AMD Ryzen 7 5000 G-Series 5700G 8-core AM4

The Ryzen 7 5700G is the best budget APU on the market right now. 8 cores, 16 threads, and a Radeon iGPU that actually plays games at 1080p. Prices range from $157 to $259 in the US, so shop around and grab the cheap Newegg listings. If you need a complete PC without a discrete GPU, this is the chip to get.

The 5700G puts up a PassMark multi-thread score of 24,248, which lands it in the top 20% of all CPUs we track. For a 65W part, that's seriously impressive. You're getting real 8-core performance without needing a beefy cooler or a high-end motherboard. The single-thread score of 3,282 is also strong, putting it in the top 16% of our database. That translates to snappy everyday performance, fast app launches, and solid responsiveness in lightly threaded tasks like web browsing and office work.

The integrated graphics are the real story here. The Radeon iGPU runs on the same 7nm process as the CPU cores, and it's clocked high enough to handle 1080p gaming in esports titles like CS:GO, Valorant, and League of Legends without breaking a sweat. You'll need to dial settings down for newer AAA games, but the fact that you can play them at all without a discrete GPU is remarkable. The trade-off is PCIe 3.0 instead of 4.0, which means you won't get the absolute fastest SSD speeds or full bandwidth for a future GPU upgrade. For most people, that's a non-issue. For someone planning to drop an RTX 4090 in later, it's a minor bottleneck.

The 5700G sits in a weird spot compared to its competitors. Against the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, it's not even close in raw performance. The 285K is a flagship part with way more cores and much higher clocks. But it also costs a fortune and doesn't have integrated graphics worth mentioning. If you're building a budget system, the 285K is irrelevant. The 5700G wins on value and efficiency every time.

Against other AM4 options, the 5700G's main competition is the Ryzen 5 5600G and the Ryzen 7 5800X. The 5600G is cheaper but has 2 fewer cores and 4 fewer threads. The 5800X is faster but has no integrated graphics and costs more. The 5700G splits the difference perfectly. You get the 8-core count of the 5800X with the iGPU of the 5600G. For most budget builders, that's the sweet spot. The Dell Xeon E5-2637 V2 and KOMQI Core i5 BX80646I54590S are older parts that don't really compete on modern platforms. The G.Skill Trident Z Neo and be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 5 are memory and cooler products, not CPUs, so they're not direct comparisons.

The 5700G is a value monster, but you need to shop around. US prices range from $157 to $259 across six listings, which is a $102 spread. That's wild. The cheapest listings on Newegg are the way to go if you're in the US. In Canada, prices range from CAD 279 to CAD 340, a CAD 61 spread. Again, Newegg has the best deals there too. At the low end of that range, you're getting 8 cores, 16 threads, and a usable iGPU for less than the price of many mid-range discrete GPUs alone.

When you factor in what this chip replaces, the value gets even better. You don't need a graphics card, which saves you $200 to $500 right there. You don't need an expensive cooler because 65W is easy to manage. You don't need a fancy motherboard because AM4 boards are cheap and plentiful. The total platform cost is dramatically lower than building around a comparable CPU plus a discrete GPU. That's the real value proposition here.

The Ryzen 7 5700G is one of those chips that quietly became a legend for budget builders. It packs 8 cores and 16 threads of Zen 3 goodness onto a 65W TDP, and then throws in a Radeon iGPU that's genuinely usable for gaming. That combo means you can build a whole PC without a graphics card and still play real games at 1080p. During the GPU shortage years, this thing was a lifeline. Even now, it's a smart pick for anyone who wants a capable machine without dropping hundreds on a discrete GPU.

Who's this for? Someone building a home office PC that can also handle light gaming. Or a media server that sips power. Or a kid's first gaming rig where you don't want to spend GPU money yet. The integrated Radeon Graphics aren't going to blow anyone away, but they're far better than Intel's old UHD stuff. You can actually play esports titles and older AAA games without wanting to throw your monitor out the window.

The interesting part is how well this chip balances everything. It's not the fastest CPU on the market, but it's efficient, cheap, and flexible. The 4.6GHz boost clock and 16MB of L3 cache keep things snappy in everyday use. And since it's on Socket AM4, you've got a massive ecosystem of affordable motherboards and DDR4 memory to pair it with. That platform maturity is a big deal when you're trying to keep costs down.

If you're building a serious gaming rig and plan to buy a discrete GPU within a few months, skip the 5700G. The halved L3 cache compared to the 5700X means slightly lower CPU performance, and the PCIe 3.0 limitation will hold back high-end GPUs. You'd be better off with a Ryzen 7 5700X or 5800X and a cheap used GPU to tide you over.

If you need maximum multi-threaded performance for rendering, video editing, or other heavy workloads, this isn't the chip for you. The 65W TDP limits sustained boost clocks, and the 16MB of L3 cache is half what the non-G Ryzen 7 parts get. Look at the Ryzen 7 5800X or Ryzen 9 5900X if you need real workstation performance. And if you're building a server or NAS, the 5700G's server score of 58.8 out of 100 in our database tells the story. There are better options for that use case.

For a budget gaming PC or a home office machine that can handle light gaming, the 5700G is an easy recommendation. The integrated graphics are good enough for 1080p esports and older titles, and the 8-core CPU performance means you won't feel limited in everyday tasks. Pair it with a B550 motherboard, 16GB of DDR4, and a decent NVMe SSD, and you've got a capable machine for under $500 in most cases.

If you're planning to add a discrete GPU later, the 5700G is still a solid starting point. The PCIe 3.0 limitation is real but overblown for most GPUs. You'll lose a few percent of performance compared to PCIe 4.0, but it's not a dealbreaker. The bigger consideration is that the 5700G's CPU performance is slightly behind the non-G Ryzen 7 5700X due to the halved L3 cache. If you know you'll add a GPU soon and don't need the iGPU, the 5700X might be the better buy. But if you want a complete system today without a GPU, the 5700G is the clear choice.