AMD Cuts Prices of its Ryzen 8000G Desktop APUs—8600G Now at $199

[btarunr]

Prices of AMD Ryzen 8000G "Hawk Point" desktop APUs in the Socket AM5 package saw reductions over the week. The Ryzen 7 8700G, the fully unlocked part, is now available for $299, a $30 cut from its launch price of $329. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 8600G has now slipped under the $200-mark, with a $199 price-tag. The chip had originally launched at $229. Both these chips feature a 16 TOPS NPU, and are the first desktop processors that are capable of on-chip AI acceleration. Both processors are based on the 4 nm "Hawk Point" monolithic silicon, and feature "Zen 4" CPU cores. The 8700G packs an 8-core/16-thread CPU with an RDNA 3 iGPU that has 12 compute units (CU); while the 8600G is 6-core/12-thread, with an iGPU that has 8 CU.

Things get interesting with the Ryzen 5 8500G, which is now down to $159 from its launch price of $179. This new price makes the processor competitive with the 13th Gen Core i3 and the lower end of the Core i5 lineup. Unlike the other two 8000G series chips, the 8500G lacks an NPU, and is based on the 4 nm "Phoenix 2" silicon that has two "Zen 4" and four "Zen 4c" CPU cores for a 6-core/12-thread CPU configuration. Both kinds of cores share a 16 MB L3 cache. It has a heavily cut-down RDNA 3 iGPU with just 4 CU. The Ryzen 8000G desktop APU series only features PCIe Gen 4 (no Gen 5), which may not mean much for today's discrete GPUs, but limit your SSD upgrade path to Gen 4 (Gen 5 SSDs will be limited to 7 GB/s).



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[john_]

Prices need to make sense to the final consumer and that doesn't mean selling a slower model, for the price of a faster one plus a low end discrete GPU. APUs are slower compared to the equivalent Ryzen chips, because of fewer cache, lower frequencies, not to mention fewer PCIe lanes, if I am not mistaken. So R7 8700G should be selling at the same price as an R5 7700, R5 8600G should be selling as much as an R5 7600, R5 8500G the same price as a R5 7500 and R5 8300G the same price as an R3 7300, if there where such models in the last two examples.

 

[PaddieMayne]

The problem with 8600g isn't the price it's the lack of reasonably priced itx motherboards for making low powered PCs, HTPCs

 

[_JP_]

The problem with 8600g isn't the price it's the lack of reasonably priced itx motherboards for making low powered PCs, HTPCs

Precisely. It's the very same reason I don't recommend the current platform for HTPC, as any refurb mini desktop beats it totally in the cost factor.

 

[MaMoo]

The problem with 8600g isn't the price it's the lack of reasonably priced itx motherboards for making low powered PCs, HTPCs

This is my main issue as well. I do not see the point of an expensive ITX rig for my purposes.

 

[Cheeseball]

These prices are actually very good, especially if you're planning for a homelab or a fileserver. Because these are still monolithic, the idle power consumption (when the server has no load) with the APU alone is a nice 2W to 6W, equal to the Intel CPUs.

This makes the 8400G (4 CUs) really good for HEVC/H265 and AV1 transcoding, especially for Plex.

 

[ymdhis]

These prices are actually very good, especially if you're planning for a homelab or a fileserver. Because these are still monolithic, the idle power consumption (when the server has no load) with the APU alone is a nice 2W to 6W, equal to the Intel CPUs.

This makes the 8400G (4 CUs) really good for HEVC/H265 and AV1 transcoding, especially for Plex.

Are they really that low? Last time I checked, AMD CPUs did not support advanced C states, at best they go to C3, while Intel can go down to C10. There are reports of Intel builds going down as low as sub-10w for full i3 builds, but the best I can get out of my 5600G is around 28W (and that's with turbo clocks off, only one m.2 and one SATA drive, and a PSU that is very efficient at low loads).

 

[Cheeseball]

Are they really that low? Last time I checked, AMD CPUs did not support advanced C states, at best they go to C3, while Intel can go down to C10. There are reports of Intel builds going down as low as sub-10w for full i3 builds, but the best I can get out of my 5600G is around 28W (and that's with turbo clocks off, only one m.2 and one SATA drive, and a PSU that is very efficient at low loads).

Is that 28W total system power consumption (e.g. read from a Kill-A-Watt, Kasa EP25, built-in UPS meter, etc.) or is that the CPU TDP (package power) alone?

This is my 8700G at the moment (Plex running in the background, active RDP and whatever Windows 11 IoT crap is on):

The total system power is 22W at the moment (read using a TP-Link Kasa EP25). This is on:
ASRock B650M Pro RS WiFi
3 x Noctua 120mm fans
2 x 18 TB WD Reds HDDs
2 x SK Hynix 2TB P31 Gold NVMe
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120

 

[A Computer Guy]

Is that 28W total system power consumption (e.g. read from a Kill-A-Watt, Kasa EP25, built-in UPS meter, etc.) or is that the CPU TDP (package power) alone?

This is my 8700G at the moment (Plex running in the background, active RDP and whatever Windows 11 IoT crap is on):View attachment 352305

The total system power is 22W at the moment (read using a TP-Link Kasa EP25). This is on:
ASRock B650M Pro RS WiFi
3 x Noctua 120mm fans
2 x 18 TB WD Reds HDDs
2 x SK Hynix 2TB P31 Gold NVMe
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120

For comparison total system power my AM4 2200g DeskMini X300 would sleep <5 watts in Windows with Wake on LAN. On Linux it idles about 20 watts with plex server running in the background (1 NVMe + 1 SATA) haven't figured out how to get the system to sleep in Linux yet.

 

[Minus Infinity]

And what did I say the other day about AMD. Typical AMD, launch high, wait a few weeks, panic, cut prices, anger early adopters. Rinse repeat. Soon to be repeated with Zen 5.

 

[A Computer Guy]

And what did I say the other day about AMD. Typical AMD, launch high, wait a few weeks, panic, cut prices, anger early adopters. Rinse repeat. Soon to be repeated with Zen 5.

I'm going to wait for the sweet discounts .

 

[Imsochobo]

These prices are actually very good, especially if you're planning for a homelab or a fileserver. Because these are still monolithic, the idle power consumption (when the server has no load) with the APU alone is a nice 2W to 6W, equal to the Intel CPUs.

This makes the 8400G (4 CUs) really good for HEVC/H265 and AV1 transcoding, especially for Plex.

sadly amd encoder for rdna3.. so if you transcode to 1080P av1 doesn't work (hardware bug), it works for 4K though.
X265 is okey at higher bitrates but you kinda end up at a position where intel is better for that if you care about transcoding.

 

[Cheeseball]

sadly amd encoder for rdna3.. so if you transcode to 1080P av1 doesn't work (hardware bug), it works for 4K though.
X265 is okey at higher bitrates but you kinda end up at a position where intel is better for that if you care about transcoding.

Yup, I know about the 1082p issue. It works but you will get black bars on output.

 

[Chrispy_]

AMD has spent a decade boasting, and proving that its large caches are important; The more cache the better the CPU.

"Oh, also here are our mobile parts shoehorned into a desktop socket, with dramatically lowered cache counts."

They suck as desktop parts and really need to be even cheaper to be appealing to the mass market. They're last-gen performance tier which is a problem because last gen parts are still on sale at a lower price still and have the additional advantage of a cheaper platform. Unless you really can't fit a dGPU in and you need that IGP they're a solution looking for a problem.

Maybe there aren't many of these to sell in the first place, since they're likely laptop part rejects that failed to hit the voltage/efficiency curve needed for laptop parts - so AMD can afford to squeeze the highest price out of them due to low supply?

 

[MaMoo]

And what did I say the other day about AMD. Typical AMD, launch high, wait a few weeks, panic, cut prices, anger early adopters. Rinse repeat. Soon to be repeated with Zen 5.

I heard they were planning to price Zenny 5 lower than 4 at launch? I hope they do.

 

[Kapone33]

AMD has spent a decade boasting, and proving that its large caches are important; The more cache the better the CPU.

"Oh, also here are our mobile parts shoehorned into a desktop socket, with dramatically lowered cache counts."

They suck as desktop parts and really need to be even cheaper to be appealing to the mass market. They're last-gen performance tier which is a problem because last gen parts are still on sale at a lower price still and have the additional advantage of a cheaper platform. Unless you really can't fit a dGPU in and you need that IGP they're a solution looking for a problem.

Maybe there aren't many of these to sell in the first place, since they're likely laptop part rejects that failed to hit the voltage/efficiency curve needed for laptop parts - so AMD can afford to squeeze the highest price out of them due to low supply?

The biggest issue with these chips is platform cost. AM4 was around for so long that I am sure that some of us still have anything from B350 to X570 boards lying around somewhere. These are faster than any of the AM4 APUs by some measure but adding a 6500XT to existing AM4 is cheaper and not a worry to make sure the board supports 120HZ from HDMI or DP. That is the thing with AMD APUs. I have my 5600G in a Asus AP201 case that is Micro ATX with a As Rock Riptide B550 as it is one of the only boards that supports 120hz on the HDMI port. It has a clone of one of those retro ROM drives you can buy on Amazon and it is impressive.

I have priced a build and the lowest spec MB, RAM and CPU would still be in the range of $550-600 CAD using an AM5 APU. I know we wanted our own to make our own handheld clones with unlocked APUs but these are still $100 too much. If a Steam Deck is $439 where I live the APU alone should be max $199 CAD. I guess AMD do not have enough of these to offer them at better prices for now but every new node TSMC achieves makes the previous node(s) cheaper.

The MBs have not reduced in price. The hope is that when the X870 boards are in store it will put pressure on X670-A620 but the only thing they seem to marketing for those boards is USB4 that is not even a thing for most people. I mean am I going to hook up an external GPU to my PC? That means that we have not seen the drastic cuts in price we usually see in the old stock when the new boards launch. You will not find a good B550 for $50 where I live.

 

[Chrispy_]

The MBs have not reduced in price. The hope is that when the X870 boards are in store it will put pressure on X670-A620 but the only thing they seem to marketing for those boards is USB4 that is not even a thing for most people. I mean am I going to hook up an external GPU to my PC? That means that we have not seen the drastic cuts in price we usually see in the old stock when the new boards launch. You will not find a good B550 for $50 where I live.

B550 is still holding its price, likely because PCIe 4.0 matters both for gimped x8 lane CPUs, and also even affordable SSDs are now bottlenecked by PCIe 3.0

I've read, watched, asked (and been told) that two factors are making new platforms more expensive:

1. New PCIe generations require more PCB layers, better shielding, and higher-quality than the prior generation. We saw that with the cost increase from 400-series chipsets to 500-series chipsets, and also with the increasing price hikes for PCIe riser cables, and the increasing number of complaints arising from cheaper PCIe 4.0 riser cables causing problems or not working in 4.0 mode.
   
   
2. VRMs now need to handle 230W PPTs for stock AM5 support without caveats. It's a significant step up from the 142W of AM4 and even cheaper B650 boards tend to have VRMs and power delivery matching high-end X570 boards from the previous generation.

A620 could come down in price, but they've likely been unpopular, ergo lower volume and therefore fewer economies of scale, due to a lack of any budget AM5 parts until very recently. The cheapest 65W-only A620 boards ought to be on par with the cheapest 65W-only B550 boards since the lane count, PCIe generation, and VRMs needed should be comparable to something like these paltry entry-tier B550 boards:



I'm not saying they're good boards, but they do exist en-masse and they are what people throw APUs into.

 

[Kapone33]

B550 is still holding its price, likely because PCIe 4.0 matters both for gimped x8 lane CPUs, and also even affordable SSDs are now bottlenecked by PCIe 3.0

I've read, watched, asked (and been told) that two factors are making new platforms more expensive:

1. New PCIe generations require more PCB layers, better shielding, and higher-quality than the prior generation. We saw that with the cost increase from 400-series chipsets to 500-series chipsets, and also with the increasing price hikes for PCIe riser cables, and the increasing number of complaints arising from cheaper PCIe 4.0 riser cables causing problems or not working in 4.0 mode.
   
   
2. VRMs now need to handle 230W PPTs for stock AM5 support without caveats. It's a significant step up from the 142W of AM4 and even cheaper B650 boards tend to have VRMs and power delivery matching high-end X570 boards from the previous generation.

A620 could come down in price, but they've likely been unpopular, ergo lower volume and therefore fewer economies of scale, due to a lack of any budget AM5 parts until very recently. The cheapest 65W-only A620 boards ought to be on par with the cheapest 65W-only B550 boards since the lane count, PCIe generation, and VRMs needed should be comparable to something like these paltry entry-tier B550 boards:

View attachment 352335

I'm not saying they're good boards, but they do exist en-masse and they are what people throw APUs into.

Exactly. that was what I did when I was looking at AM5

 

[chrcoluk]

This is why its better to wait towards the latter part of a gen's life, they tend to be overpriced early on.

 

[Minus Infinity]

I heard they were planning to price Zenny 5 lower than 4 at launch? I hope they do.

Leaked pricing shows similar prices to Zen 4 except 9950X is cheper than 7950X. 9600X is way too dear if the leaks are true.

 

[Chrispy_]

Leaked pricing shows similar prices to Zen 4 except 9950X is cheper than 7950X. 9600X is way too dear if the leaks are true.

the 1600X, 2600X, 3600X, and 5600X have always been shit value.

People almost always bought the 1600, 1600AF, 2600, 3600, and 5600 instead - which were basically the exact same chip for ~25% less money. Sure, on the box it said 65W instead of 105W but that only affects the default power limits. I never found an x600 chip that couldn't hit the same advertised boost clocks as it's x600X counterpart - I suspect some exist but they're probably silicon lottery outliers.

 

[A Computer Guy]

the 1600X, 2600X, 3600X, and 5600X have always been shit value.

People almost always bought the 1600, 1600AF, 2600, 3600, and 5600 instead - which were basically the exact same chip for ~25% less money. Sure, on the box it said 65W instead of 105W but that only affects the default power limits. I never found an x600 chip that couldn't hit the same advertised boost clocks as it's x600X counterpart - I suspect some exist but they're probably silicon lottery outliers.

It kinda irks me AMD named the lesser 5950x as 5900XT instead of just a 5950. I mean that would have at least made some sense I think.

 

[Chrispy_]

It kinda irks me AMD named the lesser 5950x as 5900XT instead of just a 5950. I mean that would have at least made some sense I think.

It could just be a typo.

Let's face it, if XT is supposed to be the top bin, then 5950XT should be the only 16-core factory OC model. There shouldn't be two of them, and that leaves no top bin for the 12-core model.

 

[ymdhis]

Is that 28W total system power consumption (e.g. read from a Kill-A-Watt, Kasa EP25, built-in UPS meter, etc.) or is that the CPU TDP (package power) alone?

This is my 8700G at the moment (Plex running in the background, active RDP and whatever Windows 11 IoT crap is on):View attachment 352305

The total system power is 22W at the moment (read using a TP-Link Kasa EP25). This is on:
ASRock B650M Pro RS WiFi
3 x Noctua 120mm fans
2 x 18 TB WD Reds HDDs
2 x SK Hynix 2TB P31 Gold NVMe
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120

Measured from the wall, duh. The sensor info is not really useful since you have to factor on RAM, all the motherboard components (chipset, vrms, lan, audio, etc), the chipset alone is like 6W.
I believe the setup I used was Asrock B450m Pro4 R2.0, Ryzen 2200GE, 16gb RAM (2x8, Kingston HyperX I think, forgot which speed but probably 3200), Intel 330 sata ssd, stock cooler, Be Quiet Pure Power 11 500W Gold, and nothing else connected to the motherboard. Memory was set to 1.2V with lower speeds and the CPU had PBO disabled. This got me 28W measured from the wall. Maybe a more expensive power supply can get this lower, but most platinum rated power supplies don't come in low enough wattage for the efficiency to increase at low loads (highest ~20W efficiency I ever saw was the Corsair SF450 Platinum, and that has been EOL for a while now, the new lineup they introduced just now start at 750W).
I don't remember exactly how much my B550M + 5600G uses with nothing connected, I haven't measured that, the last measurement I did was 32W but that was with 4 fans and a 10GbE card so realistically it should hit as low as ~25W.

However both of those are a far cry from intel systems that can go sub-10W in idle.

The ASRock B650M Pro RS is the board I was eyeballing for a while now, since it had the most m.2 slots for matx. Good to see it doesn't use much power. I'm considering switching into that system hopefully later this year.
Note though that if you have the fans speed controlled then they most likely use less than 2W combined and if the HDDs are in sleep then they also use less than 2W... so 18W for the full system, still pretty good.

 

[Cheeseball]

Measured from the wall, duh. The sensor info is not really useful since you have to factor on RAM, all the motherboard components (chipset, vrms, lan, audio, etc), the chipset alone is like 6W.
I believe the setup I used was Asrock B450m Pro4 R2.0, Ryzen 2200GE, 16gb RAM (2x8, Kingston HyperX I think, forgot which speed but probably 3200), Intel 330 sata ssd, stock cooler, Be Quiet Pure Power 11 500W Gold, and nothing else connected to the motherboard. Memory was set to 1.2V with lower speeds and the CPU had PBO disabled. This got me 28W measured from the wall. Maybe a more expensive power supply can get this lower, but most platinum rated power supplies don't come in low enough wattage for the efficiency to increase at low loads (highest ~20W efficiency I ever saw was the Corsair SF450 Platinum, and that has been EOL for a while now, the new lineup they introduced just now start at 750W).
I don't remember exactly how much my B550M + 5600G uses with nothing connected, I haven't measured that, the last measurement I did was 32W but that was with 4 fans and a 10GbE card so realistically it should hit as low as ~25W.

However both of those are a far cry from intel systems that can go sub-10W in idle.

The ASRock B650M Pro RS is the board I was eyeballing for a while now, since it had the most m.2 slots for matx. Good to see it doesn't use much power. I'm considering switching into that system hopefully later this year.
Note though that if you have the fans speed controlled then they most likely use less than 2W combined and if the HDDs are in sleep then they also use less than 2W... so 18W for the full system, still pretty good.

Yeah, just wanted to double-check. I have had discussions with people who had the chiplet CPUs and saying that they only get 25W to 45W (5800X) total system power draw on idle or low usage when in fact that was just the TDP of the CPU alone.

ASRock B650M Pro RS WiFi is a good semi-budget (I was able to get it for $120 on a sale) board if you need 3 NVMe slots. However, take note that one of them is PCI-E 4.0 x2 and the only has a 8+2+1 power phase design, which is perfectly fine for a 65W TDP CPU/APU. The HDMI port is also 2.1-compliant as it can do 2160p144.