AMD Ryzen 5 3400G + Vega 11 Review

AMD dished out a pretty impressive product launch with the 3rd generation Ryzen CPUs and the Radeon RX 5000 Series. Those are great and all, but their price tags aren’t anything to scoff at if you’re looking to just start out on PC gaming, or you don’t have the budget yet to dabble further in that art. Good thing to note, AMD also introduced its Ryzen 5 3400G APU to get you kickstarted into PC gaming. And yeah, it’s what we’re going to look at today.

AMD dished out a pretty impressive product launch with the 3^rd generation Ryzen CPUs and the Radeon RX 5000 Series. Those are great and all, but their price tags aren’t anything to scoff at if you’re looking to just start out on PC gaming, or you don’t have the budget yet to dabble further in that art. Good thing to note, AMD also introduced its Ryzen 5 3400G APU to get you kickstarted into PC gaming. And yeah, it’s what we’re going to look at today.

Ryzen 5 3400G Technical Specifications:

• Number of Cores: 4
• Number of Threads: 8
• Number of GPU Cores: 11
• Graphics Model: Radeon RX Vega 11 Graphics
• Graphics Frequency: 1400MHz
• Base Clock: 3.7GHz
• Max Boost Clock: Up to 4.2GHz
• Total L1 Cache: 384KB
• Total L2 Cache: 2MB
• Total L3 Cache: 4MB
• TDP: 65W

 

PERFORMANCE

TEST SYSTEM SETUP

Motherboard: GIGABYTE AB350M-DH3

CPU: AMD RYZEN 5 3400G

GPU: AMD Radeon Vega 11 Graphics

RAM: ZADAK 16GB DDR4 RAM 2400 MHz

Cooler: Noctua NH-U12A

Storage: Plextor M9e 512GB M.2 SSD + Seagate BarraCuda 4TB + 2TB Western Digital Green HDD

PSU: EVGA 500 BV, 80+ BRONZE 500W

Case: DEEPCOOL TESSERACT
OS: Windows 10 Pro N

CINEBENCH

MAXON's CINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that tests out a computer's performance capabilities. The Cinebench Release 20 features overall advancements to CPU and rendering technology in recent years for a more accurate measurement of Cinema 4D’s ability to take advantage of multiple CPU cores and modern processor features available to the average user.

3DMark Time Spy

3DMark Time Spy is a DirectX 12 benchmark test for Windows 10 gaming PCs. Time Spy is one of the first DirectX 12 apps to be built the right way from the ground up to fully realize the performance gains that the new API offers. With its Extreme counterpart rendering visuals in 4K.

3DMark Firestrike

Fire Strike is a showcase DirectX 11 benchmark for modern gaming PCs. Its ambitious real-time graphics are rendered with detail and complexity far beyond other DirectX 11 benchmarks and games. With Extreme and Ultra versions raising resolution in 25650 x 1440 and 4K.

Final Fantasy XV

Final Fantasy XV from Square Enix is one of the most graphically intensive games to date, offering rich details and beautiful visuals to boot. Our test run involves a run on the great wilderness from Hammerhead to the road ahead.

Settings:

Framerate: 120fps

Resolution: 100%

Preset: Highest

Assets: On

Model LOD: High

TRAM: Highest

Anisotropic Filtering: High

Geomapping: On

Lighting: High

Shadows: Highest

Ambient Occlusion: High

Anti-aliasing: TAA

Motion Blur: On

Filtering: Highest

NVIDIA Hairworks: Off

NVIDIA VXAO: Off

NVIDIA TurfEffects: Off

NVIDIA ShadowLibs: Off

The Witcher 3

The Witcher 3 despite its age is still one of the most demanding titles as it holds up graphically. Our test is done on Mulbrydale.

Settings:

VSync: Off

FPS: Unlimited

NVIDIA Hairworks: Off

Number of Background Characters: Ultra

Shadow Quality: Ultra

Terrain Quality: Ultra

Water Quality: Ultra

Grass Density: Ultra

Texture Quality: Ultra

Foliage Visibility Range: Ultra

Detail Level: Ultra

Ambient Occlusion: SSAO

Depth of Field: On

Chromatic Abberation: On

Vignetting: On

Light Shafts: On

Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers

The Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers official benchmark tool uses actual maps and playable characters to assign a score to your PC and rate its performance. A character creation tool is also included, allowing you to view a playable character as they will appear in-game.

Settings:

Graphics Settings: Maximum Preset

Real-time Reflections: Maximum

Anti-aliasing: FXAA

Transparent Lighting Quality: High

Grass Quality: High

Parallax Occlusion: High

Tessellation: High

Glare: Standard

Texture Filtering: Anisotropic x16

CONCLUSION

The Ryzen 5 3400G serves as a splendid entry point in PC gaming, and much more so with AMD’s AM4 platform as it opens you up to a sweet product roadmap without the lockout from future products for a couple of years more. Going back to the Ryzen 5 3400G, it easily offers amazing value for your money compared to the competition with its integrated graphics. AMD also throws in 3 months of Xbox Game Pass to drive up its value further.

As we’re seeing here, the Ryzen 5 3400G can be had for the sweet price of Php7,795 and the Ryzen 3 3200G for Php5,295. That’s a Php2,500 difference. While the Ryzen 3 3200G can still offer great value for your money, you’ll be missing out on multithreading and higher clock speeds.

This will also open you up to some small form factor build projects and mini-ITX builds that will require some GPU muscle. You’ll get plenty of creative options without missing out big time on gaming performance.