Putting It All Together: Best Value Combos

Well, that didn't look peculiarly proficient for AMD to be honest. It has to be said though that nigh all of the detached graphics cards featured in this comparison are quite proficient. Virtually gamers might belittle at a GTX 750 Ti in 2022, only it still packs 640 CUDA cores in a 148mm2 die and with 2GB of dedicated GDDR5 memory on a 192-bit wide bus it enjoys a bandwidth of 88GB/s.

My point being that there is no integrated GPU that has ever been able to agree a candle to something like that and you could say the same of the Raven Ridge APUs frankly, but they practise a significantly better job than anything that has come earlier them.

Here's a quick look at the eight game interruption down using the 1080p data.

The GTX 750 Ti was on average 38% faster than the 2400G and lx% faster than the 2200G across the 8 games tested, and that's a scrap brutal to be honest. It gets quite a bit worse when we expect at the R7 370, GTX 660 Ti then on, just the functioning deficit shown by the APUs could very well shake out when it comes to pricing.

With its CPU and GPU combo, AMD's 2200G costs but $100 and the 2400G is $170. Comparatively, it's much more difficult to put any given toll on a used graphics card because of market fluctuations.

Every bit is the instance with new graphics cards, pricing from a few months ago is completely irrelevant today. For example, 3 months agone $30 bought you a GTX 750 Ti while getting one for that price today won't exist like shooting fish in a barrel, though information technology as well isn't impossible, specially depending on where y'all are in the world.

Hopping over to eBay.com, so far this month the boilerplate selling toll for a GTX 750 Ti is $68, which is about what you tin expect to pay. Of course y'all might as well get lucky and pay just $40, or y'all might only not do your research and become rolled for nigh $90. Y'all could also find the deal of a lifetime and and then receive a lemon -- information technology's all in the fun of 2nd-hand shopping.

I've worked out the average selling toll for all the used graphics cards featured in this commodity and done a cost per frame analysis across the lath (shown above) and unfortunately for AMD, it appears to place the APUs in rather poor light. However, nosotros are missing a key ingredient hither in that the AMD APUs include a CPU for their toll, while the R7 370 or GTX 750 Ti or any of the other detached graphics cards will demand this cost added separately.

For testing, I used the Cadre i3-8100 and that costs $115, which needs to be added to the GPU cost, so nosotros've washed that with some other graph:

That looks much improve for the Raven Ridge APUs. The 2200G in particular is very competitive, simply you'll undoubtedly accept noticed that it's still not the best value option. The Core i3-8100 paired with the GTX 760 was about 10% amend in terms of value despite costing twice as much. The GTX 580 is also slightly better as well though that detail carte uses copious amounts of power.

In terms of value, the 2200G is excellent, especially when compared to brand new hardware. The 2400G is still a decent option, but for budget shoppers it's far less bonny and information technology's non terribly difficult to become a ameliorate deal while 2nd-paw shopping, which pretty much falls in line with what I said in our day one Raven Ridge coverage.

That said, this yet isn't the full story. Both the Cadre i3-8100 and Raven Ridge APUs volition require a new motherboard and DDR4 memory. If you lot already accept a B350 motherboard, you aren't 'upgrading' to an APU -- that doesn't make sense. And so, if nosotros factor in motherboard and memory prices, things modify quite a bit.

This adjacent graph adds $lxx to all configurations for a B350 or B360 motherboard (we await the latter to be out soon) every bit well as $85 for 8GB of DDR4-2400 memory for the Core i3-8100 configuration and $105 worth of DDR4-3200 memory for the APUs. The total platform cost for each configuration is listed in the following graph.

The APUs await a lot less bonny once you cistron in the entire platform price, being a considerably poorer value than the Core i3-8100 when paired with a second-hand GPU. Every bit I said in my mean solar day one review, the Raven Ridge APUs are a better value than the Core i3 with a new graphics card, but we can at present confirm that second-hand cards give an edge to such a philharmonic. It'south too interesting to notation that the 2200G was 32% cheaper than the 2400G when comparing only the price of the APU, while the 2200G works out to just viii% cheaper when accounting for the entire platform toll.

Depending on your needs and how yous are going about building or upgrading your arrangement, AMD'southward new APUs may or may non be the correct call. If you lot're edifice a brand new PC from the ground upwards and y'all're confident that you can get a decent graphics carte on the 2nd-hand market, then y'all're best off with the Core i3-8100.

The i3-8100 plus GTX 760 combo for case might cost twice as much as the 2200G, but once y'all factor in the price of a motherboard and retentivity, that $100 difference over the 2200G becomes a lot less meaning -- the philharmonic costs just 30% more here. Then if yous were to also gene in the cost of a case, power supply and and then on, the margin continues to shrink.

We recently took a look dorsum at the GTX 580 (eight year old GPU) and the GTX 680 (six year old GPU).

So why recommend the APUs at all? Compared to other new hardware options, they are very price effective. Not everyone can or wants to buy 2d-mitt, and there's obvious pitfalls to doing so. For those who are happy with a depression-end gaming solution merely would similar a platform they tin can build upon for years to come, the 2200G is a unique choice. Get yourself a decent B350 motherboard, some DDR4 retentiveness and in a year or two y'all could be rocking an affordable 8-core/16-thread CPU.

The 2400G isn't quite as bonny merely with four cores and viii threads it will be a solid gamer for years to come with splendid frame time performance. Drop in a mid-range to high-terminate graphics card down the rail and yous're good to go.

Of grade, this all gets more than complicated when yous introduce other CPUs. For example, y'all can purchase the G4560 with a H110 motherboard plus a second-manus GTX 760 for the same toll as the 2200G and in most games it will exist a lot faster. Still, the 2200G is more powerful for not-gaming tasks and for the G4560 to make sense yous have to rely on getting a good graphics card for the right price.