I agree with the conclusion, it is an impressive bit of kit, but really only belongs in ultra small, compact cases and setups.
If you want to play games and you physically cannot get a GPU to fit, this is the best you can get right now.

The lack of PCIe is a major issue. If you want to start with a budget build and upgrade the CPU later, as I hear TONS of people say with AMD and how great its upgrades are, this thing will kneecap whatever GPU you put in that system later to upgrade. That would make a CPU upgrade a requirement alongside the GPU upgrade, completely missing the point of "budget".

Intel is doing a lot better in that arena. Even lowly Celerons manage better then this, those had 1x16 for the GPU and another 4 for NVMe. And those were $50!

As an APU, these are pretty decent, but only for older software. It struggles too much with modern titles. That 1080p dream I keep hearing about from APU fans is still as much vaporware today as it was 10 years ago.

Burty117 said:

I agree with the conclusion, it is an impressive bit of kit, but really only belongs in ultra small, compact cases and setups.
If you want to play games and you physically cannot get a GPU to fit, this is the best you can get right now.

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I think they're going the wrong direction with this thing. They should sacrifice 2 cores and add more CUs. AMD has been making some interesting products but I think the bean counters are trying to hard to not interfere with other product segments to make a compelling product.

I bet there are LP, or single slot low end gpus that could render this thing useless even for super-micro-mini PC.

The interesting thing is that most mini-pcs nowadays are not actually waiting for this processor: most of them are actually just putting laptop APUs into a tiny, nuc-style case and call it a day so if you search for say, '7840u' or '7840h' for example you'd find many mini pcs using these chips instead.

So for like a side note/editor's note in the future, I'd be nice if you put at least 1 or 2 graphics comparing performance between the 8700G and the 7840h for example because as you correctly pointed out, pretty much the only viable use case is mini-pcs and other space and/or power constrain scenarios but those are being taken over by non-desktop chips now in a significant way and I don't think the 8700g comes out on top as highly vs other APUs that are actually in it's class regarding performance once power is taken out of the equation and actually are better for power efficiency for the most likely scenario: something AMD should really focus and just repackage laptop chips as no-power-limit, embedded solution chips instead of these 'I guess you can DIY an mitx system with these even tho why would you?' type of chip.

This is all about the next xbox apu, this chip is not great as noted by the author .. but the tech will be refined and paired off with a new memory controller capable of pushing 1TB/s where it will make more sense.

This is just selling the silicon in more than one place to reduce R&D costs for the next xbone/ps#

At $150 it might make sense. At $330 it does not.

Ah, here we go again. Best integrated graphics there is but because "it doesn't make sense because it's niche product, it sucks" -review is here again. I make some examples how certain products also suck.

RTX4090: Given price, it doesn't really make sense to so much for GPU that isn't That much faster. Only for those who need RT performance. Niche product that sucks.

Threadripper PRO 7995WX: 96 cores are useless for gaming, better buy something with fewer cores. Very niche product, it sucks.

Ryzen 9 7950X3D: You get similar or better gaming performance with 7800X3D for much lower price. Nobody needs it outside niche, it just sucks.

Ryzen 7 7800X3D: It requires expensive AM5-platform, better to go with more affordable AM4-platform. Also since DDR4 is much more widely available right now, that's niche product and it sucks.

-

How about reviewing something that is NOT niche in some way, Techspot?

Too many compromises to make it a good entry point onto the AM5 platform for the price and too little GPU performance to make it a viable option when there are plenty of paths to better performance for around the same price. Perhaps with some nice discounts there will be a life for this process later this year, but at $330 it's DOA.

Core i3 12100F + 6500XT is better for gaming

Low end GPU still matter... If you are poor and want to play games, then it is better to buy budget GPU + budget CPU than high-end APU

llamapanda said:

Quite a few instances of "7900XTX" left over from the source article used as a template in the "i3+6600" sections.

Good comparison review overall. Certainly makes it a hard sell for gamers. Might be a different story for the truly casual players of web-based candycrushers that can leverage the RDNA element while the real CPU grunt is dealing with the work they're supposed to be doing in other windows?

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The igpu of a regular Ryzen 7000 would handle that just fine right?

Can’t wait for our resident 6500XT defenders to defend their glorious “people’s champion” when, more often than not, it barely tied or literally lost to an iGPU only one generation newer.

opckieran said:

Can’t wait for our resident 6500XT defenders to defend their glorious “people’s champion” when, more often than not, it barely tied or literally lost to an iGPU only one generation newer.

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Did you even look at benchmarks ??!

Core i3 + 6500XT performed better in most games, and some games show huge gap (like 6500XT is 55% faster in Baldur gate 3 and over 100% faster in counter Strike 2)

Nobody defending 6500XT.... 6500XT is even worse than 1650 Super in most games, and 1650 Super is very old GPU now... Modern best APU still perform worse than these lower end dGPU

HardReset said:

Ah, here we go again. Best integrated graphics there is but because "it doesn't make sense because it's niche product, it sucks" -review is here again. I make some examples how certain products also suck.

RTX4090: Given price, it doesn't really make sense to so much for GPU that isn't That much faster. Only for those who need RT performance. Niche product that sucks.

Threadripper PRO 7995WX: 96 cores are useless for gaming, better buy something with fewer cores. Very niche product, it sucks.

Ryzen 9 7950X3D: You get similar or better gaming performance with 7800X3D for much lower price. Nobody needs it outside niche, it just sucks.

Ryzen 7 7800X3D: It requires expensive AM5-platform, better to go with more affordable AM4-platform. Also since DDR4 is much more widely available right now, that's niche product and it sucks.

-

How about reviewing something that is NOT niche in some way, Techspot?

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Why dont you buy them some normie hardware to bench, that passes your sniffer test?

A tech site for enthusiasts is going to review enthusiast tech. There are plenty of mroe mainstream GPUs reviewed to. And this is a mainstream chip. So WTF are you whining about?

Don't recommend or test quad-core CPUs, they stink. You should at least use the 5600 as an example.

I think the price will drop , will collect the cream with small box builders for a media centre and old school, retro and casual gamer , plus casual PC user ( probably most PC users , some productivity , doom scrolling and casual games )

I sure paired with the right software , and filters etc you could out put a pretty good 4K upscaled picture to a dumber TV .
Add in an external DAC to amp/receiver

A lot of peoples laptops do not even leave home , so would make an for an uncluttered desk , put BT mouse and keyboard in drawer , hey presto , desk is free, even better as OLED monitors 32" can double as a TV , one small nuc all you need or can add one small roku/firestick/apple as instant on as pretty cheap

People here probably underestimate non-AAA game PC buyer market

Look at Steam Deck - that did well , but we see no comparison in review to that

kiwigraeme said:

I think the price will drop , will collect the cream with small box builders for a media centre and old school, retro and casual gamer , plus casual PC user ( probably most PC users , some productivity , doom scrolling and casual games )

I sure paired with the right software , and filters etc you could out put a pretty good 4K upscaled picture to a dumber TV .
Add in an external DAC to amp/receiver

A lot of peoples laptops do not even leave home , so would make an for an uncluttered desk , put BT mouse and keyboard in drawer , hey presto , desk is free, even better as OLED monitors 32" can double as a TV , one small nuc all you need or can add one small roku/firestick/apple as instant on as pretty cheap

People here probably underestimate non-AAA game PC buyer market

Look at Steam Deck - that did well , but we see no comparison in review to that

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this. I stopped gaming this year and may pick it back up in a couple of years, but I'm making my way through some old games, like Witcher 2 and 3, AC Valhalla being the newest AAA game. I want to get rid of my monster tower furnace PC and replace it with something small and physically attractive that can fit on my desk nicely. I just need enough compute and pep for .NET development and the occasional YouTube video edit I'm a happy camper.

Only uses for this on desktop are for HTPC/streaming or for Linux IMO. People used to buy the APU's for desktop becuase they were great OC'ers and cost less than the desktop parts and could OC much higher and bridge the performance gap. That's no longer the case. I'd rather a mini PC with 8840HS for my HTPC anyway.

Theinsanegamer said:

Why dont you buy them some normie hardware to bench, that passes your sniffer test?

A tech site for enthusiasts is going to review enthusiast tech. There are plenty of mroe mainstream GPUs reviewed to. And this is a mainstream chip. So WTF are you whining about?

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What I'm whining about? Techspot takes best iGPU there is. But then says it sucks because there are better discrete GPUs available. So what Techspot is saying is that discrete GPU is cheaper and faster than integrated one. Breaking news indeed.

For some strange reason Intel, Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, ARM, AMD etc etc are developing FASTER iGPUs all the time. Why they don't instead stick with slow iGPUs and use discrete with it? Are all those companies just stupid?

Just being "niche" doesn't make product bad.

It is interesting that it finally is an APU that completely invalidates all 75w discrete GPUs. 1650S and 6500XT both require a 6-pin power connector.

Edit: Though it would be interesting to see an A380, 6400xt and 1650ti stack up against it.

If the price is right then this CPU can be used for casual and low power gaming..

What's the point at that price??? I'd say 200 at most.