Ryzen 7 8700G & Ryzen 5 8600G Review: AMD Zen 4 With A Potent Radeon GPU

Throughout all of our benchmarking and testing, we also monitored how much power our Intel 14th Gen Core-powered rig was consuming with a power meter, versus the other systems we used for comparison.

AMD Ryzen 8000G Total System Power Consumption

Our goal was to give you an idea as to how much power each configuration used while idling at the Windows desktop and while under taxing CPU workloads across one or all cores. Keep in mind, this is total system power consumption being measured at the outlet and not the the individual power being drawn by the CPUs alone.


When paired with a B650-based motherboard, like the ASRock model we used for testing, the AMD Ryzen 5 8600G and Ryzen 7 8700G are very power friendly solutions. At idle and under full-load, the AMD Ryzen 5 8600G and Ryzen 7 8700G-powered system, with or without a discrete GPU, consumed the least amount of power of the bunch. That said, we want to point out that the other socket AM5 processors were tested in an enthusiast-class X670E-based motherboard. The X670E is a two-chip solution, with much more IO, and the board has many more integrated peripherals. Overall power consumption would have been higher with the Ryzen 5 8600G and Ryzen 7 8700G if tested in the same X670E-based motherboard. The B650, however, is better suited to mainstream APUs like Ryzen 8000G series, and AMD recommended testing in the B650.


How power, frequencies, and thermals play out in a variety of workloads with the Ryzen 7 8700G is detailed in the chart above. All of this data is gathered through a full PCMark 10 run. As you can see, the Ryzen 7 8700G remains nearly pegged at its Turbo frequencies throughout, and temperature and power consumption are relatively tame for most of the run. Once the sustained, multi-threaded POV-Ray workload is engaged at the end, however, power and thermals peak, with the Ryzen 7 8700G hitting nearly 80°C. Note, however, that temperature was recorded using the stock, included air cooler. With a more powerful cooling solution, temperatures would likely be much lower.


With a simulated gaming workload using 3DMark, CPU frequencies with the Ryzen 7 8700G remain mostly level, just shy of 5GHz, throughout the run and temps remain moderate for most of the graphics tests. Once the multi-threaded CPU Physics test kicks off in the final stage though, temps swing somewhat, but since the iGPU and CPU cores are designed to share any available power and thermal headroom, temperatures remain mostly stable.

For a bit more detail into how the Ryzen 7 8700G behaves with a fully CPU-bound, multi-threaded workload, here's a glimps at Ryzen Master while Cinebench is looping in the background. With the stock AMD air-cooler, the chip next breaks the 90°C mark, so thermal throttling is a non-issue. The CPU frequency remains mostly stable at about 4.6GHz with all of the cores taxed, and performance is effectively limited by total package power. With that information in hand, we attempted to overlcock the Ryzen 7 8700G using PBO (Precision Boost Overdrive) and the AutoOC functions in Ryzen Master, but didn't see any significant uplift in performance. We're sure there's some headroom available, but time constraints prevented us from digging in further.

AMD Ryzen 5 8600G & Ryzen 7 8700G: The Review Verdict

The AMD Ryzen 5 8600G and Ryzen 7 8700G are great all-around processors, that offer plenty of performance for just about any mainstream use case. AMD’s six and eight core processors typically hit the sweet spot of the market, for users that don’t need massive multi-threaded performance. Pairing those Zen 4 cores to what is currently the most powerful desktop iGPU is a great match, that results in strong performance across a variety of workloads, with power-friendly characteristics to boot. The performance of the Ryzen 7 8700G, especially when used with higher-clocked memory, is on-par with other 8-core processors paired to mainstream discrete graphics like a GeForce GTX 1650 or Radeon RX 5500, while the entire platform consumes a fraction of the power of higher-end offerings.

Users looking for a mainstream platform with strong CPU and integrated graphics performance will be well served by the AMD Ryzen 5 8600G or Ryzen 7 8700G. They would make a great foundation for anything from an HTPC, to an everyday desktop, to a retro-gaming emulation platform. They would also technically be a good entry point for users on a tight budget that may want to build a basic, current-gen PC gaming system today and upgrade to a more powerful discrete graphics solution later. There’s are many scenarios where these chips would be a good fit.

Overall, the AMD Ryzen 5 8600G and Ryzen 7 8700G are good values that offer strong all-around performance in their respective price segments. If you’re looking for a mainstream processor, that’s “AI PC” ready, and features some of the best integrated graphics performance out there, they are an easy recommendation.