CORSAIR iCUE H150i ELITE LCD Display Liquid CPU Cooler Review: Bringing the big guns

The CORSAIR H150i iCUE ELITE LCD Liquid CPU cooler is a decent AIO for the new Alder Lake processors as long as you’re not crunching out prime numbers all the time. The LCD display is a nice change and CORSAIR has done a great job of polishing the entire iCUE interface and making it easy to control. The fans, on the other hand, are a little louder than before. Overall, the H150i iCUE ELITE is a nice addition to CORSAIR’s portfolio.

CORSAIR launched their new AIO Liquid CPU Coolers a few weeks before the Intel Alder Lake launch because they know very well that the new processors from Team Blue run quite hot. Whether CORSAIR has incorporated any new design changes to better handle Alder Lake’s high temps remains to be seen. The new CORSAIR iCUE ELITE LCD Liquid CPU Cooler seems to be a minor upgrade over the their iCUE ELITE CAPELLIX Liquid CPU cooler that were launched last september. We decided to check out the 360mm variant i.e. the CORSAIR “H150i” iCUE ELITE LCD Liquid CPU Cooler to see what all has changed. CORSAIR also has the H100i 240mm and H170i 420mm variants available with the new LCD displays. 

CORSAIR isn’t the first to put an LCD display on their coolers. ASUS showcased the Ryujin with an LCD display in 2018 and we’ve seen brands such as NZXT come out with displays on coolers of late. 

Packaging

The CORSAIR H150i iCUE ELITE LCD comes in a standard black and yellow Corsair box with all necessary accessories to fit all modern CPU sockets. The Intel bracket is pre-installed on the cooler and support LGA1700/1200/1156/1155/1151/1150 sockets. And as for AMD, you get AM4/STR4/STR4X brackets and mounting hardware. 

The fans included with the CORSAIR H150i iCUE ELITE LCD Liquid CPU Cooler are the 120 mm ML RGB ELITE fans which use Magnetic Levitation bearing and provide between 14.86 to 58.1 CFM while running between 450-2000 RPM. These are static pressure fans meant to be used with dense radiators. Each fan has a 4-pin PWM connector for powering the fans and a 4-pin RGB connector.

To control the LCD display and all the RGB on the fans, CORSAIR includes a COMMANDER CORE with the cooler. This thing can handle six fans and six RGB devices aside from the LCD display on the cooler. And if you happen to have six RGB fans, then that’s all it can handle. A proper mid-tower cabinet such as the 680X will come with a few RGB fans of its own, so that along with the three ML RGB ELITE will be easily handled by the COMMANDER CORE. 

You also get a USB Y-splitter cable for connecting two USB connectors into one USB 2.0 header on the motherboard. This does not always work since some boards will make it difficult to recognise devices if passed via a USB hub. When we used the splitter cable with our test rig, neither the LCD display, nor the three ML RGB ELITE Fans connected via the COMMANDER CORE were recognised. We had to bypass the USB Y-splitter to let iCUE recognise the devices.

Installation

The mounting mechanism for Intel is quite simple. There’s a rear bracket with adjustable inserts that can fit LGA1700/1200/1156/1151/1150. A couple of double-sided standoff screws keep the bracket secured and the CPU block goes on top and is in turn, secured with four nuts.

The AMD mounting mechanism is just as simple. You have to change the brackets on the CPU block and use it with the standard AMD backplate. There are different double-sided standoff screws for securing the AMD backplate. And the CPU block goes on top just as it did with the Intel CPU block.

Then comes the COMMANDER CORE which controls all the fans, the RGB lighting on the fans and the pump. The CPU block has a thick flat cable that runs into the COMMANDER CORE which in turn is connected to a SATA power connector and a USB 2.0 connector. The CPU block also has a USB 2.0 connector. Both USB connectors need to be connected to the motherboard to let iCUE talk to the display on the pump and the COMMANDER CORE. Like we mentioned previously, we could not use the Y-splitter USB cable with the two devices and they had to be connected directly. 

Build Quality

Corsair went with CoolIT for this particular model and because Corsair is such a huge customer, they do get to customise a lot more aspects of the AIO than other customers. In the case of the CORSAIR H150i iCUE ELITE LCD, they haven’t done much aside from attaching a display on top of the pump block. Let’s start with the radiator. 

Same old design built using a full aluminium body. The radiator is 27 mm wide and has about 20 fins per inch.

The radiator could have easily incorporated screw protectors or screw guards such as the ones that we see on the Corsair XR5 and XR7 radiators that are part of their Hydro X series. The OEMs are different since the XR5 and XR7 are made by Hardware Labs and the AIO comes from CoolIT. We’re pretty certain CoolIT gets it from some other OEM but it’s high-time that this simple design modification was incorporated by all AIO manufacturers.

Moving to the tubes and joints, we see nylon-sleeved tubing that’s held in place with crimped fittings that do not rotate or swivel. 

The CPU water block comes pre-fitted with the LCD panel and metal brackets for mounting on Intel systems. The tubings are attached using plastic swivel fittings which have a metal crimp on the end to secure the tube onto it. All the cabling comes out from the top of the CPU water block which in this image is oriented sideways. And then you have the LCD display which is a 2.1-inch 24-bit colour IPS panel with a resolution of 480x480 pixels and a frame rate of 30 FPS. The backlight is bright at 600 Nits.

You can remove the LCD display quite easily and you’ll be left with this. There’s no connector to perform a direct attach to the pump block should you not want the LCD display.

Corsair mentions that the cold plate is 56 x 56 mm, ours came a millimeter short but that’s fine. The cold plate is secured in place with eight Philips screws and opening the cooler is quite easy. Although, not recommended unless you have some Glycol and distilled water mixture lying about to top it up.

On the underside of the cold plate we get to see the typical CoolIT design of micro-skived fins. Corsair states that they have 128 fins per inch in this design.

On the inside of the pump head, we see a blue thermocouple to measure the cold plate temps and a rectangular washer in the centre to channel the fluid into the centre of the micro-skived fins. 

Lastly, we have the CORSAIR ML120 RGB ELITE fans which is the other major change with this launch. On the iCUE ELITE CAPELLIX AIO, we had the ML120 RGB fans with eight LEDs and the fan could run between 400-1600 RPM while pushing up to 47.3 CFM. It did so without making much noise at 25 dBA. On the other hand, the ML120 RGB ELITE features eight LEDs fitted in a slightly different housing with straight edges and it can run between 450-2000 RPM while pushing up to 58.10 CFM. It’s also noisier at 30.4 dBA max.

Overall, the LCD Display on top of the CPU block and the fans are the biggest changes on the design front. Let’s see how they perform.

Performance

One of the important things about AIOs is to see if the micro-skived fins, which is where most of the heat exchange happens, align with the actual CPU die inside the IHS. Intel and AMD have different arrangements of the dies on the substrate and the performance of AIOs depends on how well they align with the actual dies. Intel has a massive monolithic die on the consumer processors whereas AMD has their chiplet designs which spread out the dies across the entire substrate. Since the H150i iCUE ELITE LCD cooler was launched around the Intel Alder Lake processor launch, we decided to see if that aligned well with the die.

On the top-of-the-line Intel Core i9-12900K, the die is about 10.2 x 20.4 mm and sits bang in the centre of the substrate. And we can see that the fins provide ample coverage for the new Intel CPUs. 

The units were reviewed on the following configuration:

Intel 12th Gen Test Rig CPU: Intel Core i9-12900K and Core i5-12600K Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z690 AORUS MASTER SSD: 2x WD Black SN850 1TB HDD: Seagate FireCuda 2 TB ST2000DX002 RAM: Corsair DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB DDR5 32GB (2 x 16GB) @4800 MHz Cooler: Corsair H150i Elite LCD PSU: Cooler Master V1200

The Alder Lake flagship processor is a guzzler and it runs very hot making it ideal for testing out CPU coolers. We've gone and graphed the power consumption values over a 10 minute time period with the first 5 minutes showing heavy load and the latter 5 minutes had absolutely nothing running. 

During load, the P-Cores hit a maximum temperature of 97 degrees celsius whereas the E-Cores topped out at 85 degrees celsius. While idling, the P-Cores remained around 21.5 degrees celsius and the E-Cores hovered around 20 degrees celsius. CPU Package temperature was always between 98 to 100 degrees celsius during load. More importantly, the E-Cores barely hit TjMax whereas the P-Cores had a hard time staying away from TjMax. The average distance to TjMax during load was 3.1 degrees. This is with the ambient temperature being 19 degrees.

As for the noise levels, the fans do ramp up to max during the 10 min thermal throttling test. At its peak, the cooler’s fans crossed 42 dBA making the cooler just as loud as most of the competition. During normal load, the audio levels were at par with ambient levels.

Verdict

The CORSAIR H150i iCUE ELITE LCD Liquid CPU cooler is a decent AIO for the new Alder Lake processors as long as you’re not crunching out prime numbers all the time. The LCD display is a nice change and CORSAIR has done a great job of polishing the entire iCUE interface and making it easy to control. The fans, on the other hand, are a little louder than before. Overall, the H150i iCUE ELITE is a nice addition to CORSAIR’s portfolio.

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CORSAIR DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB First Edition 16GB x2 DDR5 Memory Kit Review: Blazing fast DDR5 memory is here

This is the first DDR5 kit we've got our hands on, so there isn't much comparative data to look at. Based on what we've seen so far, the build quality of the CORSAIR DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB DDR5 modules is like no other. We'll update the review once we get our hands on additional RAM kits to provide comparative data.

If you’re planning on building a new Intel rig based on the latest 12th Gen Core “Alder Lake” processors, then you’ll have to decide between getting a DDR4 motherboard or a DDR5 motherboard. Unlike previous instances where memory standards were introduced, there aren’t any DDR4 and DDR5 combo motherboards available. At least, not yet. So you’ll have to pick either and it goes without saying that DDR5 lends to more performance. The CORSAIR DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB First Edition memory kit is literally the first DDR5 kit we’ve received and it upholds the build quality that Corsair is known for their premium memory modules while providing a decent overclocked XMP profile.

The reviewer's package we received made quite the impression. We received a bit white box with just the CORSAIR logo on the top. Opening that revealed the DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB retail package with the DIMMs inside. What stood out was the massive cutting board which had a white DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB DIMM baked into hard resin. Why a "cutting board"? To signify "cutting-edge performance". We'll get to that soon.

Build Quality

The heatsink design is the same as other DOMINATOR Platinum RGB memory modules. The modules are 135 mm in length, 8 mm in width and 56 mm in height. While the width is not going to be a problem since most memory slots are wide enough to allow 8 mm thick modules to be placed side-by-side. On the other hand, the height is going to be a problem if you’re opting for certain CPU air coolers. In fact, for a top-of-the-line CPU such as the Intel Core i9-12900K, you’d most likely get either an AIO CPU water cooler or a beefy CPU air cooler. The AIOs will not be a problem but the latter, if designed to handle the TDP of the flagship CPU, will have issues with tall DIMMs. So that’s something for you to consider.

You’ve got a two-part metal heatsink held together by screws and thermal tape. Disassembly is quite easy and we get to see a single-sided DIMM inside. CORSAIR uses their low-power CAPELLIX LEDs for the RGB lighting so the impact on the memory power sub-system isn’t as much as with other brands. Aside from the LED diffuser that sits atop the DIMM, almost everything else is metal so heat dissipation isn’t that big of a problem.

A closer look reveals that the CORSAIR DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB First Edition memory modules use Micron MT60B2G8HB-48B DDR5 SDRAM chips. The density for these chips is 16 Gb and they’re rated for 4800 MT/s which can be overclocked to 5200 MT/s when using the XMP profile. There are two channels per DIMM in the case of DDR5 memory standard, so you can see four chips on the left for the first channel and another four on the right for the second channel. When you pair two memory modules, then you’re  essentially running a Quad-Channel memory configuration.

Corsair is using an NXP LPC82x 32-bit ARM microcontroller to manage the memory modules, the RGB profiles and to control the PMIC. Speaking of which, the PMIC used is an APW8502C. There doesn’t exist a publicly accessible data sheet for this one so we can’t delve into any details. The only thing we know for certain is that the PMIC takes 5 volts input and breaks it down into 1.1 v for Vdd and Vddq, and 1.8 v for Vpp. Separating the PMIC from the processor lends the user greater control over the overclocking capabilities of the memory chips.

Lastly, the rear of the module has just the one FRC connector for the CAPELLIX LED strip. Overall, the CORSAIR DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB First Edition memory modules are built to last you a long time.

Performance

The units were reviewed on the following configuration:

Intel 12th Gen Test Rig CPU: Intel Core i9-12900K and Core i5-12600K Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z690 AORUS MASTER SSD: 2x WD Black SN850 1TB  HDD: Seagate FireCuda 2 TB ST2000DX002 RAM: Corsair DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB DDR5 32GB (2 x 16GB) @4800 MHz Cooler: Corsair H150i Elite LCD PSU: Cooler Master V1200

We’d previously mentioned that with the DDR5 memory standard, each module can have two channels. So when you plug a pair of DDR5 modules onto your motherboard, you’ll see a quad-channel configuration in your OS.

We tested the units at the base profile without switching on XMP. At which point, we ran through one set of benchmarks. This was just to gauge the impact of DDR5 XMP profiles on the processor’s performance. While XMP 3.0 allows for a lot more profiles to be stored on the SPD, these modules only had one profile. But with DDR5, it's way easier to OC, so scaling the module takes little effort. Without enabling XMP, the modules run at 4800 MT/s at 40-40-40-77 and with the XMP-5200 profile, this becomes 5200 MT/s at 36-38-38-74. The latency reduction might not seem like much but it’s something.

The pure synthetic performance bump obtained from switching to 5200 MT/s works out to be about 8.5 to 9.8 per cent which is quite significant.

However, when you switch to a real-world workload, the impact doesn't seem as impressive as the performance improvement is usually between 1-3 per cent.

As for power consumption, we see a noticeable increase when running the kits at 5200 MT/s while running a heavy load. Power draw during copy operations can use close to 7.3 watts while during idle time, it goes down to about 3.2 watts.

Verdict

This is the first DDR5 kit we've got our hands on, so there isn't much comparative data to look at. Based on what we've seen so far, the build quality of the CORSAIR DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB DDR5 modules is like no other. We'll update the review once we get our hands on additional RAM kits to provide comparative data.

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Intel Core i9-12900K Desktop Processor Review: Hybrid architecture works wonders

Intel certainly has a winner in their hands. The Intel 12th Gen Core “Alder Lake” Desktop processors outperform the Zen 3 based Ryzen 5000 processors in most of the benchmarks that we’ve tested the processors on. The hybrid architecture approach seems to work wonders and the ball is now in AMD’s court. For the enthusiasts, Alder Lake with DDR5 would be the go to combination for the sheer performance that it offers.

Intel is back with another desktop processor launch and this time, it’s the 12th Gen Intel Core “Alder Lake” family of desktop processors. These are based on their new hybrid microarchitecture which clubs traditional cores which are now called P-Cores (Performance Cores) with E-Cores (Efficiency Cores). This approach, which has been seen in Qualcomm SoC designs for ages, is now making its way onto the desktop. 12th Gen Intel Core Alder Lake CPUs are based on the Intel 7 process node (previously known as Intel 10nm Enhanced Super Fin process) and are touted to be more power efficient. We’ll see how that works out in the review but the SKU table which was revealed a couple of days ago during the Intel InnovatiON event shows the max Turbo Power to be around 241 watts with the base power being about 125 watts for the top-of-the-line Intel Core i9-12900K processor. It would seem that we’re in for an era where high wattage power supplies are soon going to be the norm. 

The new Intel 12th Gen Alder Lake processors will see the latest DDR5 memory standard making its way into the mainstream PC space. Without any overclocking, Z690 motherboards will support DRAM modules rated up to 4800 MT/s which is quite the step up from DDR4 modules. Although, affordability considered, DDR5 would be anything but mainstream for the next year or more. Intel knows this for a fact, which is why you will find Intel Z690 chipset based motherboard variants that support either DDR4 or DDR5. When used with DDR4, the 12th Gen processors will go up to 3200 MT/s. In the past, when memory standards were introduced, we could often see “combo” motherboards which would have a pair of slots supporting the latest DDR standard and a pair of slots for the older memory standard. Unfortunately, for this transition from DDR4 to DDR5, we have not come across any such “combo” boards, yet. There are some crazy motherboard designs out there and we just might get what we’re looking for in the next couple of months.

The Z690 isn’t the end of the road. After the initial launch period, expect to see more affordable motherboard designs based on the Q670, H670, B660, H610, W680 and W685 chipsets. These were leaked a while ago with the release of an Intel Chipset driver version "10.1.18836.8283". Also included in the leak was a mention of the X699 chipset. ‘X’ is usually used to denote the platform that’s used for Intel’s HEDT processors which haven’t seen the light of day for quite some time now. So we might just see powerful workstation processors from Intel in the coming months. 

Intel 12th Gen Core Alder Lake processor specifications

The Intel 12th Gen desktop processor lineup will only have six processors at launch. This includes two each under the Core i9, Core i7 and Core i5 segments. This leaves out budget PC builders for the second time in a row since even the 11th Gen Rocket Lake launch did not include any Core i3 processors. However, given how we already know that Intel has budget chipsets hidden away for a later launch, it’s quite obvious that they’ll have budget Core i3 processors under the Alder Lake family coming out soon. Meanwhile, here’s what the launch stack looks like.

Interesting thing to note here is that the base frequency for the P-Cores is a little lower than what we saw with the 11th Gen Rocket Lake desktop processors. While E-Cores didn’t exist in the previous microarchitecture, we did have T-Suffix 11th Gen Rocket Lake processors which had their base clock frequencies starting at 1.3 GHz. Not that it matters a lot, processors have various power levels and sleep states that allow for conservation of power and we could very well see the 12th Gen E-Cores consuming even less power than what the 11th Gen cores did.

The relationship between cores and threads has also changed with Intel 12th Gen CPUs. Only P-Cores sport multithreading, so if you’re trying to figure out the number of logical CPUs or threads then you need to double the number of P-Cores and add that to the number of E-Cores. Which is why the Core i9-12900K (8P/8E Cores) has 24 threads and the Core i5-12600K (8P/8E Cores) has 16 threads.

Depending on which RAM type you decide to get for your PC, you will experience different performance levels. Needless to say, DDR5 trumps DDR4 since the stable frequencies are much higher leading to better performance. However, expect DDR5 to be 60% more expensive and the motherboards sporting DDR5 support will be a tad pricier compared to the DDR4 cousins. 

Intel Core i9-12900K and Core i5-12600K Performance

Don’t be taken in by the presence of efficient E-Cores on Intel 12th Gen Alder Lake processors. The Core i9-12900K has a max turbo power of 241 watts and motherboard manufacturers tend to ignore such limits to boost performance. So expect the high-end processors to guzzle power like there’s no tomorrow. We tested both, the top of the line Core i9-12900K and the mid-range Core i5-12600K.

The units were reviewed on the following configuration:

Intel 12th Gen Test Rig CPU: Intel Core i9-12900K and Core i5-12600K Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z690 AORUS MASTER SSD: 2x WD Black SN850 1TB  HDD: Seagate FireCuda 2 TB ST2000DX002 RAM: Corsair DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB DDR5 32GB (2 x 16GB) @4800 MHz Cooler: Corsair H150i Elite LCD PSU: Cooler Master V1200

Cinebench

As always, we begin with Cinebench R20 to see how the processor fares in single threaded and multithreaded performance. Cinebench is often used by both Intel and AMD to showcase the impact of IPC improvements across generations. It renders a 3D scene and is based on Maxon’s Cinema4D, an animation, VFX and motion design software. 

In the single-threaded benchmark, the Intel Core i9-12900K scores 740 points showing tremendous gains over its predecessor, the Intel Core i9-11900K. The AMD Ryzen 9 5950X is nearly 100 points behind with a score of 644.

Even in the multithreaded run, the Intel Core i9-12900K goes straight to the top of the chart with a score of 10363 putting it ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X with a gap of 267 points. Intel’s 24 threads seem to do a better job than AMD’s 32 threads. It would be interesting to see how well it performs with DDR4 rather than DDR5. Vice-versa, we’d like to see what AMD can do with DDR5 as well. 

Handbrake

Our Handbrake run basically consists of transcoding a 1080p video clip from one CODEC to another while upscaling the resolution. In particular, we use a 1080p H.264 video and upscale it to an MKV 2160p file while retaining the same frame rate. The upscaling and switching to H.265 makes the process quite arduous on the processors. 

Handbrake benefits from both, high core count as well as high IPC. We track the average number of frames processed per second. We see the Intel Core i9-12900K take the lead yet again.

Blender

Blender is a fairly well known open-source rendering software used by movie studios as well as by game developers. There are standard benchmarking scenes on Blender and we use multiple iterations of the Classroom scene for our tests.

AMD still retains its lead in Blender workloads but the 12900K has narrowed the performance gap compared to the 11900K.

7-Zip

7-Zip is an open-source archiving software with really good and frequently updated algorithms that perform compression and decompression. It’s the frequent updates that make 7-Zip a good benchmark. It also scales well with higher core-counts so there’s an added advantage with 7-Zip over other archiving software.

7-Zip usually favours AMD’s Zen 3 processors over the Intel processors. Our scores from the Intel 10th Gen, 11th Gen and now 12th Gen all show lower performance than Intel processors. However, the gap between Intel and AMD has been lessened by a decent amount. 

Mozilla Kraken

Mozilla Kraken is a browser-based JavaScript benchmark that executes several real-world scenarios that everyone comes across while normally browsing the Internet. It includes a host of different use cases such as searching, audio processing, image filtering, cryptography and JSON parsing.

The Intel Core i9-12900K takes the lead in this benchmark as well. With a time of 468.9, it is faster than the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and the 5950X. 

Gaming (Discrete GPU)

In our gaming benchmarks, we run several new titles on the NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti. There are a host of different games based on a variety of current gen game engines using different graphics APIs such as DirectX11, 12, Vulkan and OpenGL.

The scores here are for Shadow of the Tomb Raider, The Witcher 3, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Strange Brigade. We’ve also averaged the FPS scores across the games and included that in the graph. We can clearly see that Intel is still the best for gaming with the 12900K leading the pack. The AMD processors come next followed by Intel’s 9th Gen and 10th Gen processors.

Intel Xe-LP iGPU performance

While Intel did show great improvement in the iGPU performance with 11th Gen, it seems that the faster memory and faster DMI bus has improved gaming on the iGPU by a decent amount. The Intel Core i9-12900K is powered by Intel UHD 770 graphics which seems to just about equal the performance of the AMD Ryzen 3 3200G. It still has a long way to go before catching up with AMD’s GPUs especially since the latest Ryzen 7 5700G took things to a whole new level. 

Verdict

Intel certainly has a winner in their hands. The Intel 12th Gen Core “Alder Lake” Desktop processors outperform the Zen 3 based Ryzen 5000 processors in most of the benchmarks that we’ve tested the processors on. The hybrid architecture approach seems to work wonders and the ball is now in AMD’s court. For the enthusiasts, Alder Lake with DDR5 would be the go to combination for the sheer performance that it offers.

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AMD Ryzen 7 5700G Desktop Processor APU Review: Supercharged APU

With the introduction of these new Cezanne APUs, DIY PC builders certainly have more processors to pick from but the decision isn't as simple as is the case with Intel. When you switch from a K or a non-K processor to an F processor from Intel, you don't lose out on performance in all other aspects. That is not the case with AMD as the APUs are rated for 65W and don't perform as well as their X counterparts. Moreover, the lower L3 Cache also reduces performance compared to other Zen 3 processors. On the bright side, the IGP continues to be ahead of both Intel and older gen AMD processors, and with the introduction of FSR, these APUs do not require a discrete graphics card in some competitive video games. This would have been a much sweeter deal had AMD launched entry-level Ryzen 5000 APUs but for now, these will do.

AMD has been on a roll after they came out with the Zen 3-based Ryzen 5000 series desktop processors and we’re now getting to see the launch of their Ryzen 5000 series APUs. Today’s launch is about the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G and Ryzen 7 5700G which are both part of the Cezanne family which have been exclusively for OEMs until today’s launch. OEMs have had access to the Ryzen 5 5600G and Ryzen 7 5700G since April this year and at the COMPUTEX keynote, AMD CEO, Lisa Su announced that these processors would be hitting retail availability in August. Unfortunately, the retail buyers will only have access to the mid-range and high-end APUs in the form of these two SKUs while the rest of the Cezanne lineup consisting of the Ryzen 3 5300GE, PRO 5350GE, 5300G, Ryzen 5 5600GE, PRO 5650GE, PRO 5650G, Ryzen 7 5700GE, PRO 5750GE and PRO 5750G, will remain exclusive to OEMs. The AMD Ryzen 5 5600G is priced at USD 259 (approximately INR 22,687 after taxes) and the AMD Ryzen 7 5700G will sell for USD 359 (approximately INR 34,600 after taxes).

APUs are generally favoured in the entry-level segment as it is targeted towards folks who’d like to save some money by not having to purchase a discrete graphics card. We, on the other hand, don’t mind every processor having an IGP (or iGPU) as a backup. It’s quite helpful when we are troubleshooting our PCs. However, such ‘backup’ IGPs aren’t always powerful since they are usually integrated into the same package and the extra heat generated by the IGPs keep the CPU cores from flexing their full potential. AMD’s APUs have been much more powerful than what Intel has had and that continues to be the case. Today’s launch is a slightly confusing one since mid-range and high-end DIY PC builders will often get a discrete graphics card making the IGP redundant. So it only makes sense if the IGP does not take away from the CPU’s performance potential. Let’s see if that’s the case here.

AMD RYZEN 7 5700G and Ryzen 5 5600G Cezanne Specifications

The two new APUs fall within the mid-range and high-end segments considering their core counts. When compared to their CPU counterparts such as the Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 7 5700X within the same segments, we see that these new APUs feature the same or better base clocks which is a good thing but the boost clocks are a bit lower. Having an IGP can bring down the boost clocks since they put out quite a bit of heat.

  Ryzen 5 Ryzen 7 Ryzen 9 CPU 5600G 5600X 5700G 5800X 5950X 5900X Base Clock 3.9 GHz 3.7 GHz 3.8 GHz 3.8 GHz 3.4 GHz 3.7 GHz Boost Clock 4.4 GHz 4.6 GHz 4.6 GHz 4.7 GHz 4.9 GHz 4.8 GHz Process Node TSMC 7 nm TSMC 7 nm TSMC 7 nm TSMC 7 nm TSMC 7 nm TSMC 7 nm Cores 6 6 8 8 16 12 Threads 12 12 16 16 32 24 GPU Cores 7 NA 8 NA NA NA GPU Freq. 1900 MHz NA 2000 MHz NA NA NA L3 Cache 16 MB 32 MB 16 MB 32 MB 64 MB 64 MB TDP 65 W 65 W 65 W 105 W 105 W 105 W Price (USD) $259 $299 $359 $449 $799 $549 Price (Rupees) Rs.22,687 Rs. 26,125 Rs. 34,600 Rs. 39,233 Rs. 72,000 Rs. 50,000 DRAM freq. support 3200 MHz 3200 MHz 3200 MHz 3200 MHz 3200 MHz 3200 MHz Bundled Cooler Wraith Wraith Stealth Wraith None None None

More interestingly, the L3 Cache for both the APUs are half of what the Vermeer processors have and even the TDP has been dropped to 65W. So we can’t expect the same performance from the G variants as the X variants. As for the IGPs, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G has 7 Radeon Compute Units with a core configuration of 448:28:8 (Shaders: Texture Mapping Units: ROPs) and the AMD Ryzen 7 5700G has 8 Radeon Compute Units giving it a core configuration of 512:32:8 (Shaders: Texture Mapping Units: ROPs). AMD’s IGP will also work with AMD FSR (Fidelity Super Resolution) which is an upscaling algorithm to help boost frame rates in video games by rendering frames at lower resolutions and upscaling them. This addition will make the IGPs in all compatible AMD APUs much more powerful than what Intel can muster.

Another thing to note is that these APUs only support PCIe Gen 3.0. While gaming is not going to be affected, you will not be able to make use of the full potential of PCIe Gen 4.0 NVMe SSDs if you're using these new APUs.

AMD RYZEN 7 5700G Performance

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700G is an APU at the end of the day. So while we will benchmark it against other CPUs in the vicinity of its price range and core count, we will also be dedicating additional benchmarks for exploring the performance of its IGP. And to help make sense of who should be buying these new APUs. Let’s see how that pans out in the benchmarks.

We tested the unit on the following configuration: AMD RYZEN TEST RIG CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5700G Motherboard: MSI MPG B550I GAMING EDGE WIFI SSD: Samsung 970 PRO 1TB HDD: Seagate FireCuda 2 TB ST2000DX002 RAM: Corsair Dominator PRO 16 GB (2x 8GB) @3200 MHz Cooler: Corsair H115i Pro PSU: Cooler Master V1200

Cinebench R20 Our CPU benchmark tests begin with Cinebench and we’re showcasing R20 since that was used to test a lot of older gen processors. In the single-threaded benchmark, we see that the Ryzen 7 5700G scores 588 points which makes it the first sub-600 scorer in the Ryzen 5000 family. In the multithreaded run, it scores 5500 which is way below the Ryzen 7 5800X’s score of 5994. The Ryzen 7 5700G with its 65W TDP is nowhere close to matching the Ryzen 7 5800X despite having the same number of cores. It’s higher than the Intel Core i5-11600K but that’s a 6 Core / 12 Thread processor and the 5700G has two additional cores so it’s not as impressive.

POV-Ray POV-Ray is a ray-tracing software that can render scenes with multiple light sources interacting with varying textures mapped onto complex geometry. It’s a good benchmark for showcasing the 3D content creation prowess of hardware such as CPUs and GPUs. Here we see the AMD Ryzen 7 5700G perform quite similar to the older Ryzen 5 3600X. The 3600X was a 95W TDP processor, so coming close to its score with a 65W processor is noteworthy but it does fall way behind the 5600X.

Handbrake Our Handbrake run basically consists of transcoding a 4K video clip from one CODEC to another without changing the resolution. Handbrake is quick to incorporate new CPU encoding engines and is favoured among the ‘creator community’. The AMD Ryzen 5 5700G somewhat equals the Ryzen 7 3800X which is also an 8-Core processor, however, it is from the previous generation and uses the older Zen 2 microarchitecture.

Blender Blender is a fairly well known open-source rendering software. In this benchmark, we're looking at the time taken for a run to finish rendering. So the lower the score in this test, the better the CPU. The AMD Ryzen 7 5700G with its 8 cores finally chugs ahead of the 5600X in this benchmark and even equals the 10900K.

7-Zip 7-Zip isn’t as CPU intensive but it is quick to adopt the latest CPU features that would aid in improving its compression/decompression rate. Here we see the higher core count, as well as the higher IPC, help out the AMD Ryzen 7 5700G in coming close to its 8-Core X-counterpart, the 5800X.

Mozilla Kraken Mozilla Kraken is a JavaScript benchmark to measure browser performance. It includes several common JavaScript libraries used to test common use cases such as searching, audio processing, image filtering, JSON data parsing and cryptographic routines. We see the AMD Ryzen 7 5700G stand in file with the rest of the Zen 3 processors in this benchmark.

Gaming with Discrete Graphics Card Since we’re dealing with an APU here. We’ve broken the gaming benchmarks into two sections. One dealing with a discrete GPU installed and the other leveraging the integrated Radeon Graphics. First, we ran the benchmarks for the discrete graphics to see if the CPU takes a hit on account of including an IGP and we can see that the AMD Ryzen 7 5700G does indeed lose out on 13-15 per cent performance compared to the 5600X or the 5800X.

Gaming on Integrated Graphics The AMD Ryzen 7 5700G features 8 Radeon Vega Compute Units with a total of 512 Unified Shaders and is clocked at 2 GHz. The IGP uses the system memory so if you’re getting an APU, it’s best to opt for more memory just in case. The good aspect about these new APUs is that they support AMD’s new Fidelity Super Resolution (FSR) feature that helps get higher frame rates so we’re going to see how much of a difference that brings to the table. We first ran 3DMark Time Spy on the new AMD Ryzen 7 5700G to compare it with the older gen Ryzen 5 3400G, Ryzen 3 3200G and Intel’s 10th and 11th Gen processors. We even threw in an NVIDIA GTX 1650 to add some perspective. The performance of the IGP in the 5700G is about 42.5 per cent of what the GTX 1650 is capable of. Compared to the 3400G, it is about 22 per cent better. But, these are synthetic benchmarks and actual game benchmarks portray a different picture.

In competitive games such as CS:GO, Dota 2 and Fortnite, the AMD Ryzen 7 5700G scored 220, 64 and 91 FPS, respectively. Whereas games such as Shadow of the Tomb Raider and The Witcher 3 were a little taxing bring the frame rate down to 44 and 34 FPS, respectively. All tests were done at 1080p at low settings.

FSR Finally, we switched on FSR to see how much of an improvement could we get on the new APU. Not a lot of titles are supported at the moment so we tested them on some of the titles AMD had shared with us previously. The performance increment varies from one game to another but the improvement is quite noticeable and makes for a much better gaming experience. In some titles, the improvement could be nearly 2x as was the case in The Riftbreaker whereas, in Godfall, the bump was 19 per cent.

Verdict

With the introduction of these new Cezanne APUs, DIY PC builders certainly have more processors to pick from but the decision isn't as simple as is the case with Intel. When you switch from a K or a non-K processor to an F processor from Intel, you don't lose out on performance in all other aspects. That is not the case with AMD as the APUs are rated for 65W and don't perform as well as their X counterparts. Moreover, the lower L3 Cache also reduces performance compared to other Zen 3 processors. On the bright side, the IGP continues to be ahead of both Intel and older gen AMD processors, and with the introduction of FSR, these APUs do not require a discrete graphics card in some competitive video games. This would have been a much sweeter deal had AMD launched entry-level Ryzen 5000 APUs but for now, these will do.

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