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FEATURED Zen 4 APUs anyone?

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mackerel

mackerel

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Mar 7, 2008
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AMD Ryzen 5 8600G Zen4 desktop APU to feature 2.8 GHz Radeon 760M "RDNA3" graphics - VideoCardz.com

AMD Ryzen 5 8600G gets up to 600 MHz faster CPU and 900 MHz faster iGPU than Ryzen 5 5600G The launch of the new AM5 desktop APU series is expected this quarter. AMD Ryzen AM5 8000G desktop CPU (mockup), Credit: Expreview AMD is preparing to introduce its new desktop AM5 processors, a...
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Still got an itch for a new system to play with, especially one in DDR5 era, while I wait out next gen on both sides for a major upgrade. Wondering if Zen 4 APUs might offer that.

Of particular interest is the 8500G if this is correct. 2C+4c lets me play with AMD's hybrid approach, pair it with some DDR5 and a cheap mobo. iGPU probably not up for serious use but I have plenty of spare dGPUs. The question is at what cost? While it offers 6 cores in total, in silicon terms it takes up the quad core position so it will be very interesting to see how pricing goes there. Presuming the 8600G might be priced close to the 7600(X?) I'm hoping the 8500G will be much lower. Find a low end B650 board, and around 6000 ram to be safe?
 
I'm not convinced so far. I really liked 4000/5000 APUs, but mostly because of how they were overclocking, and RAM scaling was much better than on regular series. I don't think it will happen now, but I haven't seen any leaks if 8000 APUs have any better memory controllers or motherboards will actually run at more than 8000MT/s. Currently, most popular motherboards reach 8000 stable but don't even start at the next ratio or with bclk OC (like 8000 is stable, 8060 can't pass training).
Most RAM brands (officially) don't have anything above 6400 for AMD in their offer. Many don't even have anything above 6000. It suggests some possible issues, even though unofficially, we can set much higher clocks. 4-module setups (low or high capacity) are also very disappointing, so most users end with 2 modules or 2-module motherboards. Soon, we will see 64GB modules, so it's not bad, but if you go with 4 modules vs 2, then you will go down from 6000-8000 (depending on capacity and IC) to 3600-5200.
Remember that cheap motherboards = no bclk OC ... or maybe there is, but it won't work much above 102MHz.

I just see it as no RAM OC or anything additional, and it will be "fun" for one weekend. New mobile APUs and some weird motherboards like MinisForum can be more interesting. I see MinisForum is selling out before they release a new generation. They just finished the Christmas sale, and released at least two new products (discontinuing two older). So far, they have only BD770i with Ryzen 7745HX, but I bet they are working on the 8k series already. Just one tip. If you decide on anything from them, then better use their Amazon store as it's much faster with shipping, and you can always return it if you don't like it. People complain about their online store - delivery time, basic info about orders, and some more.

I somehow missed it before, but there is Universal x86 Tuning Utility, which works with desktop and mobile CPUs, so even if you have very limited BIOS, then you can unlock power limits and some other things. Ryzen Master and Intel XTU work with some of the highest mobile CPUs, too. You probably know that, but if you didn't, then you can play with the software, regardless of which way you pick.

The APU with C+c cores can be quite cheap, but everything around will cost a bit. Since current motherboards will support Ryzen 9000 CPUs, then I recommend something better than the cheapest motherboard, as you may lose full support in a couple of months.

It's my point of view and, of course, you don't have to agree with that.
 
not gonna lie, if it was not for left over parts and a free 13100F i have. i would be building a 8300G for a small case build.
 
My interests are not in memory OC. Consumer tier ram is nowhere near fast enough and OC doesn't make enough of a difference to be worth the pain to look for a stable long term setting for me. Will probably get the cheapest 6000 2x16GB kit and call it a day. Normally I'd prefer 2R ram but I can work around it for testing purposes with a 4 slot board, regardless of how slow it has to run.

If I got an AMD hybrid CPU, I can finally do two things:
1, get a precise measurement on the Zen 4 AVX-512 IPC relative to Rocket Lake and Skylake-X. My preliminary results from indirect data suggests it is somewhere in between, but I'd like to narrow it down more. I could widen this to AVX2 and general usage too.
1, look at the power scaling of C and c cores, along with their clock limits. I hope it is possible to totally disable all C or c cores at a given time, otherwise it would be more work but not impossible to do.

Maybe I mispoke on the mobo. I want low cost, not low end, although the two usually go together. My needs will be multiplier OC and not a lot more. Do I want BLCK OC? The last time I used that was for non-K OC on Skylake. If it could otherwise be done by multiplier it is easier.

Looking roughly, mATX B650 boards start above £100 or so, same again for the ram. The CPU I'm really hoping will be low enough tier it will be in a similar ball park. I'd probably skip it if it is £150+. For US people, pretend the £ is a $ and it is close enough for comparison purposes.
 
I was also counting on new/better graphics. It uses 740/760/780M, so about the same as 600 series (slightly faster but not so much), and exactly the same as 700 series we have in the last gen APUs (mobile but still).
Since low 7000 CPUs are cheaper now and prices still go down, then I expect that these APUs won't sell well and their prices will be reduced in the upcoming months. Either way, I bet you don't want to wait, not to mention these APUs are not in stores yet. 8600G seems much more interesting at the given price, but it has only C-cores, which kills one of the test ideas.
 
8000g-tablec2.png
I had to make this table to summarise some key numbers comparing it against similar Raphael models.

Key changes vs existing consumer AMD CPUs:
Move from RDNA2 to RDNA3
Move from TSMC 5nm to 4nm
Support for PCIe gen 4 only.
Smaller L3 cache
Top two models have the new AI NPU.
The lower two models don't say OC support on AMD's website.

I haven't seen yet how many PCIe lanes they support as this is an area they have cut in the past too. The smaller L3 cache and going back a generation on PCIe support was also a thing on past APUs.
Probably a typo on AMD's part, their web page for 8500G currently says it is single channel memory whereas everything else is dual.

Edit: table updated to fixed typo in clocks, add available user PCIe lanes.
 
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It seems that I saw somewhere that the next gen Phoenix point APU will have up to 40 GPU cores. That does interest me quite bit
 
dejo said:
It seems that I saw somewhere that the next gen Phoenix point APU will have up to 40 GPU cores. That does interest me quite bit
Click to expand...

I guess you mean Strix Point, as this is going to have some more changes, more CUs, etc. However, it's a mobile APU. Desktop APUs seem like 0.5 generations back. I mean still 700M series GPUs, but higher clocks and some other things. Still, mobile 8000 will be newer regarding integrated components (at least this is what all the leaks from the last months say).

I wonder how fast brands like Minisforums use 8000 APUs in their mini motherboards. Right now they have a pretty good price for their ITX mobos with 7745HX CPUs. I wonder how high these CPUs can be overclocked and if it even works on these mobos. The motherboard itself has PCIe 5.0 x16 and 2x M.2 PCIe 5.0, so it's already great, but the used APU has 610M graphics, so it's pretty slow. If I'm right, then in Feb, they will finally release a 16-core 7945HX version. I just noticed they added info in their German store. I am still waiting for the Intel mobo from them; it's been delayed by nearly a month. I wanted AMD, but the Intel version has 24 cores and in Dec, it cost not much more than the 8-core AMD.
 
Just saw the available user CPU PCIe lanes and updated the table in previous post. 16 on the upper two models, 10 on the lower. So many cutbacks in features but not on the price. The detailed specs on AMD's page do say it it supports EXPO, PBO, Curve Optimiser and Ryzen Master. It just misses the "unlocked for overclocking" line found on other CPUs. What even counts as overclocking on AMD these days? I wonder if this is just a marketing limitation or if there is some problem with allowing people to adjust C and c cores separately?
 
mackerel said:
Just saw the available user CPU PCIe lanes and updated the table in previous post. 16 on the upper two models, 10 on the lower. So many cutbacks in features but not on the price. The detailed specs on AMD's page do say it it supports EXPO, PBO, Curve Optimiser and Ryzen Master. It just misses the "unlocked for overclocking" line found on other CPUs. What even counts as overclocking on AMD these days? I wonder if this is just a marketing limitation or if there is some problem with allowing people to adjust C and c cores separately?
Click to expand...

On most motherboards, you can only adjust power limits and try to push cores to their maximum boost for longer. On motherboards with a separate bclk (higher-series only) you can use bclk.
If the CPU isn't marked as "unlocked for overclocking" then Ryzen Master won't work - it will show an unsupported CPU.
If curve settings work the same as in regular desktop Ryzens, then you can probably get something around 100-200MHz more on C-cores.
 
I'm interested in the new Apu's. I build performance PC's for other people but I am not a gamer and have no other need for a high powered graphics card.
Since my Pc is powered on, 12 -16 hours per day and having a high electric bill last year I like to run my Main Pc with an apu. A Ryzen 7 5700G at this time,
The only game I am interested in is MS Flight Simulators and an APU seems fine for that so far. I ran a Multi engine USAF flight Simulator many years ago so I am Interested.
Haven't tried the newer Flight Simulator programs yet but will be shortly...
 
mackerel said:
My interests are not in memory OC. Consumer tier ram is nowhere near fast enough and OC doesn't make enough of a difference to be worth the pain to look for a stable long term setting for me. Will probably get the cheapest 6000 2x16GB kit and call it a day. Normally I'd prefer 2R ram but I can work around it for testing purposes with a 4 slot board, regardless of how slow it has to run.

If I got an AMD hybrid CPU, I can finally do two things:
1, get a precise measurement on the Zen 4 AVX-512 IPC relative to Rocket Lake and Skylake-X. My preliminary results from indirect data suggests it is somewhere in between, but I'd like to narrow it down more. I could widen this to AVX2 and general usage too.
1, look at the power scaling of C and c cores, along with their clock limits. I hope it is possible to totally disable all C or c cores at a given time, otherwise it would be more work but not impossible to do.

Maybe I mispoke on the mobo. I want low cost, not low end, although the two usually go together. My needs will be multiplier OC and not a lot more. Do I want BLCK OC? The last time I used that was for non-K OC on Skylake. If it could otherwise be done by multiplier it is easier.

Looking roughly, mATX B650 boards start above £100 or so, same again for the ram. The CPU I'm really hoping will be low enough tier it will be in a similar ball park. I'd probably skip it if it is £150+. For US people, pretend the £ is a $ and it is close enough for comparison purposes.
Click to expand...
^ please keep us updated on this :) I would love to read your results :plus1::thup:
 
As mentioned earlier, I'm now unlikely to buy in this round. The price is higher than I expected for a much more cut down and limited offering. As such my next expected chance will be my desktop renewal which I'll wait and see what Arrow Lake or Zen 5 brings to the table to decide.
 
Did I read right....Phoenix 1 cpus, only 2x pcie 4.0 lanes for ssd and 4x 4.0 for gpu???

Edit: Pheonix 2 are the low end ones too? Confused.
 
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The same as in previous APUs ... one generation behind, everything PCIe 4.0 and fewer lanes. This is one of the reasons why at the listed prices, it doesn't seem a good idea, especially when every Ryzen has integrated graphics.
 
Woomack said:
The same as in previous APUs ... one generation behind, everything PCIe 4.0 and fewer lanes. This is one of the reasons why at the listed prices, it doesn't seem a good idea, especially when every Ryzen has integrated graphics.
Click to expand...
Right. I knew they were cut down, I just had no idea they were actually neutered.
 
I'm still curious if the memory clock can go any higher. RAM could OC much better in 4000/5000 series APUs, and a 1:1 ratio was supported at higher frequencies. So far, I can't see any changes in motherboard specs or QVLs, and there are no leaks on the web about it.
 
EarthDog said:
Did I read right....Phoenix 1 cpus, only 2x pcie 4.0 lanes for ssd and 4x 4.0 for gpu???

Edit: Pheonix 2 are the low end ones too? Confused.
Click to expand...
The upper two supposedly have 16 CPU lanes, presumably 8+4+4? The lower two have 10 lanes, maybe split 8+2. Maybe could be split further.

Woomack said:
The same as in previous APUs ... one generation behind, everything PCIe 4.0 and fewer lanes. This is one of the reasons why at the listed prices, it doesn't seem a good idea, especially when every Ryzen has integrated graphics.
Click to expand...
My 5800H has PCIe 3.0 x8 connection to my 3070 Laptop, and 3.0 x4 to NVMe SSD. Not idea but sufficient. I would have preferred an Intel CPU but those laptops cost a lot more at the time.

The iGPU in these should do a lot better overall than the existing desktop Zen 4 models. Even the lowest two have double the GPU cores, higher clock and a newer generation on top of that. If that is enough to make a difference will depend on the user.
 
I think the apu cpu's of Zen3 are limited to pcie 3x4 rather than pcie4x4.
 
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