AMD Ryzen 3 5300G Review: Stunning Value APU Performance

AMD Ryzen 3 5300G Test Setup and Overclocking

Overclocking the Ryzen 3 5300G was similar to the other Ryzen 5000G chips we've tested — we even matched the 5600G's iGPU overclock. The integrated RX Vega graphics engine is an easy overclocker, jumping up to 2.3 GHz (a 500 MHz improvement over stock settings) with the SoC dialed in at 1.35V (this power domain feeds both the iGPU and SoC). Higher settings introduced artifacting, though, and we didn't attempt to add too much additional voltage to the graphics due to our memory and core overclocks. Notably, this is only 100 MHz less iGPU frequency than we achieved with the 5700G.  

APUs are one of the trickiest types of chips to overclock, at least when it comes to balancing the different units. Because gaming performance scales far better with iGPU and memory throughput than core clocks, we toggled AMD's auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) for the CPU cores. PBO reduced the difficulties balancing the CPU, iGPU, and memory clocks, but further tuning might have yielded a better all-core overclock. Of course, the silicon lottery always comes into play, so your mileage might vary. 

Good Cezanne chips support a fabric clock (FCLK) up to 2400 MHz, but it's a balancing act. We settled for a 2000 MHz FCLK and dialed in an easy DDR4-4000 with a 1:1 FCLK/memory ratio. That's pretty impressive for a Ryzen 3 model. This 'coupled mode' is the sweet spot for memory latency on AMD's Zen 2 and 3 platforms, but dialing in a higher FCLK can unlock higher coupled frequencies. A DDR4-4000 kit is extremely pricey for a Ryzen 3 APU build, so we stopped there. You should shoot for a DDR4-3200 kit with this type of chip, provided you can nab one at a reasonable price. 

AMD Ryzen 3 5300G Power Consumption and Efficiency 

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It's no secret that Intel has dialed up the power to compete with AMD's powerful Ryzen processors. As such, there are no real surprises here — Intel chips draw more power across the board.

AMD's Zen 3 models are the most power-efficient desktop PC chips we've ever tested, and the Ryzen 5000G series brings that same level of efficiency to the APU lineup, sucking very little power for a superb power-to-performance ratio that easily beats any Intel chip. 

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Here we take a slightly different look at power consumption by calculating the cumulative amount of energy required to perform Blender and x265 HandBrake workloads, respectively. We plot this 'task energy' value in Kilojoules on the left side of the chart. 

These workloads are comprised of a fixed amount of work, so we can plot the task energy against the time required to finish the job (bottom axis), thus generating a really useful power chart. 

Bear in mind that faster compute times, and lower task energy requirements, are ideal. That means processors that fall the closest to the bottom left corner of the chart are best. 

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