Thursday, January 18th 2024

AMD Ryzen 8000G APU Memory Sweet Spot is DDR5-6000

During CES, PCWorld had a chat with Donny Woligroski, Technical Marketing Manager at AMD. The new Ryzen 8000G APUs were a large part of what covered in the almost 17 minute long video and PCWorld got some details that weren't covered in the official press materials that AMD released at the launch. The officially supported memory speed listed by AMD is DDR5-5600, which is a step up from the official speed of DDR5-5200 for the Ryzen 7000-series CPUs.

However, we know that the Ryzen 7000-series is more than happy to use faster memory and as before, AMD has an unofficial memory sweet spot and just as with the Ryzen 7000-series, the Ryzen 8000G-series of APUs has a memory sweet spot of DDR5-6000. That said, it's unknown if the Ryzen 8000G-series will support faster memory or will start flaking out above DDR5-6000, like many Ryzen 7000-series CPUs do unless you switch to a 1:2 ratio. Woligroski is also pointing out that dual-channel is a must to get the best performance out of the new APUs, although this shouldn't really surprise anyone. Full video after the break.
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30 Comments on AMD Ryzen 8000G APU Memory Sweet Spot is DDR5-6000

#1
Onasi
JAB CreationsAMD needs to fire their entire marketing department. Criminal "marketing" is the domain of Intel and Nvidia. Zen 4 are 7000 series, not 8000.
They’ve been doing this for a while where the APUs and some mobile models leapfrog the desktop SKUs in numbering. Not sure why they are doing that, but I guess the Zen 5 desktop parts will be Ryzen 9000 series now.
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#2
JAB Creations
OnasiThey’ve been doing this for a while where the APUs and some mobile models leapfrog the desktop SKUs in numbering. Not sure why they are doing that, but I guess the Zen 5 desktop parts will be Ryzen 9000 series now.
Doing better with a lower number screams quality. Doing worse with higher numbers screams incompetence. I've heard that there are fake "marketing" people who blindly demand "bigger numbers = moar sales durr durr durrrrrrrr". That is the problem with the world in general, marxist slaver pigs want the incompetent to be loud and drown out competent/methodical people so the incompetent are the voices most people hear and therefore end up making decisions that are against their self-interest. They're still going to be good APUs especially with RDNA3 albeit they need to stop screwing around with low CU counts. No one is going to suddenly stop buying dedicated GPUs because their APU is too good.
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#3
A Computer Guy
OnasiThey’ve been doing this for a while where the APUs and some mobile models leapfrog the desktop SKUs in numbering. Not sure why they are doing that, but I guess the Zen 5 desktop parts will be Ryzen 9000 series now.
Yea they started out ok but then at some point someone at AMD was like "How can we make this as confusing as possible for consumers". Shortly after that person must have been moved to the laptop division to wreak havoc on mobile chip identification.
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#4
rv8000
A Computer GuyYea they started out ok but then at some point someone at AMD was like "How can we make this as confusing as possible for consumers". Shortly after that person must have been moved to the laptop division to wreak havoc on mobile chip identification.
It’s not like this is unique to any pc manf. at this point. Across the entire industry, model/sku naming is batshit insane.
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#6
Onasi
rv8000It’s not like this is unique to any pc manf. at this point. Across the entire industry, model/sku naming is batshit insane.
Absolutely anecdotal, but I think it might be working out for them. I have an acquaintance that just last week was telling me that he updated his PC. He swapped out his 13900K for 14900K. You can probably see a problem with that. He was very confused when I started to explain that he just blew a significant amount of money on absolutely nothing, essentially, and that the two CPUs were identical in every meaningful way. At the end he exclaimed "Then why the f***k did they name it a higher number?!". It was both a bit sad and very amusing.
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#7
R0H1T
You'd think that someone buying the second fastest desktop processor would know that, or maybe he was just superstitious & wanted to avoid 13th gen?
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#8
ThrashZone
Hi,
Intel refresh training
People just buy what ever they put out.
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#9
Onasi
R0H1TYou'd think that someone buying the second fastest desktop processor would know that, or maybe he was just superstitious & wanted to avoid 13th gen?
You vastly overestimate the tech competence of the average individual. Most people are not us, they do not get into the reviews, debate tech specs and have at least a general understanding of how hardware they buy works. They just know they need a fast *insert part here* to *insert desired PC task here* and have an understanding that a higher model number provides better performance. That is it.
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#10
WonkoTheSaneUK
OnasiAt the end he exclaimed "Then why the f***k did they name it a higher number?!". It was both a bit sad and very amusing.
You should've just shown him this Spinal Tap scene:-
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#11
rv8000
OnasiYou vastly overestimate the tech competence of the average individual. Most people are not us, they do not get into the reviews, debate tech specs and have at least a general understanding of how hardware they buy works. They just know they need a fast *insert part here* to *insert desired PC task here* and have an understanding that a higher model number provides better performance. That is it.
It’s not like there aren’t dozens of review sites, tech youtubers and influencers telling them exactly what they need to know. You can’t fix stupid though. If you’re not putting any thought behind your purchasing process you deserve to be ripped off.
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#12
67Elco
I bought some 6400 for my 8700G,,,suspect it will be just fine.
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#13
R0H1T
WonkoTheSaneUKYou should've just shown him this Spinal Tap scene:-
Looks like he shorted his top floor :ohwell:
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#14
Denver
JAB CreationsAMD needs to fire their entire marketing department. Criminal "marketing" is the domain of Intel and Nvidia. Zen 4 are 7000 series, not 8000.
Yeah, I don't understand why this isn't called 7700G/7600G; it would be natural, just as the 5700G is part of the 5xxx line and is based on Zen3.

But, No... why keep a logical and easy-to-understand line. It seems like they want to get straight to the absurdly long numbers (10XXX), or switch to another even more confusing naming scheme.
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#15
Event Horizon
Most consumers want the newest thing with the highest numbers. The marketing nonsense will stop when the consumer nonsense stops (never).
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#17
tabascosauz
DenverYeah, I don't understand why this isn't called 7700G/7600G; it would be natural, just as the 5700G is part of the 5xxx line and is based on Zen3.

But, No... why keep a logical and easy-to-understand line. It seems like they want to get straight to the absurdly long numbers (10XXX), or switch to another even more confusing naming scheme.
Isn't it Hawk Point based? So there's no reason why it would be called 7000 series, if anything that sows confusion by having Hawk Point straddle two families.

Yes, the optimal solution would be to have AMD stick with and actual provide effing supply for Phoenix, not kill it off within a year and basically rebrand it as 8000, but here we are already. AMD's new favourite activity ever since their marketing dept dipped their toes into Renoir, and subsequently conjured up the spaghetti monster that is Ryzen 7000 family.
Metroidstill 6000? disgusting.
I have a feeling this "sweet spot" was decided by marketing dudes with no knowledge of the product on the engineering side, because even if they are fundamentally different tech, I find it hard to believe that Phoenix/Hawk does LPDDR5-7500 with ease yet needs to step down to 1:2 DDR5 on a desktop platform with zero power saving measures for UMC and Fabric. And the CCD => monolithic switch alone usually results in a 1:1 ceiling improvement. I don't expect these marketing dept dudes to be familiar with APU UMC OC, or what Hynix A can already do in 2024 (DDR5-8000+).

But zero improvement over Raphael (6000) would be disappointing to say the least, considering 780M is known to be limited by DDR5-5600 1:2 (ie. in Phoenix -HS laptops).

Also, considering the other comment this AMD rep made was about the "importance" of running dual channel memory, I'll believe shitty UMC when I see it on an official slide or actuual 8700G OC.
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#18
Random_User
OnasiAbsolutely anecdotal, but I think it might be working out for them. I have an acquaintance that just last week was telling me that he updated his PC. He swapped out his 13900K for 14900K. You can probably see a problem with that. He was very confused when I started to explain that he just blew a significant amount of money on absolutely nothing, essentially, and that the two CPUs were identical in every meaningful way. At the end he exclaimed "Then why the f***k did they name it a higher number?!". It was both a bit sad and very amusing.
Especially when APO coming to the previous generations... So frustrating. With companies being that scammy, it should push people to do more research, before making a purchase.
DenverYeah, I don't understand why this isn't called 7700G/7600G; it would be natural, just as the 5700G is part of the 5xxx line and is based on Zen3.

But, No... why keep a logical and easy-to-understand line. It seems like they want to get straight to the absurdly long numbers (10XXX), or switch to another even more confusing naming scheme.
This is exactly what I've wrote in another thread. AMD Participating in wrong competition. Challenge in "who has the worst SKU naming" doesn't lead to anyting good. They let intel to make even more "Snake Oil" memes. But this hurts the end consusumer the most.
Also, they indeed inflating the naming numbers, without any apparent reason. At this pace they will end up the 10K naming shceme as intel did, before switching to even more confusing "Ultra".
This doesn't serve any good purpose, and it's bad, when the buyer needs "decoding ring" in order to buy their products. Except it's for investors to capitalize on unsold stocks of old chips.
IMHO, many companies used to stick with same product naming sceme, if the SKU/product "core" is the same. Eventually it is much easier for the own production itself.
tabascosauzIsn't it Hawk Point based?
I'm layman, but from my research, this seems to be the same 7840-ish, chip. Since, the "Hawk Point" is exactly same thing as "Phoenix Point", but with "AI" chip added. There's seems no incemental difference in the silicon/architecture itself.
Even AMD own official page for 8700G claims it to be "Proenix".
Dunno what to think or believe after this. AMD folks themselves made so much confusing with their slides and announcements. This is indeed garbage marketing, and the department did this should be removed from the company.
OnasiThey’ve been doing this for a while where the APUs and some mobile models leapfrog the desktop SKUs in numbering. Not sure why they are doing that, but I guess the Zen 5 desktop parts will be Ryzen 9000 series now.
Doesn't matter. They went even on SKU/product naming with Zen3. Should have continue that trend, at least for desktop, if the ach is the same. And it is.
The problem is, people do not buy CPU separately from mobile product, like laptops etc, so the it's less the problem, since it requires a lot more of research for mobile device, to begin with.
But for desktop... why add confusion? Especially Lisa Su herself, during AM5 announcement, something as "APUs on this architecture, will come later..."
rv8000It’s not like this is unique to any pc manf. at this point. Across the entire industry, model/sku naming is batshit insane.
True. But some marketing doecheb*gs of come X company, doesn't make it "normal" or "correct" behaiour for company Y. This doesn't make it ok, at all.
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#19
tabascosauz
Random_UserEspecially when APO coming to the previous generations... So frustrating. With companies being that scammy, it should push people to do more research, before making a purchase.


This is exactly what I've wrote in another thread. AMD Participating in wrong competition. Challenge in "who has the worst SKU naming" doesn't lead to anyting good. They let intel to make even more "Snake Oil" memes. But this hurts the end consusumer the most.
Also, they indeed inflating the naming numbers, without any apparent reason. At this pace they will end up the 10K naming shceme as intel did, before switching to even more confusing "Ultra".
This doesn't serve any good purpose, and it's bad, when the buyer needs "decoding ring" in order to buy their products. Except it's for investors to capitalize on unsold stocks of old chips.
IMHO, many companies used to stick with same product naming sceme, if the SKU/product "core" is the same. Eventually it is much easier for the own production itself.


I'm layman, but from my research, this seems to be the same 7840-ish, chip. Since, the "Hawk Point" is exactly same thing as "Phoenix Point", but with "AI" chip added. There's seems no incemental difference in the silicon/architecture itself.
Even AMD own official page for 8700G claims it to be "Proenix".
Dunno what to think or believe after this. AMD folks themselves made so much confusing with their slides and announcements. This is indeed garbage marketing, and the department did this should be removed from the company.


Doesn't matter. They went even on SKU/product naming with Zen3. Should have continue that trend, at least for desktop, if the ach is the same. And it is.
The problem is, people do not buy CPU separately from mobile product, like laptops etc, so the it's less the problem, since it requires a lot more of research for mobile device, to begin with.
But for desktop... why add confusion? Especially Lisa Su herself, during AM5 announcement, something as "APUs on this architecture, will come later..."


True. But some marketing doecheb*gs of come X company, doesn't make it "normal" or "correct" behaiour for company Y. This doesn't make it ok, at all.
The official slides for 8000G ("World's First Desktop Processor with Dedicated AI Engine") launch advertise the same combined 39TOPs number as was the case for Hawk Point mobile, so yeah, I'd say it's pretty much confirmed it's Hawk Point. Phoenix XDNA perf is considerably lower.

It makes no sense for anything new to be Phoenix at this point in time as all the signs point to Phoenix being axed as an entire family, Hawk is its direct replacement. AMD slides for Ryzen 8000 describe Phoenix exclusively in the past tense.

I didn't say that Hawk Point is functionally any different from Phoenix aside from it's NPU, it's a low effort rebrand. But it makes no sense to be renaming a product launched as 8000 series, backwards into 7000 series.
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#20
Random_User
tabascosauzThe official slides for 8000G ("World's First Desktop Processor with Dedicated AI Engine") launch advertise the same combined 39TOPs number as was the case for Hawk Point mobile, so yeah, I'd say it's pretty much confirmed it's Hawk Point. Phoenix XDNA perf is considerably lower.

It makes no sense for anything new to be Phoenix at this point in time as all the signs point to Phoenix being axed as an entire family, Hawk is its direct replacement. AMD slides for Ryzen 8000 describe Phoenix exclusively in the past tense.

I didn't say that Hawk Point is functionally any different from Phoenix aside from it's NPU, it's a low effort rebrand. But it makes no sense to be renaming a product launched as 8000 series, backwards into 7000 series.
True, but it still confusing to put "Phoenix" on their own product page. That contradicts the slides, and the potential buyer may not see those.
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#21
stimpy88
I hope AMD address this serious limitation. Zen5 needs to support being run at 8000 and beyond.
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#22
kapone32
R0H1TYou'd think that someone buying the second fastest desktop processor would know that, or maybe he was just superstitious & wanted to avoid 13th gen?
The narrative is very powerful.
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#23
trsttte
This seems oddly low. DDR5 is still relatively new and you can easily find much faster dimms than that and, looking at past generations, monolithic APUs always had an edge regarding memory speed being able to handle much higher speeds than the chiplet based desktop parts. Something's afoot :confused:
OnasiThey’ve been doing this for a while where the APUs and some mobile models leapfrog the desktop SKUs in numbering. Not sure why they are doing that, but I guess the Zen 5 desktop parts will be Ryzen 9000 series now.
God fucking dammit! They finally had a consistent name, both across GPU and CPU parts (with the hilariously stupid encoding for laptop chips), it was all 7000 series this generation. Just a year goes by and that consistency is thrown directly into the garbage!
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#24
phubar
stimpy88I hope AMD address this serious limitation. Zen5 needs to support being run at 8000 and beyond.
No it doesn't.

Zen5 and 4 CPU cores aren't anywhere near bandwidth limited. If anything, due to the high amount of cache, they're relatively bandwidth insensitive. They're actually more sensitive to latency which is why the focus on overclocking the RAM for Zen4 has mostly focused on getting the timings (tertiary and secondary in particular) down with EXPO once you get to 6000.

The APU's on the other could indeed absolutely use DDR5 8000....for the iGPU! NOT THE CPU!!
trsttteThis seems oddly low.
While it'd be nifty if faster RAM made a big difference it doesn't so its worth bothering with on Zen4 or Zen5. Unless you're trying for some AIDA read/write world record of course.

Being able to be pretty fast with, relatively cheap, DDR5 6000 is a good thing. You can get 2x16GB DDR5 6000 kits for ~$90-ish. Mean while cheapest 2x16GB DDR5 8000 kits run around $200-ish on newegg. Twice the price for minor performance gains, even with the lowest possible graphical presets and low resolution, is not something to get worked up over.

www.techpowerup.com/review/klevv-cras-v-rgb-ddr5-6400-cl32-2x-16-gb/7.html

Much of the time in game the difference was only 1-2fps vs DDR5 6400 vs DDR5 6000 for Zen4 guys. Sometimes it was even less. Less than 1 fps!! For actual production CPU benches the differences were usually just as minor.

This is not at all a bandwidth limited CPU and its bizarre to me that people think it is.
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#25
tanaka_007
iGPU is not affected by XGMI Link (FCLK), so higher MCLK are better.

[CPU 7000]
CPU die---(FCLK,XGMI link on CPU PCB)---I/O die(UCLK,iGPU)---Memory(MCLK*2=DDR)
MCLK3200:UCLK3200:FCLK2000 (DDR5-6400, Low Latency)

[APU 8000G]
CPU+I/O(FCLK,UCLK,iGPU)---Memory(MCLK*2=DDR)
MCLK4200:FCLK2400 (DDR5-8400, High Bandwith)
*Reccomended B650/X670(Support PBO/Curve Optimizer) 2Slot DIMM M/B + Hynix A-die or Next Generation hynix chip
*Hynix's next generation DDR5 features ClockDriver to achieve higher clocks. (More than A-die, DDR5-6400 1.1v Native)

[Tuesday, January 30th 2024] AMD Ryzen 7 8700G Loves Memory Overclocking, which Vastly Favors its iGPU Performance
www.techpowerup.com/318446/amd-ryzen-7-8700g-loves-memory-overclocking-which-vastly-favors-its-igpu-performance
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