AMD has just dropped the price on its trio of Ryzen 8000G CPUs, which are the company’s chips with powerful integrated graphics intended to power small gaming PCs without the need for a separate graphics card. This AMD CPU price cut sees between $20 and $30 taken off the MSRPs of the 8700G, 8600G, and 8500G.
These aren’t the sort of AMD CPUs we’d normally pick out as the best gaming CPU options, as most of the time we’d recommend buying a CPU with basic integrated graphics (or none at all) and a separate graphics card, to get the best gaming performance. However, if you’re looking to build a really tiny gaming PC, or you just want to build a general-purpose mini PC that can do some occasional light gaming, then these CPUs are ideal.
The Ryzen 8000G range consists of three chips, each of which is based on AMD’s Zen 4 CPU cores and RDNA 3 GPUs, but with varying numbers of CPU cores and GPU compute units (CUs). The 8700G has an eight-core CPU and a 12-CU GPU, while the Ryzen 5 8600G has a six-core CPU with an eight-CU GPU. Finally, the 8500G is a quad-core chip with a four-CU GPU.
The price cut comes directly from AMD, and sees prices for these CPUs drop across the board, so if your preferred retailer hasn’t yet applied these price changes, you should be able to find them at the new lower rates elsewhere.
These are the new AMD 8000G prices:
| CPU | Original price | New price | Affiliate link |
| AMD Ryzen 7 8700G | $329 | $299 | Amazon.com |
| AMD Ryzen 5 8600G | $229 | $199 | Amazon.com |
| AMD Ryzen 5 8500G | $179 | $159 | Amazon.com |
AMD’s G-series CPUs with powerful integrated graphics, which AMD calls accelerated processing units (APUs), have always been an interesting option as they’ve tended to demand a premium price thanks to their powerful graphics.
However, their gaming performance has never really rivaled that of a separate entry-level CPU and graphics card – they only made sense for most buyers if space really is a restriction, or if they really can’t afford a separate graphics card. Incidentally, when we talk about small PCs, we’re not talking about the likes of the new Fractal Mood here, but proper palm-of-your-hand computers, such as the machines you’ll find in our mini PC guide.
When these original 8000G CPUs launched too, we lamented the lack of a quad or hexa-core variant of these CPUs with the full 12-CU graphics. The eight-core CPU and subsequent high price of the Ryzen 7 8700G just made it feel imbalanced.
All of which means an across-the-board price cut is very welcome. It’s still the case that spending $299 on a separate CPU and (last-gen) graphics card could net you higher performance than the 8700G, but it’s now a much tighter margin. Plus, if space is at a premium, and you want to ensure you have access to the latest GPU tech, these chips make a lot more sense.
Meanwhile, if you’re simply after the best CPU for gaming right now, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is the chip to go for, while an older AMD AM4 CPU, such as the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, is a great place to start if you’re on a tight budget.