AMD Touts Raven Ridge APU Graphics Superiority Over Intel

AMD Raven Ridge APU Combines Zen and Vega

Over a decade ago, AMD and ATI merged the CPU and GPU pioneers of the day. In 2011, the first joint product, the Llano APU launched, combining the best of both worlds. Unfortunately, AMD’s APUs got held back by poor CPU performance. However, with AMD releasing Zen, the CPU side of the equation is more balanced. The newest APU iteration, Raven Ridge, promises both strong CPU and GPU performance. Prior to the official launch, AMD is showing off the gaming chops for their upcoming chips.

The headliner is the new Ryzen 5 2400G APU. The chip combines 4 Zen cores with 8 threads with 11 Vega NCUs for 704 stream processors. Despite its shortcoming against Nvidia, Vega is potent enough that Intel is using it as well for their high-end iGPUs. The 2400G has plenty of bandwidth due to a DRR4-2933 IMC connected via Infinity Fabric. AMD is highlighting the golden standard of fluid 1080p gaming. It looks like with Raven Ridge, AMD may finally reach this goal.

AMD PUs Moves From CPU Limit to GPU Limit

Compared to the similarly priced i5 8400, AMD does quite well. In most of the tested titles, the 2400G stays around the 50 fps mark which is very playable. In contrast, Intel is only able to breach 30 FPS in Skyrim. For the same title, AMD manages to put out well over 90 FPS. The Skyrim results are particularly interesting given the CPU requirements for the title. With Zen CPUs, AMD is able to unleash the full potential of the Vega iGPU. This moves the AMD APUs from CPU limited to GPU limited in most cases.

Since the GPU limited scenario is more likely, some interesting options open up. Moving to a lower resolution such as 900p or 720p would allower higher framerates for competitive play. DX12 Explicit Multi-Adapter is also an interesting option for graphics upgrade eventually. Overall, it looks like AMD has reached its goal of a balanced APU. AMD may also find itself in a reversal of its historical dilemma as the iGPU is now the side that needs more work.