AMD: Dual-channel DDR5-6000 memory is ideal for the Ryzen 8000G AM5 desktop APU
The AMD Ryzen 8000G Hawk Point AM5 desktop APU was officially unveiled at this year's CES, and it actually represents a combination of Zen 4 CPU and RDNA 3 GPU cores. These are the types of chips that also come equipped with the latest Ryzen AI XDNA NPUs and are aimed at a mainstream audience that would probably play lighter or AAA games, but without the need to upgrade to new graphics solutions, thus saving the cost of building a PC. The company says dual-channel DDR5-6000 memory is ideal for its new Ryzen 8000G, which will benefit greatly from AM5 PC builds.
With memory prices dropping, PC builders can find decent 32GB dual-channel DDR5-6000 memory for under a hundred bucks. Various vendors offer options in the $70-$90 range, plus AM5 motherboards like the B650 series start at $119, so that's a $200 upgrade path plus what you'll pay for the APU of your choice. The Ryzen 5 8500G starts at $179, and the Ryzen 5 8600G with NPU starts at $229.
Assuming most gamers won't require an NPU or find it useful, the 8500G is a very competitive 6-core product, even though it lacks the 8600G and 8700G's NPU units.
But having an AM5 platform will have two benefits, firstly, durability, and secondly that AMD has confirmed its commitment to the platform for the next few years, so you will get at least two more future generations of Ryzen CPUs for this platform. Also, these APUs contain Zen 4 cores that can easily be paired with a discrete but high-quality Radeon graphics card such as the Radeon RX 7900 XTX. So they can provide excellent performance without worrying about CPU limitations in games.
AMD“So when you have an integrated GPU, you're completely reliant on the memory subsystem on the platform, that means your system RAM will also be powering your graphics card, so two things are really important there“, explains Doni Voligroski, technical marketing manager at AMD in an interview with PCWorld.
The first thing there is dual-channel RAM, you absolutely have to have it, because it provides a huge advantage in bandwidth, he points out, adding that dual-channel DDR5-6000 memory is now quite cheap. That way, you're going to get great frame rates and really playable performance, and that's definitely something AMD will be pushing people towards, Voligroski says.
In addition to memory support, he also points out power scaling and says the company is seeing much better performance compared to laptop or tablet APUs. This is because the Ryzen 8000G AM5 Desktop APUs use more than 65 watts of power, and the power scaling is fairly linear. Also, the thermal advantage on desktop PCs is also something that leads to better performance.
AMD Ryzen 8000G AM5 Desktop APUs will be officially launched on January 31st, so for all of you who have been waiting for a new APU on the latest AMD platform, it seems that this is the right time to upgrade your device.