the Single Core Cinebench r23 test and 117% in the Multi Core test.

The graphics Score of the Timespy Extreme 4K benchmark, which showed only a 6% uplift from the newer 5600G APU, shows the limitations imposed by the older Vega graphics technology, whereas the CPU score, which was 104% higher, shows the improvements made in the Zen 3 CPU technology.

Other, cheaper APUs of the older generation obviously performed to an inferior standard compared to the 3400G, and were comfortably beaten by the 5600G.

AMD Ryzen 5 5700G Review

We have yet to get our hands on the AMD Ryzen 5 5700G to test it, but we expect to have one to thoroughly benchmark in the next week so watch this space!

AMD Ryzen 5 5300G Review

WePC has not currently had a chance to test the AMD Ryzen 3 5300G, but as soon as we do we will be listing the results on this page and giving you a thorough review!

Final Word

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600G APU

Based on our tests, the 5600G is a potential option for those looking for a stop-gap APU that will enable them to play less demanding games, or at least more demanding games on the lower settings, until they get their hands on a more powerful dedicated graphics card.

We are disappointed that AMD did not further upgrade their Vega graphics technology with RDNA 2 architecture in these chips, as this would likely have increased gaming performance substantially. As it is, gaming performance is no better than that of the 3400G, on the games we tested at least, with CS:GO being the exception, however non-gaming workstation tasks are massively improved in the new 5600G, thanks to improvements in the CPU architecture.

Consumers do need to bear in mind that the performance drop in games between the 5600X (the next highest SKU, which is just a standalone CPU with no integrated graphics) and the 5600G is fairly large when both are performing solely as CPUs with additional graphics cards. For an additional $20 we’d definitely recommend the 5600X over the 5600G as a CPU, however if you really value the flexibility the integrated graphics gives you then the 5600G is probably worth it. Check out our Where To Buy the AMD Ryzen 5600G page to get one now!