Gigabyte has just sparked some rumors about the next generation of AMD’s top processors, perhaps accidentally leaking the release date that AMD itself hasn’t talked about just yet. Then again, coming from Gigabyte, it can be considered a fairly credible source. In any case, AMD’s next-gen APUs seem to be right around the corner, serving up graphics powers far beyond anything we’ve seen in an integrated GPU so far.
We’re talking about AMD’s 8000G APUs, which are a much-anticipated update to the company’s lineup. So far, the best APU available to desktop users is the Ryzen 7 5700G, featuring RDNA 2 graphics. With the release of the Ryzen 8000G Phoenix, AMD will move to the RDNA 3 architecture, delivering up to 12 RDNA 3 compute units (CUs) in the rumored Ryzen 7 8700G. That’s the same number of CUs as in the RX 6400.
While the RX 6400 is one of the worst GPUs AMD has ever released, those RDNA 3 CUs should be an improvement in the new Ryzen 8000G — and besides, the expectations are naturally lower for integrated graphics than they are for a discrete card.
AMD has teased the Phoenix lineup in the past, but it never gave us a concrete time frame to look forward to the way Gigabyte just did. The company, known for making some of the best motherboards, has just released the latest AGESA beta BIOS for its X670, B650, and A620 motherboards, enabling support for next-gen AM5 APUs.
In the announcement, Gigabyte also said the following: “The forthcoming AM5 next-gen APU will be launched at the end of January 2024.” Well, you can’t put it any clearer than that. All that remains is to wait for an official confirmation that comes straight from AMD.
VideoCardz reports that at least four new APUs are expected to arrive, including models with eight cores and six cores, as well as a couple of budget chips that feature a mix of Zen 4 and Zen 4c cores. Now, the question is, how useful will these new APUs be on a platform that’s still as pricey as AM5?
Switching to AM5 means some pretty expensive motherboards, plus DDR5 RAM, which is still pricier than its DDR4 counterparts. Even cheap A620 motherboards cost around $100, and 16GB of dual-channel DDR5 RAM starts at around $50. When you’re spending that much money, you might as well pick up a cheap GPU, and most discrete models will outperform AMD’s RDNA 3 APUs.
However, for non-demanding users who want access to some light gaming and a platform that will last them longer, upgrading to AM5 makes sense. Ryzen 8000G APUs will likely have impressive graphics performance, although we’ll have to wait and see the benchmarks as the rumored January 2024 release date draws closer.
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