AMD Ryzen 5 8500G: A Surprisingly Fascinating Sub-$200 CPU

[qarium]

Thanks, Michael. The day before I spotted the interesting 8700G/8600G review but thought "Ah, just that peculiar Zen4c/Zen4 thing is missing. I wonder how that thing would come out". Tadaa! Next day it is delivered.
Very interesting and mixed results, this one goes in the right direction for some low power machine, like some Kabini successor. Well, it still runs circles around a Kabini machine. :-)
Looking forward to cTDP results, and if AMD manages to send you an 8300G, I'd be interested, too.
By the way: Does anyone know if these machines are ECC suitable? In the past only "Pro" APUs were capable of it (not the normal APUs, but all CPUs) - but DDR5 has some sort of ECC light by default, right?
I am definitely considering the use of ECC in the future.

8700G/8600G/8500G does not support ECC but the need for this is very slow because every DDR5 stick use internal-ECC of course if it is only internal the operating system can not check the error rate.

but most consumers don't care the ram works well because it has ECC internally and they NEVER check for ECC errors if the system works well.

" AMD Silently Removed ECC Support from Ryzen 8700G Listing"

https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1ajwc3k/amd_silently_removed_ecc_support_from_ryzen_8700g/

[qarium]

I'm worried that you may end up with arthritis with all the time you spend "correcting" me.
Maybe we can just come up with a code, a simply one letter symbol that you can post to show that you feel I am incorrect.
How does that sound?

he is not the only one who does correct you... i do you the favour to.

[Panix]

Is it just me or does this actually seem rather underwhelming? Much of the point of APUs is having a good iGPU, but it seems the 8500G's is worse than the 5600G's - it's not just overall slower but the performance-per-watt is worse. Makes me feel like there's perhaps a driver issue.

This, too:

https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd/ryzen-8000-pcie-lanes

But, the flood of frothing AMD fanboys on here won't mention that.

[GraysonPeddie]

Why change the platform for that ?
There are plenty of nice 5xxx options, some even with 3D cache for AM4.
If you need graphic outputs, there are low-power elcheapo options, too.

I bet you can get much more CPU muscle for the same $$$ if you go that route.

Yeah sure, but can I get a new CPU (and new motherboard) just to get increased idle efficiency? I'm willing to go down to 30 watts in idle. Maybe 20 to 25 watts.

[GraysonPeddie]

Okay, my post came up as "unapproved..." Weird... And by the way, how can the forum flag my previous post as potential spam!?

[Brane215]

Yeah sure, but can I get a new CPU (and new motherboard) just to get increased idle efficiency? I'm willing to go down to 30 watts in idle. Maybe 20 to 25 watts.

I bet 5700X3D is efficient while idle. I don't believe 7xxx series improved that outside maybe Watt or two, if even that.
Each new generation improves behaviour under strain ( all-turbo and peak 1Core turbo etc), which what your small server will never see...

If you don't really need GPU, this changes even more.

I don't see the reason to change MoBo, except if you need to go for more or faster RAM, but for CPU RAM frequency is rarely an issue, once it gets to 3600MHz or higher. Latency has more end effect, but even there big cache of 3D part damps most of the hit.

[drakonas777]

I'm worried that you may end up with arthritis with all the time you spend "correcting" me.

Maybe we can just come up with a code, a simply one letter symbol that you can post to show that you feel I am incorrect.

How does that sound?

Coder likes to be data driven and precise. Most of your posts are exactly opposite to that so naturally some corrections happen. And that is very good thing, because without such members as Coder this forum would quickly become a shitposting platform like WCCFTech comment section.

[Teggs]

I doubt we know the market better than them. If they released APU with this core config (2C+4c/12t) and larger GPU, eg. ⩾16CU RDNA3, with appropriate design (bus, cache), it would still not gain any significant market share.

I don't believe that. All the handheld console makers except Valve and MSI are buying 7840Us because that's the part with the large CU count, not because they need or want to power eight cores on a handheld device. If they could have gotten 12 CUs with six or even four cores, they would have, just as Valve used a quad-core/8CU part instead of the generally available Ryzen APUs. Valve got the balance right, or much closer to it. I don't know why AMD broke from their CPU-heavy APU paradigm to make Van Gogh, but it's good that they did... not helpful that they didn't keep doing it.

On the other hand, 'significant' market share is up for debate. Would all the handheld makers together be enough? What about low-end 'gaming' laptops? Some people call the Playstation and X-box guts 'APUs' (I consider it 'onboard graphics'), so there is at least significant demand for custom silicon with specs favouring graphics over CPU, no matter the label.

[GraysonPeddie]

I bet 5700X3D is efficient while idle. I don't believe 7xxx series improved that outside maybe Watt or two, if even that.
Each new generation improves behaviour under strain ( all-turbo and peak 1Core turbo etc), which what your small server will never see...

If you don't really need GPU, this changes even more.

I don't see the reason to change MoBo, except if you need to go for more or faster RAM, but for CPU RAM frequency is rarely an issue, once it gets to 3600MHz or higher. Latency has more end effect, but even there big cache of 3D part damps most of the hit.

So with a CPU that does not end with a "G" for graphics, how am I going to be able to view the terminal? That's like the server does not have a GPU at all. Consumer motherboards do not have an IPMI interface. Well, I suppose I will have to do some research. Thanks.

[Brane215]

So with a CPU that does not end with a "G" for graphics, how am I going to be able to view the terminal? That's like the server does not have a GPU at all. Consumer motherboards do not have an IPMI interface. Well, I suppose I will have to do some research. Thanks.

You could:

1. Use SSH to log on to the box remotely.
2. Temporarily plug in some basic GPU just during OS setup.
3. Use one of those USB VGA adapters just to get basic terminal during setup
4. If you need GPU in the box, there are cheap, power power options to choose from. For example, something cheap, but still with GDDR6:

https://geizhals.de/sparkle-arc-a310-elf-sa310e-4g-a3035239.html?hloc=at&hloc=de

or low-profile form-factor:

https://geizhals.de/asrock-arc-a310-low-profile-6gb-a3033135.html?hloc=at&hloc=de

BTW, given the age of your board, you will probably have to update BIOS. Check the support on manufacturer's page.