AMD Ryzen 3 5300G Review: The Best APU Not on the Market

[harlan4096]

Tantalizing but out of reach

If it were available on store shelves, AMD's as-yet unreleased-to-retail Ryzen 3 5300G would be the best value APU on the market. In fact, with four Zen 3 CPU cores and eight threads paired with the surprisingly still-powerful Vega 6 graphics engine, this chip could revitalize the value chip segment if priced in the $130 to $150 range. However, for now, this Cezzane chip and its surprisingly potent integrated graphics remain confined to often-crippled OEM systems — AMD hasn't brought it to retail yet. But as we've seen with the 5300Gs' more powerful counterparts, AMD could choose to open these up to DIYers, upsetting our CPU Benchmark Hierarchy and setting up a pitched battle for supremacy on both our Best CPUs and Best Cheap CPUs rankings.

AMD's first salvo of 7nm 'Cezanne' APUs for desktop PCs proved to be exceptionally attractive during these soul-crushing times of the GPU shortage. Those chips come bristling with the most potent integrated graphics you can get in an x86 desktop chip, and remarkably, they've remained in stock at suggested pricing since launch — a rarity in this silicon-starved world. Provided that you align your expectations accordingly, both the $359 Ryzen 7 5700G and $259 Ryzen 5 5600G serve up impressive iGPU gaming performance, showing that the Zen 3 architecture paired with Vega graphics can still outclass the best integrated graphics that Intel has to offer.

AMD's Ryzen 5000G chips mark a huge step forward, but the company's decision to keep the Ryzen 3 5300G off of store shelves is disappointing. That's probably because the chip is too good for its own good, though.

Assuming that AMD would price the 5300G at $150, it would retail for 60% less than $359 5700G and 40% less than the $259 5600G. However, according to our testing, the Ryzen 3 5300G delivers 86% of the gaming performance of the 5700G and 90% of the 5600G at 1280x720. That's a great value if we focus specifically on integrated graphics performance, which is really the only reason to consider buying this chip. However, it's clear that this could siphon away AMD's sales of pricier alternatives. 

AMD Ryzen 5000 G-Series 65W Cezanne APUs
CPU Arch. Price Cores/ Threads Base/ Boost Freq. GPU Cores GPU Freq. (MHz) TDP L3 (MB)

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Ryzen 7 5700G Zen 3 $359 8 / 16 3.8 / 4.6 RX Vega 8 2000 65W 16
Ryzen 5 5600G Zen 3 $259 6 / 12 3.9 / 4.4 RX Vega 7 1900 65W 16
Ryzen 3 5300G Zen 3 N/A (possibly ~$150) 4 / 8 4.0 / 4.2 RX Vega 6 1700 65W 8

That wouldn't make good business sense for AMD because it certainly doesn't have any issues selling its Ryzen chips at a premium. Besides, before the Ryzen 5000G chips came to market, AMD had already put its APU lineup on the backburner for a few years — the Cezanne chips arrived three chip generations (Zen 2, XT, Zen 3) after AMD launched its last round of 12nm quad-core Zen+ APUs for the DIY market in 2019 — so in many ways, this is more of the same.

AMD still hasn't brought any Zen 3-powered Ryzen 3 chip to retail yet, or the three 35W GE-Series APUs that would also be great lower-priced chips.

AMD has used the 5000G series to plug pricing gaps in its Ryzen 5000 lineup, the company insists they serve as replacements for the traditional non-X equivalents (we disagree), and the Ryzen 5 5600G lowered the steep $299 price of entry to Ryzen 5000 down to $259.

That's still plenty expensive for the cheapest Zen 3 chip, so a $150 Ryzen 3 5300G, conceivably with a bundled cooler, would be a boon for enthusiasts, especially for extreme budget gaming rigs while we wait out the GPU shortage, or small form factor and HTPC rigs.

Our list of Best Cheap CPUs could certainly use an update, too: There simply hasn't been any significant releases of cheaper CPUs in the recent past, and most of our top picks sell well above standard pricing or simply aren't available. Given that cryptocurrency mining has risen in popularity again, we don't expect GPU pricing to normalize any time soon, either. All of which would make the Ryzen 3 5300G an almost perfect solution for value seekers, especially given its great performance in our integrated graphics test suite. 

AMD Ryzen 3 5300G Specifications and Pricing

The Ryzen 5000G 'Cezanne' family spans from four to eight cores and has the Zen 3 architecture that provides a 19% IPC uplift over the Zen 2 architecture used in the previous-gen Ryzen 4000G models (those chips never came to retail, though). We've covered Cezanne's architectural details here. 
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