Summary: AMD’s new low-end Ryzen 8000 CPUs with integrated graphics, specifically the Phoenix 1 processors, are facing limitations that will impact gaming performance. The APUs will be unable to run PCIe 4.0 SSDs at their full potential speed and will also experience slower gaming performance when using a separate graphics card.
Gigabyte, a motherboard maker, has provided some insight into these limitations. According to Gigabyte’s specifications for the B650E Aorus Elite X AX Ice motherboard, Phoenix 1 processors support PCIe 4.0 x4/x2 SSDs, while Phoenix 2 processors only support PCIe 4.0 x2 SSDs.
The Ryzen 5 8500G and Ryzen 3 8300G, both of which are lower-end Phoenix 1 CPUs with integrated Radeon graphics, will only have ten usable PCIe 4.0 lanes compared to the sixteen available on the Ryzen 7 8700G. This will significantly impact the speed of components attached to the motherboard.
As a result of limited PCIe lanes, the lower-end APUs can only support a PCIe 4.0 SSD with two lanes, halving the available bandwidth. This means the top speed of the SSD will be capped at approximately 4GB/s, whereas high-performance PCIe 4.0 SSDs can read up to 7,450MB/s.
Furthermore, the Ryzen 5 8500G and Ryzen 3 8300G can only accommodate a graphics card with four PCIe 4.0 lanes, providing only a quarter of the bandwidth compared to a standard 16x PCIe 4.0 slot. While this may not affect low-end GPUs, it will certainly impact the performance of high-end GPUs like the GeForce RTX 4090.
The Ryzen 5 8500G specification also indicates support for only a single memory channel, resulting in reduced memory bandwidth, particularly affecting gaming performance when using the integrated graphics.
It’s worth noting that the Ryzen 5 8600G and Ryzen 7 8700G have a different core setup, utilizing the Zen 4 architecture. However, the Ryzen 5 8500G consists of two Zen 4 cores and four Zen 4c cores, and the Ryzen 3 8300G has a single full Zen 4 core alongside three Zen 4c cores. The use of Zen 4c cores, which have lower clock speeds and less cache, leads to a decrease in available PCIe lanes.
Considering these limitations, it is important for gamers to assess their requirements and choose AMD CPUs accordingly. For those looking to upgrade their gaming experience, comprehensive buying guides for SSDs and graphics cards are available to assist with making informed decisions.
The source of the article is from the blog kewauneecomet.com