The $359 Ryzen 7 5700G APU is an interesting prospect – essentially an AMD Renoir laptop processor given more power and thermal headroom in its new guise as a desktop CPU. It costs a hair less than the entry-level Ryzen 5 5600X desktop processor and also adds integrated graphics support, so how does it compare in games to other AMD and Intel desktop CPUs once a discrete GPU is in play? And how good are its integrated graphics anyway? Those are the questions we aim to answer in the Digital Foundry review of AMD’s top APU.
So what is an APU anyway? This stands for Accelerated Processing Unit, and basically means you get both a CPU and a GPU in a single package. The advantage of this is that you can run your computer and even play games without a dedicated graphics card, a useful capability when graphics cards are in short supply and prices have skyrocketed.
The CPU here is a Zen 3 design, but more in line with the Ryzen 5000 line of processors, codenamed Renoir. That means two key Ryzen 5000 desktop CPU features, PCIe 4.0 support and double-size L3 cache (what AMD calls Game Cache), aren’t included. However, this isn’t too surprising given that AMD needed to find space for eight Zen 3 CPU cores and an 8CU RX Vega graphics engine within the same physical constraints as AMD’s regular Ryzen 5000 CPUs.
As you might expect, the Ryzen 7 5700G uses the same AM4 socket design as past Ryzen processors so it works on a wide range of motherboards made over the last half-decade; just make sure the one you choose comes with HDMI and/or DisplayPort outputs so you can actually connect your monitor. If you don’t have another AM4 CPU to hand, you may also want to choose a model with a ‘USB BIOS Flashback’ feature, which allows you to update the BIOS via a USB drive without a CPU installed; AMD’s support page has more information.