There's a new batch of AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs on the way
The Ryzen 5000 G-series will only be available in pre-built PCs, though
AMD have announced six new additions to their family of Ryzen 5000 CPUs today, including their first pair of budget-focused Ryzen 3 chips. Based on the same Zen 3 architecture and 7nm manufacturing process as their existing Ryzen 5000 CPUs, the Ryzen 5000 G-Series will also come with integrated Radeon graphics chips capable of delivering "smooth 1080p gaming" without the need for a dedicated graphics card. However, if you were hoping to bag yourself one to tide you over until GPU prices start getting back to normal, you may be disappointed, as they're only going to be available in pre-built OEM systems at launch.
That's good news if you're looking to buy a whole new PC while we wait for the great graphics card shortage to calm down a bit, but less so for those of you who just want to get a new processor. Still, for new pre-build buyers out there, there's certainly going to be plenty of choice available, as there will be two Ryzen 7 5000 G-series APUs, two Ryzen 5s and two of the aforementioned Ryzen 3 chips to pick from over the next couple of weeks. Have a glance at the table below to see how they stack up to their other Ryzen 5000 counterparts.
| Cores / Threads | Base / Boost Clock Speed | PCIe Version | Graphics Core Count | Graphics Frequency | TDP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryzen 9 5950X | 16 / 32 | 3.4GHz / 4.9GHz | 4.0 | - | - | 105W |
| Ryzen 9 5900X | 12 / 24 | 3.7GHz / 4.8GHz | 4.0 | - | - | 105W |
| Ryzen 7 5800X | 8 / 16 | 3.8GHz / 4.7GHz | 4.0 | - | - | 105W |
| Ryzen 7 5700G | 8 / 16 | 3.8GHz / 4.6GHz | 3.0 | 8 | 2000MHz | 65W |
| Ryzen 7 5700GE | 8 / 16 | 3.2GHz / 4.6GHz | 3.0 | 8 | 2000MHz | 35W |
| Ryzen 5 5600X | 6 / 12 | 3.7GHz / 4.6GHz | 4.0 | - | - | 65W |
| Ryzen 5 5600G | 6 / 12 | 3.9GHz / 4.4GHz | 3.0 | 7 | 1900MHz | 65W |
| Ryzen 5 5600GE | 6 / 12 | 3.4GHz / 4.4GHz | 3.0 | 7 | 1900MHz | 35W |
| Ryzen 3 5300G | 4 / 8 | 4.0GHz / 4.2GHz | 3.0 | 6 | 1700MHz | 65W |
| Ryzen 3 5300GE | 4 / 8 | 3.6GHz / 4.2GHz | 3.0 | 6 | 1700MHz | 35W |
Admittedly, AMD haven't provided any internal benchmark figures to give us an idea of what "smoooth 1080p gaming" actually means in real terms at time of writing. It could mean anything from 30fps on Low quality settings in big, 3D blockbuster games, for example, or it could even be 60fps on higher quality presets in less demanding 2D indie titles. They will, however, deliver a "generational leap" in performance over AMD's previous Ryzen desktop processors with Radeon graphics, their Ryzen 4000 G-series, according to AMD - although that too is equally vague without any concrete figures to back it up.
AMD also claim that each G-Series chip will have the "world's fastest graphics in a desktop processor", but a closer look at their website's small print shows that so far they've only compared them against Intel's 10th Gen Comet Lake CPUs (the Core i7-10700, Core i5-10600 and Core i3-10300) rather than their latest 11th Gen Rocket Lake chips. As such, it's possible that Intel's newer 11th Gen chips may still have the edge on AMD's new Ryzen 5000 G-Series, but I'll have to wait until I'm able to run some tests of my own before I'm able to compare them properly.
One important thing to note is that each Ryzen 5000 G-Series chip only supports the PCIe 3.0 standard, rather than the faster PCIe 4.0 standard like their X-Series siblings. While hardly the end of the world (they'll still work with AMD's existing PCIe 4.0-compatible motherboards, after all), it does mean they won't be quite as future-proof as the rest of AMD's Ryzen 5000 CPUs, nor will they be able to take advantage of the extra speed and bandwidth afforded by PCIe 4.0.
Still, given the current difficulty in actually getting hold of AMD's best gaming CPUs right now, these Ryzen 5000 G-Series chips could well be worth a look if you don't mind making a few compromises for the sake of pre-built convenience.