If you’re gaming on entry level graphics, which budget CPU is best?
Howdy howdy guys, ponchato here, and today we’re gonna compare AMD’s Ryzen 3 1200
with Intel’s G4560 head to head.
Since this is aimed at you guys looking to build on a tight budget, we’ll be benchmarking
with a GTX 1050.
Let’s get started.
First up, Battlefield 1.
Even though it’s very well optimized, as you can see from this chart, the GTX 1050
is our limiting factor.
Between the G4560 and Ryzen 3 1200, average FPS and 1% lows are all within a few frames
of each other.
Even the 0.1% lows are very close, with the G4560 coming out slightly ahead.
Gameplay fluidity seemed almost identical to me, and really there just wasn’t much
difference between them.
In Battlefield 1, I would call it a draw.
Next, Counter Strike: Global Offensive.
With performance up above 400FPS, both processors demolish it on low with the Ryzen 3 1200 coming
out slightly ahead.
On medium, AMD maintains a small lead over Intel particularly in the lows, and on high
settings the two processors are almost identical.
These differences are nothing to write home about, but I will give a slight edge to AMD.
The Ryzen 3 1200 performed just a little bit better than the G4560 in 1% and 0.1% lows.
Third is Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.
As expected, this game is bound hard by the graphics card.
The only major difference between the G4560 and Ryzen 3 1200 is on the lowest settings.
Having a quad core seems to pretty dramatically help 1% and 0.1% lows, with the Ryzen 3 1200
keeping it above 30fps at all times while the G4560 will drop below 20.
I’ll give AMD the slight edge here because it comes out ahead in that one situation,
but note that that’s a heavily emphasized “slight” edge.
Similar to Deus Ex, in GTA V the graphics card quickly becomes the limiting factor with
the only difference really appearing at low settings.
The Ryzen 3 1200 once again performs better in 1% and 0.1% lows with a 24 fps lead in
the slowest 1% and 16 fps lead in the slowest 0.1%.
Above that, the G4560 and Ryzen 3 1200 are effectively identical.
Because of the notably better worst-case performance at low settings, I’ll give AMD the win in
GTA V.
Just Cause 3 is the first reversal in this trend of Ryzen 3’s slight lead.
With the G4560 averaging about 15% faster than the Ryzen 3 1200 on low settings, 12%
faster on medium, and a very noticeable 20% faster on high, Just Cause 3 favors the G4560
hands down.
1% and 0.1% lows are much closer across the board, but the Ryzen 3 1200 does maintain
slightly higher minimum FPS on high settings.
Intel gets the win here.
Overwatch is up next.
At low settings, the Ryzen 3 1200 struggled quite a bit with the 1% and 0.1% lows.
Even though it always maintained over 110fps, the G4560 did a much better job of maintaining
high frame rates with a 60fps increase in the 0.1% lows and a 30fps increase in the
1%.
The difference continues but is much less pronounced beyond low settings, with the G4560
averaging about 4% faster in high and epic.
In the 1% and 0.1% lows, the Ryzen 3 1200 trails the G4560 by 5 to 10%.
This isn’t an outrageous difference in performance, but Intel does come out ahead in Overwatch.
Now let’s look at PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
The results are somewhat odd.
The G4560 clearly has a higher average across the board.
At low settings it has a 15 frame per second lead, on medium settings, 8 frames
per second, and on ultra 7, though the game does run pretty terribly once you get past
medium.
However at playable settings, that is, very low, the Ryzen 3 1200 maintains much better
0.1% lows than the G4560: a 10fps increase.
On medium settings the story is similar: the Ryzen 3 1200 keeps a minimum almost double
that of the G4560.
On ultra however, the 1200 falls behind on average, 1% and 0.1% lows.
The game is basically unplayable on those settings anyway, but it’s worth noting.
This one is a tough call; the G4560 does have a significant lead in average FPS, but the
Ryzen 3 1200 maintains much better lows.
Because there are merits to both sides and I think averages and lows are equally important,
I’m gonna call PUBG a draw between the G4560 and Ryzen 3 1200.
The last game in the lineup is Rocket League.
On low settings the G4560 and Ryzen 3 1200 have similar 1% and 0.1% lows, with Intel
averaging about 5% faster than AMD.
The story is similar on medium settings with the G4560 averaging about 4% faster than the
Ryzen 3 while lows are almost identical.
On high settings, however, the G4560 shines.
The lows stay right around 100fps while the Ryzen 3 1200 drops all the way down to 35
in the worst case.
Because of Intel’s slightly better average and significantly better lows on high settings,
the G4560 wins this round.
So which one should you buy?
Out of the box, with a GTX 1050, Intel’s G4560 is the way to go.
It’s priced $20-$30 cheaper than the Ryzen 3 1200 (as of early August), and where there
are differences in performance it’s usually Intel in the lead.
The results may be different with a more powerful graphics card like a GTX 1050 Ti, or RX 480
or 580, so if you’re planning on having a faster GPU than a 1050, I’ll be benchmarking
these two processors again and I’ll link that video in the description.
If you want be notified of that as soon as it’s up, hit subscribe and then click the
bell icon to turn on notifications.
But wait!
There’s a big difference between the G4560 and Ryzen 3 1200: the 1200 can be overclocked.
I deliberately didn’t include that in this video because I know there a lot of gamers
out there who don’t want to deal with overclocking at all.
For the rest of you, I’ll be OC’ing the 1200 and running these benchmarks again.
That video will be linked in the description as well.
If you want to pick up the G4560, Ryzen 3 1200, or GTX 1050 I used in this video, those
are linked in the description below.
So guys if you liked this video hit the like button, if you want to see more hit subscribe,
and if you have any questions on the Ryzen 3 1200, G4560, or anything else, let me know
in the comments below.
Thanks for watching, I hope I helped, and I’ll see you in the next video.