AMD Ryzen 5 Mobile 3500U Vega 8 iGPU Review

[David_Schroth]

As a follow up to our AMD Ryzen 5 3500U CPU Review, we've fired up some games to see how well the Vega 8 works in a 15W power envelope.

 

[DejaWiz]

Wow, very nice review!

You know, it's rather impressive that AMD is able to squeeze out dGP MX150 performance out of an IGP with that low of a TDP configuration.

 

[kcthebrewer]

The 3dmark talking point is not using the iGPU of the 3400g - it is using a 2080ti so it is impossible to compare even with the TDP differences.

 

[Eduardo_Domingot]

Its a shame it isn't faster in newer games but at the same time what could be expected when you factor in bandwidth, TDP, and the actual configuration of the GPU itself.
Its still impressive though when you compare it to devices in the same category.

 

[SmokeRngs]

Laptop graphics isn't something I've ever thought much about but after a little thinking I have to say this iGPU is actually quite impressive. Considering the iGPU and the CPU combined don't go over 15w I think it's amazing you can get any sort of usable framerates out of any game less than five years old. This is before taking into account the rather low memory bandwidth.

Loved the review and found it very interesting. Personally, I'm partial to reviews of more average hardware. It's nice to read once what the top products are capable of but for me the real meat and potatoes is in the low to midrange stuff simply because that's the price range I'm looking at for myself as well as others who I support.

The release of the new mobile Ryzen CPUs should be quite exciting once they are released and I look forward to seeing some reviews of them if you can get your hands on the hardware.

 

[Burticus]

Thanks for taking the time to do this thorough review. The end results are not unexpected but I had hoped for more.

 

[David_Schroth]

The release of the new mobile Ryzen CPUs should be quite exciting once they are released and I look forward to seeing some reviews of them if you can get your hands on the hardware.

We'll see if we can revisit this once the 4xxx series hits the market.

One thing to keep in mind is that in the 15W class, you're going to be relying on the iGPU. In the 45W class, the iGPU will be fairly irrelevant as virtually all AMD based machines will have a discrete mobile graphics card baked in at that power profile.

 

[noko]

We'll see if we can revisit this once the 4xxx series hits the market.

One thing to keep in mind is that in the 15W class, you're going to be relying on the iGPU. In the 45W class, the iGPU will be fairly irrelevant as virtually all AMD based machines will have a discrete mobile graphics card baked in at that power profile.

I would think when unplugged you will have the 15w configuration option for those with iGPU to extend battery life which would make these laptops rather useful for full gaming when plugged in with the discrete GPU and then rather good gaming with iGPU on battery. That is what I would hope for.