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Comment by declan_roberts | Hacker News Reader

For a desktop without an additional $200-$500 graphics card this is impressive.

Why can't we just acknowledge that "extreme gaming" in a rather absurd term to describe the APU in question? The fact that the performance doesn't suck as much as it used to doesn't make it less absurd.

Extreme gaming is close to maxing out currently available performance oriented hardware regardless the cost so unless those APUs can produce results comparable to top of the line CPU paired with something like RTX4090, it doesn't belong with "extreme gaming" in any way.

This type of language is used everywhere in the gaming hardware segment. I think it is kinda tacky, but it has to be working if the entire industry adopted it.

Intel's 2nd generation UMA GPUs, which were branded "Intel Extreme Graphics", were likewise far from extreme.

I just sold my old GTX 1050 Ti for $35, and it vastly outperforms Vega 11.

iGPUs are useful, they just aren't great value for budget gaming PCs (unless we're talking super-duper low budget, where a $50 used GPU is really going to break the bank). HTPC/NAS that's going to run Jackbox at 4K occasionally? Great use case for an R5 with an iGPU.

Why are you comparing to Vega? These new chips have RDNA iGPUs.

While I agree that buying a used GPU will be probably net you better performance per dollar, the 1050Ti is significantly slower than the 780M and even 760M and uses significantly more power.

Some benchmarks can be seen here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n1Cjnep8j-o

A couple reasons: Vega 11 is the best iGPU on a desktop CPU that you can actually buy right now. Preliminary benchmarks on engineering samples are fun to ogle at, but aren't necessarily an accurate representation of the product that will actually land on your local Microcenter's shelves. Then there's the estimated MSRP - only the 8500G's $180 price tag fits the "budget gaming PC" description, and even that's pushing it. You can also buy a better GPU than a 1050Ti for less than $50 used.

That price range might have been accurate 7 years ago, but modern graphics cards for gaming range from $300 to $1000 with the highest level pushing $2000 thanks to the AI craze. The higher prices make quality iGPUs all the more relevent - especially since the "gamer" demographic continues growing and many of the most popular games are not particularly demanding.

Platforms, especially AM5, are very expensive too. Ryzen 8000 is far slower than even the slowest new discrete GPU.

The real value option is buying an older platform (AM4) and a used discrete GPU, from back when prices were more sane.

... if electricity was free.

Power efficiency wise, a discrete GPU won't compare favorably.

Dunno if thats true.

Assume mid range 200w gpu. Assume 20 eurocents per kWh (I live in the northern europe and pay about as much on a flexible contract). Assume a decent PSU. A year of gaming (assume, very optimistically, 365hrs) is circa 17 eur for the electricity. Considering relative perf differences, I'd say a discrete GPU compares favourably.

It would be more useful to compare idle power, APU vs chiplet-based CPU + discrete GPU combo.

65W TDP for CPU + GPU in power-constrained environments, or when you want to have less battery storage requirements for renewables/backup power, is quite the boon.

I had a 5700G (I think) last year and the system would go up to 150W max. I could survive about 2-3h of no electricity with my small inverter battery setup if I kept usage minimal (no work, no gaming). Handy performance wise for a mostly work machine with some indie gaming on the side, but these 8000 series are under half that wattage.

Admittedly this isn't the most common need/concern, but it's good to know options are getting better all the time.

A used graphics card good enough to play 1080p games on low settings would not be very expensive at all.

You can find used 1080ti's for like $100 nowadays. I still use one for 1440p gaming and get excellent frames with most games. Kinda mind blowing value

Aren't these the remnants of the Bitcoin gold-rush age?

this GPU was so good at the time that it started cannibalizing sales of higher end data center cards, and Nvidia had to put terms in the EULA for the drivers to try to legally prevent this.

100% 1080Ti is insane value, I have two of them and zero complaints, the 11 gigs of vram make it great for inference as well.

Please tell me where I can get a used 1080 ti (that works) for $100.

6 seconds. This one is $90.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/375175111524?hash=item575a2de364:g:...

Wow, at that price they even threw in the zip tie?

That's a 1080 (8GB), not a 1080 Ti (11GB).

But, I believe you that they're out there.

I actually bought an RX 580 8 GB new for 139 EUR last year (most likely sat around some warehouse in an unopened box for years) - it has no issues running most indie games or even the decently optimized AAA games at 1080p, which was an upgrade over my previous RX 570 4 GB.

The only actual issues I ran into were when I tried running it for PCVR (Quest 2) because the latest drivers actually cause crashes and instability, although I could fix that by rolling back to either the 2020 or 2022 drivers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38870500

Sometimes hardware from generations ago is not only decently affordable, but also sufficient for what you want to do, as long as your standards aren't super high. Getting some of that hardware with no previous owners also feels a bit interesting, albeit I've also bought used CPUs off of AliExpress for my homelab servers with no issues either.

Not really, since the APUs themselves are historically quite expensive.

That hasn’t been true for the Zen based models at least. The 5700G and now the 8700G occupy the $350-370 price slot. My comparable 13th gen Intel CPU with lesser graphics was the same price. That’s a great value for a casual gamer.

I’m sure at some point we’ll see Intel based APU equivalents on desktop with some teeth. Intel needs to solve their driver issues first.

> That’s a great value for a casual gamer.

It depends. If you're truly performance insensitive and have to buy new, maybe, but these APUs are extremely slow compared to even older, low end discrete GPUs.

AM5 is an expensive platform. The total cost of a DDR4 platform is peanuts in comparison.

The cpus are currently significantly more expensive, yes, but is the AM5 platform that much more expensive than AM4?

On AM4, pcpartpicker says I can get an A520M board for $70, and 2x16GB DDR4-3600 CL18 for $55; total $125

On AM5, an A620M board is $75, and 2x16GB DDR5-5600 starts at $76; total $151.

The real question is where the Microcenter bundle pricing will end up, if you live near a Microcenter.

Mmm, A620 has come down considerably since I last checked. That's good.

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