Conclusion
In this gaming performance review, we took a look at iGPU specific performance of the AMD Athlon 3000G APU. This follows our look at the CPU specific performance review we published prior to this follow-up.
The AMD Athlon 3000G is a $49 APU that contains integrated AMD Radeon Vega 3 graphics. It is a 2 core/4 thread CPU with Vega 3 graphics containing 3 CUs for graphics. This APU is an entry-level APU also an entry-level gaming APU with its iGPU. What makes this APU unique is its ability to overclock both the CPU frequency and the Vega 3 graphics iGPU frequency. In this way, it has the potential to bring even more performance for just $50. It’s truly an enthusiast APU with a value that is unique. And, it is widely available for purchase.
AMD Athlon 3000G Default Vega 3 Game Performance
This article today was focused purely on the game performance of this APU, basically how good is Vega 3 for playing games. Well, the answer isn’t a positive one. Yes, granted, this is meant to be entry-level gaming, but it’s actually quite a bit less in actual usability for games at its default performance.
In every game, save for a 7-year old game, the game performance was at levels that were simply not playable. This is even at 720p with the absolute lowest settings the games could go. There’s no other option to go lower in these games, except to drop to an absurd 800×600 or 640×480 resolution, and then a lot of current games don’t work at those resolutions or even have the option for resolutions that low. 720p is the standard “low” resolution these days and keeps to the 16:9 aspect ratio. Yet, this Vega 3 at default couldn’t even muster that. Framerates were just at unplayable levels in every game and we could not enjoy any of them, save for one.
Grand Theft Auto V was the outlier, this 7-year old game actually did decently and we were even able to bump up the graphics slightly at 720p. However, 720p is definitely the max resolution it can play well at, the game will not play well at 1080p even on low settings. What it seems, is that Vega 3 is sort of ok for entry-level gaming in games that are 5+ years old, so basically older games, not current games. That’s just the way it is. However, there is a little something extra you can do with the Athlon 3000G that might make it slightly more worth it for a little bit of gaming in current games, overclocking.
Vega 3 Overclocking
Simply put, we are highly impressed with the AMD Athlon 3000G’s ability to not only overclock the CPU component but also the Vega 3 graphics iGPU component. It is also easily done. Just slip into the BIOS, unlock AMD Overclocking, and simply type in the frequency you want. This is possible with a good B450 based motherboard.
The overclocking potential was incredibly high on the iGPU, we were able to take it up from 1100MHz to a whopping 1600MHz without any fuss. That’s a 500MHz boost or 45% clock speed increase! That’s pretty big for an iGPU. It also yielded positive results, very positive.
We saw some performance increases upward of 30 or 40% performance uplift. It is the overclocking of the Vega 3 that really made a difference in gaming performance. We saw performance come up to levels that were now at least playable. Playable being around 30 FPS, but at least playable.
Gears 5 even went up to 40 FPS and Shadow of the Tomb Raider followed closely. It did wonders for GTAV also, which means older games should benefit a lot more from the overclock, and maybe some of them might be playable at 1080p with low settings with the overclock.
One thing the overclock also did was bring the performance of Vega 3 on the Athlon 3000G over the performance of the Ryzen 5 3500U with Vega 8 on the laptop. For the most part, the laptop APU was faster, when compared at default, but with the Athlon, 3000G iGPU overclocked it beat the Ryzen 3500U with Vega 8 in-game performance.
Overclocking the CPU though, in addition, didn’t really help. We are 100% GPU limited in performance in these games with Vega 3, not CPU dependent.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, in terms of gaming performance, the AMD Athlon 3000G is not going to offer you a good gameplay experience. At default, the Vega 3 graphics integrated into the Ryzen 3000G APU are mostly there just to allow you to have display support for the computer. It allows you to have full GPU capabilities without having to spend money on a dedicated GPU, therefore saving you cost overall.
Vega 3 graphics are great for office applications and an office computer. Vega 3 supports the latest APIs, so you won’t be held behind there, and the latest decoding formats for video so you can watch and consume any type of media. That’s pretty much the limit of Vega 3. While it might run current games, it will not offer any level of decent gameplay performance. Only in much older games will you have a chance, and even then, it’s going to be at a low resolution with low graphics settings. It’ll work great for 2D games though.
If you are an enthusiast and want to improve performance you do have the option of overclocking the Vega 3 graphics. You will have great success with this, and you’ll find it brings performance up to least 30 FPS in current games, but again at 720p and the lowest game settings. It helps more-so with older games. It also shows how much the frequency change can really affect performance with iGPUs like this.
Overall we are impressed with the CPU features of this APU, it has the ability to overclock to 4GHz thanks to its unlocked multiplier and that showed great promise in our previous tests. As a CPU, this is really all you need for an office computer or entry-level computer. It saves you a ton of cash by integrating Vega 3 graphics so you don’t need a dedicated GPU. It provides all the functions you need, but it is not going to make you the next champion in online gaming.
We are impressed with how much overclocking potential there is on the CPU and iGPU part of this APU though. These APUs are very available, and only $50, so pick one up if you need a cheap computer build.