**Upgrading to Ryzen 7 8700G: Is It Worth the Extra $100?**

If you're considering upgrading to the Ryzen 7 8700G, you'll be getting some additional features for your hundred dollars extra. First and foremost, you're going from six cores to eight cores, but these are actually all Zen 4. On the Ryzen 5, it's actually a mix of Zen 4 and Zen 4C cores, which are slightly less performance.

So, that's a small but noticeable difference. And this Ryzen 7 also has significantly beefier graphics. However, with all these APUs, it's one thing to look at the theoretical specs on paper. It's another to see the actual difference. So, let's play some games and see if it's worth spending an extra hundred bucks, oh, on your Ryzen 7.

**Benchmarking: Fortnite**

Let's start out with some Fortnite. Yep, 1440, unlimited, yada yada, yada yada. Okay, so we are all in the exact same settings in Fortnite, so we're looking at 50 FPS while we drop, which is fine. I'll say that I am actually getting better performance here. So it looks like we went from the 60-ish FPS range before to close to like 70 to 80. Fortnite, we've got ourselves an extra 10 to 15 FPS.

**Benchmarking: Forza**

Let's see if Forza's any smoother. All fine. Okay, so same settings. Let's see if we can get some better performance here. Yes, this is better. So while the frame rate is not massively improved, so we're hovering in the high fifties, low sixties, the important thing is I'm not really seeing those stutters that I was getting on the Ryzen 5, which that was the real killer.

Now I'm still running at fairly low settings, right? This is not the best that Forza has ever looked and that was a little bit of a stutter right there. But I can even tell you that this is a much more playable experience. On the Ryzen 5, it was stuttering like absolute crazy.

**Benchmarking: CS2**

Let's try CS2. See what we've got. Yes, so everything is set to medium settings here. All right, in CS2. Now previously we were getting about 60 FPS. Here, well you know what? That looks about right. We're in this 70 to 80 range, it looks like. That is a noticeably smoother experience.

But I will also say that while it is noticeably smoother, considering we spent another hundred dollars, we are not getting like the world's biggest difference, oh. There we go. Okay, well this is actually a kind of tough call because yes, I'm getting proper performance, obviously having spent another a hundred dollars, more CPU, more GPU.

The difference though is not massive. And this also applies when you look at the benchmarks, like the difference on paper between these two chips is quite strong. The difference in the actual scores and the actual frame rates I'm getting, it's like 20% better, maybe? If you want a more long-term option, spending a hundred dollars on this is good 'cause it still has all the advantages that we had previously.

**Conclusion**

We have DDR5, we have AM5. Like this is certainly a system that you can upgrade and sort of improve down the line, but considering it's an extra hundred dollars, I'm not seeing an extra hundred dollars in value going from the Ryzen 5 to the Ryzen 7. Yes, this is better for sure, but I actually think that our original $475 configuration is actually the better version of the system and you're better off saving some money and maybe a year down the line, throwing a graphics card in this bad boy and keeping that Ryzen 5 because at $475, it's still a very usable system out of the box.

But to get some better performance, spend that 150 or $200, add a graphics card and you will have a huge leap. And in the meantime, you'll still have a very competent system for the time being. Of course, thank you very much to Micro Center for sponsoring this video. If you'd like to check out any of the components that I used, those links would be in the description.

And of course, Micro Center is a home of many other even finer PC components. If you wanna build something better, including there's a brand new store opening in Charlotte, North Carolina very soon. So make sure to go check that out, the link in the description. You can sign up right now and get yourself a free 128 gig flash drive when the store opens.

So, excuse me, I'm going to put the Ryzen 5 back in the system 'cause I think I got it right the first time.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Today we are here atour sponsor, Micro Center,with a simple challenge.I'm going to be building thecheapest gaming PC I can.This is essentially going to bea follow up to our last Boson.And the thing is wecouldn't really do thisvideo a year or two ago.So let's take a look atwhat they've actually got.If I'm trying to build theabsolute cheapest gaming PC,I don't think I have abudget for a graphics card.So they do have the Ryzen 5 8600G.So that is one of the brandnew 8000 series APUs.It has a lot going for it.So it's six CPU cores, prettydecent RDNA graphics built in.Believe this also hasRyzen AI on board as well.And they have good specs, right?Like we're talking about verysolid integrated graphics,which as long as I pair itwith some fast DDR5, should be enoughfor even like mainstreamtitles like Fortnite, CS2,that kind stuff, atpretty decent frame rates.I think I'm gonna do this.I'm going to do the Ryzen 5 8600G.Normally what I wouldsay is the only downsideof going with a Ryzen 8000 series chipis that it does require an AM5 motherboardand DDR5 RAM, which if we weredoing this video a year ago,would've been quite expensive.But thankfully, the budget optionshave become much, much more prevalent.Ohhwait, they have A620 boards?Yo, this is actuallyonly an $80 motherboard.So the only problem with an A620 boardis it's gonna be super, super basic.So if you pop it open, I mean it is,there's not a whole lot going on here.And because it's A620, it meansthat it's not going to havereally any support for overclocking,which I would like to do.But that's fine.We could spend another 30 bucksto get a nicer motherboard.I think I would rather save that moneyand put that toward getting more RAM.16 gig kit for $55.That's exactly what we need.It's cheap, but it is gonnagive us dual channel memory.It is gonna be reasonably quickand importantly, 55 bucks for RAM.That's pretty cheap.Like that's, especially for DDR5.So now I need to choose an SSD.So there's a 256 here for $28.I probably should do that.Technically, that willwork for this system.But a 256 gig SSD today, Imean that's like one copyof Fortnite and our drive's almost full.So there is the TN 450 from Inland,which is $40 for a 500 gig.And importantly it's PCI Gen 4, not Gen 3,so it's significantly faster.This is why it's really difficultto do like ultra budget systemsbecause the differencebetween going from 28 and $40is a doubling of the capacityand essentially a doubling of the speed.Yeah, actually over adoubling of the speed.And I am gonna spend the extra $12.Let me see what we'vegot for power supplies'cause there's lots of great ones,and I need to find the cheapest.So there's a 650 watt bronze for $50.If I was being reasonable,I would buy that.But I could spend $40on this guy.So this is a PowerSpecThis is a 80 Plus White, which is fine.So if I was going to give you some advice,I would spend $10 more and geta 150 extra watts of capacityand an 80 Plus Bronze rating.That's an easy $10 upcharge.But I don't need it for this system.If I wanted some moreoverhead for the future,that would be great, but honestly,even a lower end graphics cardwill run on a 500 watt power supply.And especially givenhow basic our system is,that is gonna be more than enough'cause this thing all together,it's probably gonna be only be pullinglike maybe a hundred watts,could do a little bit of overclocking.It is gonna be such a powersipping little baby PCthat I think I can save my moneyand spend the $40 on the power supply.Now of course for this gaming PC build,I will be using a copy of Windows.I transferred it from another computer.I already had a copy of Windowsthat I saved for a rainy day.Ahh ha.Shh!So when it comes to building a gaming PC,the case is where you cancustomize as much as possible.You have RGB, you havewood, you have the colors,you have everything youcan possibly ask for.So I really have two ultra budget choices.There's this ThermaltakeNV100, which is a $45 case.The advantage here isit's a full size ATX,which would give us moreflexibility for the future,but I can save even more moneyby going with the CoolerMaster Master Box Q300L,which normally does come with some mesh.And I will tell you I have builtwith this case in the past.It is incredibly cheap at $40 brand new.But while it has literallyzero frills whatsoever,it does have at least a window.It's plastic, but it's a window,and it will look okay.With this case, let meactually tally up my total,but I think I have successfullybuilt something under $500.This is a $475 gaming PC?You know what, I'm gonna lock this in.475 bucks.This is about the cheapest real gaming PCthat I can build at Micro Center.So let's bring this back to the office,put it together, and see exactly how goodthe cheapest gaming PC I canbuild in 2024 actually is.It looks like we'vegot a very small amountof components on the table.Well, you'd be correct.At less than $500, you don't get a lot,but also you don't need a lot.So I mean I'll be real,while we've done a full PCtutorial quite recently,you could build thisthing in like no time.Like I feel like I coulddo this in like 10 minutes.- What?I don't know, I think I'm gonnahave to fact check you on that.- It'll take me three minutesto get the case out of the box.But other than that,I mean it's so simple.(Austin laughs)I don't know how fast I'veever built a PC before.I don't know if I've ever doneit in actually 10 minutes.I think I've got everything.I have my game plan.I'm gonna try not to knockanything off the table.Ready, set, go.Okay, gonna open the box real quick.This is honestly gonna be the slowest part'cause it takes me foreverto open these things.All right, so what'sgonna really help me hereis that this case is very lightweight.Damnit.(crew laughs)Okay, you know, I'm justgonna flip that upside down.- Yeah, I don't knowwhy you didn't start with that.- You know what,I thought it was lightenough that I could do it.Too many screws, too manyscrews, too many screws.Okay, all right, all right.Okay, so I'm gonna open up the caseas much as possible 'cause I'mgonna need that access later.These are thumb screws, butthey're too tight for me to get,so I'm gonna loosen them all up.So next, I'll cut thebox on the power supply.Cut the CPU.This is really hard to open.Just gonna slice the box openand hopefully I can get in there.- My God.- Okay, SSD is out.Ouch, that hurt.These pop out, these pop out.Cool, all right, sweet.So I'm gonna open the back,which, ah, more screws!No, no, no!I'm unscrewing two things at a time.Okay, let's go.All right, power supply first.We'll have to put power supply in.It's a non modular supply.I needed the screws in that.I'm gonna have to go get it in a second.So power supply goes down here.So we're just gonna do this.It's a real nice case and be,oh no, it's got the bracket!I forgot it has a bracket in this one, no!Oh, that's gonna slow me down a lot.Wait, oh, I gotta take off, ah!This is, ah, it takes meactually a couple minutes'cause there's like twopieces of this bracket.- Three minutes.- Three?- Yeah.- What?No, it's not.No, it's not true.- Youknow, you said it wouldtake you three minutes to open the box.- I did actually say that.- Soyou're doing pretty good.- Okay, so with this case,it's a really nice little case,but the power supply mounting is weird.So I have to actuallytake out the bracket,attach the bracket to the power supplywherever I put the screws,and then put it all back together.Which direction does this go on?Ahh, ahh.Oh, I don't, which way did I put it?I think I put it this way, right?How many screws do weneed for the power supply?I think one's fine, maybe two.I could do this with the power supply.It doesn't take so longwith the stupid bracket.Okay, power supply's ready to go in.Okay, just gonna put screw in on the back.I got a ratcheting screwdriver,but it takes too longto switch between modes,so, okay, nevermind.I should definitely been switchingthrough the modes faster.All right, what's my time right now?- Five minutes.- Is it really five minutes?- Yeah.- Okay, well I've got the power supply in.Okay, that's fine.All right, so let'sget this out of the wayand go straight for our motherboard.So motherboard should be really easy.Close this up.I/O shield is in here, damnit.I/O shield's kinda slow me down.Don't do whatever it isthat I'm doing right now.I'm hurt, fault screws hit the ground.That's okay.Okay, so open up AM5socket, pop that open.- Yeah, just throw that CPU.- Toss the CPU in as hard as you can.It's totally fine.Make sure we're lined up.Boom, all right, closed.Boom, okay, memory, let's go.I'll put CPU cooler in a second.There's only two DIMM slotsand I'm gonna have to take a minuteto figure out where these go.Open, open, open, open.Where am I at?Where am I at timewise?- You are at six minutes.- Okay, so RAM is installed, cool.I'm gonna put cooler in while I'm here.Throw in the SSD.I think the SSD needs a screw, doesn't it?Oh it doesn't.Excellent, okay, Gigabyteused my little, a little dude-r on it.Oh, I gotta take offthe thing, damnit okay.Here's the thing though.I don't have a graphics card.I don't have a hard drive.So actually this is, this is pretty fast.Done with that, done with that, all right.AMD logo up.AMD logo up.1, 2, 3, 4.Got it, let's go.Now this is the part I can't really rush'cause I have to do this evenly.It will literally just not even workif I don't do it evenly.- Did youput any thermal paste in that?- Yep, there's thermalpaste on the bottom.- I don't believe you.- I didn't actually physically look at it,but it's always on there.I'm just gonna trust it's on there.AMD wouldn't have forgottento do that, right?All right, there, we're in.Okay, put the CPU fan on.Definitely more screws just went flying.It's fine.Put the CPU fan in now.Okay, SSD, open.Slide it in.Pull this out of of the way.Open it, my dude.Open it, okay.Focus, focus, focus, focus, focus.I'm losing some valuable time right now.Boom, okay, SSD's installed.Let's put this in the case.I might do this.There's standoffs, there's standoffs,yes, there's standoffs inside.Excellent, okay, cool, let's go.I/O shield, shh.All right, I/O shield in.Come on, one, two, go, go.I should trust that my standoffs, oh god,this is not looking promising right now.Where are screws?Where are screws?Where are screws?All right, how many screwsdo I need for my motherboard?I'm gonna say three.That doesn't look right.I'll try it.Oh, and that is not evengonna match up, is it?Oh is it?That does go in, okay.Two screws, two screws allI need for the motherboard.Don't try this at home.That's very dangerous.Okay, cool, motherboard is installedfrom power and we're good to go.I just need it.How many?- 30, less than 30?- 30?That's not enough seconds!- 3, 2, 1.That does not look like.- Ah, well here.Here's the thing though.Yeah, I'm just gonna keep going.I'm gonna keep going becauseI'm literally basically done.Front panel, I'll jump it, right?Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.Let's just go.Let's just go.Come on, I'm actually gonnahave this basically booted now.Pretty much, right?There's a DisplayPort onthis board, thankfully.Power, power, power.Where did I put power?I'm actually, I'm gonna havethis thing booted though.Look, look, I'm pretty much there.Okay, and then I just needto jump it and it's good.On, okay, what did I forget?I don't know.Probably a lot of things.Come on, come on.- I don't see anything.- Come on, yeah, just give a second.Okay, AM5 just takes a second.Come on, this can't count against me.Do you look at this computerand see anything otherthan a glorious success?That was a joke.- This iswhat success looks like guys.- This is, yeah, this iswhat success looks like.I guess, today we learned Ican't build a PC in 10 minutesas much as I think I can.Let me take this back apart,figure out what I forgot,and then I'll be right back.So I have gotten to thebottom of the problemand it wasn't my fault.This is on BIOS number one.What version of the BIOSam I supposed to be on?- You're supposed to beon at least version 20.We are currently on 22.- It's almost like a new Ryzen processorneeds a slightly newer BIOS,which if I'm doing my math correctly,means that if this wasrunning the correct BIOSout of the box, I would'vebeen finished in 11 minutes?- I mean that's still not 10 minutes.- So right now I'm running a Ryzen 7 7700,which is an olderprocessor inside of here.Yes, I have cleaned it up,but that was a problem, right?It was an unsupported CPUwith this version of the BIOS.Maybe I can't claim an actual victory,but I can certainly claim a spiritual one.I almost did it.(upbeat music)Let's see how well Fortnite runs,which I'll be honest,I say this every time.Fortnite, a fairly good game to testbecause it's relatively,well, it's not relatively,it's very good looking,and it can be quite demanding,but it's also very scalable.So let me give this a try.We are running at 1440p,but heavily upscaledand mostly medium settings.So let's see what we'vegot here, shall we?Wow I'm actually kind of surprised.We're not dipping below30 FPS at all here.And we're right now runningon a mix of medium settingsand technically 1440p,but I'm upscaling from somethinga little bit closer to 1080p.One of the problems I'm having here,my frame rate is decent,but you can't reallytell on camera too much.I'm getting real frame time variances,so it was like very stuttery.All right, let's hop downone more time on low settingsand see what we can actually get here.This is a very playable experience.We're getting pretty close to 60 FPS,but importantly, decent settings.Let's see what we can get out of Forza.Let's open up settings andsee what we've got here.So first of all, we're running 1080p.I'm gonna run at 1440.Frame rate 240, VSync off.40 frames per sec, 36, 41 FPS.Hmm, that's actually bad.(Austin laughs)It looks 720p-ish?I know they're doing someupscaling, but yikes.You know what?I'm actually gonna give Forzaa fail in the 475 system.It's playable, but just barely.Inside of CS2, let's see what we got here.Now this will be fine.Now you know what, we're just gonna gowith these standard stock settings,which is pretty muchall a mixture of mediumand high at 1440p.Okay, let me play for a second.We're getting 60-ish.And mind you, we are playing at 1440p.So that is gonna throwthings off a little bit.Odds are if you're spending$475 on your system,you're probably playing at 1080p.If we wanted more FPS,we could certainly justturn the resolution down,which is probably whatyou should do regardless.But not bad, not bad.Ha, look at me!Both this and Forza kind of showthat there is certainly some compromisewhen it comes to this Ryzen 5 8600G.It's a solid entry level option.Butwhat if we had an upgradeand instead of purchasing a Ryzen 5 8600G,you can instead get a Ryzen 7 8700G,which would deliver more CPU performanceand a significantly better GPUfrom your hundred dollars extra?Bet you didn't see thatone coming, did you?Now, if you're consideringupgrading to the Ryzen 7 8700G,you will be gettingsome additional featuresfor your hundred dollars extra.First and foremost, you'regoing from six coresto eight cores, but theseare actually all Zen 4.On the Ryzen 5, it'sactually a mix of Zen 4and Zen 4C cores, which areslightly less performance.So that's a small butnoticeable difference.And this Ryzen 7also has significantly beefier graphics.However, with all these APUs,it's one thing to look at thetheoretical specs on paper.It's another to see the actual difference.So let's play some games andsee if it's worth spendingan extra hundred bucks,ow, on your Ryzen 7.Let's start out with some Fortnite.Yep, 1440, unlimited,yada yada, yada yada.Okay, so we are all in theexact same settings in Fortnite,so we're looking at 50 FPSwhile we drop, which is fine.I'll say that I am actuallygetting better performance here.So it looks like we wentfrom in the 60-ish FPS range beforeto close to like 70 to 80.Fortnite, we've got ourselvesan extra 10 to 15 FPS.Let's see if Forza's any smoother.All fine.Okay, so same settings.Let's see if we can get somebetter performance here.Yes, this is better.So while the frame rateis not massively improved,so we're hovering in thehigh fifties, low sixties,the important thing is I'm notreally seeing those stuttersthat I was getting on the Ryzen 5,which that was the real killer.Now I'm still running atfairly low settings, right?This is not the best thatForza has ever lookedand that was a little bitof a stutter right there.But I can even tell youthat this is a much moreplayable experience.On the Ryzen 5, it wasstuttering like absolute crazy.All right, let's try CS2.See what we've got.Yes, so everything is setto medium settings here.All right, in CS2.Now previously we weregetting about 60 FPS.Here, well you know what?That looks about right.We're in this 70 to 80range, it looks like.That is a noticeably smoother experience.But I will also say that whileit is noticeably smoother,considering we spentanother hundred dollars,we are not getting like theworld's biggest difference, oh.There we go.Okay, well this is actuallya kind of tough callbecause yes, I'm gettingproper performance,obviously having spentanother a hundred dollars,more CPU, more GPU.The difference though is not massive.And this also applies whenyou look at the benchmarks,like the difference on paperbetween these two chips is quite strong.The difference in the actual scoresand the actual frame rates I'm getting,it's like 20% better, maybe?If you want a more long-term option,spending a hundred dollars on this is good'cause it still has all the advantagesthat we had previously.We have DDR5, we have AM5.Like this is certainly asystem that you can upgradeand sort of improve down the line,but considering it's anextra hundred dollars,I'm not seeing an extrahundred dollars in valuegoing from the Ryzen 5 to the Ryzen 7.Yes, this is better for sure,but I actually think that ouroriginal $475 configurationis actually the betterversion of the systemand you're better off saving some moneyand maybe a year down the line,throwing a graphics card in this bad boyand keeping that Ryzen 5because at $475, it's still a very usablesystem out of the box.But to get some better performance,spend that 150 or $200, add a graphics cardand you will have a huge leap.And in the meantime you'll still havea very competent systemfor the time being.Of course, thank youvery much to Micro Centerfor sponsoring this video.If you'd like to checkout any of the componentsthat I used, those linkswould be in the description.And of course Micro Centeris a home of many othereven finer PC components.If you wanna build something better,including there's abrand new store openingin Charlotte, North Carolina very soon.So make sure to go check that out,the link in the description.You can sign up right now and get yourselfa free 128 gig flash drivewhen the store opens.So, excuse me, I'm goingto put the Ryzen 5 backin the system 'cause I thinkI got it right the first time.