AMD Ryzen & Athlon Budget PC builds

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PRICES SHOWN BELOW ARE IN EUROS AND ARE NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF ACTUAL PRICING SO PLEASE BEAR THAT IN MIND:

An AMD APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) is a combination of a CPU and a GPU in one package, you can add a graphics card at a later date to your new PC build when you can afford it and if and when the prices for GPU's come down.

Hi all,

anyone wishing to do a PC upgrade but cannot really afford too much should consider starting with an AMD build with integrated graphics card (AMD call them APU's) to keep the costs down.
The following suggestions are working on the assumption that you already have a:

PC case with a PSU (Power supply unit). Make sure you check the power requirements for your preferred APU!
Keyboard & Mouse
Windows 10 licence or any other Windows licence or free OS from Linux/Unix (Ubuntu/Manajro/TrueOS etc)
DVD drive/HDD or SSD

You will just need to buy an APU, new AM4 motherboard and 8GB (or more) of DDR4 RAM (Memory). The APU's should be set to use 2GB of RAM in your system BIOS to get the full benefit of the integrated graphics!.

First on the list is the new Athlon 200GE with the following specs:

Graphics Model: Radeon™ Vega 3 Graphics
# of CPU Cores: 2
# of Threads: 4
Max Boost Clock: 3.2GHz
Base Clock: 3.2GHz
Default TDP / TDP: 35W
*THERE IS NO THERMAL SOLUTION (CPU fan) PROVIDED WITH THIS MODEL AND YOU WOULD HAVE TO BUY A CPU FAN SUITABLE FOR THIS APU!. IT MIGHT COST AROUND €15.

https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-athlon-200ge

Price around €56

This model is the cheapest and will allow you to do light mainly E-Sports gaming (older PC games should be okay?) as well as normal everyday computing tasks that don't require huge amounts of system resources/memory.


Second on the list is the Ryzen 3 2200G:

Graphics Model: Radeon™ Vega 8 Graphics
# of CPU Cores: 4
# of Threads: 4
Max Boost Clock: 3.7GHz
Base Clock: 3.5GHz
Thermal Solution: Wraith Stealth CPU fan included
Default TDP / TDP: 65W

https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-3-2200g

Price around €100

This model is a good option for gamers whereby you can play most games (even some triple A titles) at 1080p, some would have to be set to 720p, this will vary from game to game and this is working on the assumption that you have indeed allocated 2GB of RAM to the integrated graphics card in BIOS!.

The third option is the Ryzen 5 2400G:

Graphics Model: Radeon™ RX Vega 11 Graphics
# of CPU Cores: 4
# of Threads: 8
Max Boost Clock: 3.9GHz
Base Clock: 3.6GHz
Thermal Solution: Wraith Stealth CPU fan included
Default TDP / TDP: 65W

https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-5-2400g

Price around €150

This model is a good option for gamers whereby you can play nearly all games (including many triple A titles, some at 900 or 720p) at 1080p, this is working on the assumption that you have indeed allocated 2GB of RAM to the integrated graphics card in BIOS!.

Apart from the APU, you will also need a new AM4 motherboard (supported up to at least the year 2020), and new DDR4 RAM (Memory).

A320 or B320 motherboards are reasonably cheap starting at around €55, DDR4 Ram is the expensive part and will cost around €80 for an 8GB stick. (MAKE SURE THAT THE TERM "RYZEN READY" IS PASTED ON THE MOTHERBOARD BOX!).

https://www.amd.com/en/products/chipsets-am4

Basically, you can upgrade your PC (using 8GB RAM) for about €205 - €285, depending on which APU and motherboard /amount of RAM you choose.


???????Why are there no Intel IGPU's listed on this page??????.

Intel IGPU's are nowhere near as good as those from AMD, yes they are okay for normal everyday tasks and watching a video but not for modern or even some older games!. (This is my opinion and I'm sticking to it!).

Another budget option is to use the new Athlon X4 950 CPU and a dedicated GPU like the Nvidia GT1030 (DDR5 model only, don't buy the DDR4 version!).

https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/7th-gen-amd-athlon-x4-950

https://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gt-1030/specifications

AMD CPU + Nvidia GPU with 8GB DDR4 RAM and motherboard might be around €255 - €265


I hope this is of help to you. :):):)
 
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