Can you game on the Ryzen 5 3400G?

Best in class integrated GPU

While AMD still loses out a little compared to Intel when talking about absolute CPU performance, there is one avenue that AMD still rules the roost. The integrated Vega GPU cores on the Ryzen 5 3400G are ridiculously powerful and make it possible to have a good gaming experience without the need for one of our picks for best graphics cards in your system.

The 3400G has 11 Vega GPU cores, which are clocked at 1400 MHz out of the box. They're paired with four Ryzen CPU cores with eight hardware threads, and even in 2019, a quad-core CPU is perfectly fine for gaming. In all the tests we've run, the CPU cores are rarely pushed even close to their limits in games.

Squeezing the most from the 3400G

Both the CPU and GPU cores on the 3400G are unlocked, which means you can dive in and have a tinker with them. Overclocking the CPU won't make a massive difference to your gaming performance, though it's still free performance. It's the GPU cores which will make the biggest difference.

With the free Ryzen Master application, you can overclock the GPU on the 3400G as well as increase or decrease the voltage. Our sample overclocked to 1600 MHz on the GPU cores just fine with only a tiny increase in the voltage.

It's also a good idea to make sure you're running your system RAM at the highest clock speed it can manage. AMD states that the Ryzen 5 3400G supports 2933 MHz RAM, and there are two good reasons to make sure you're getting the most performance from yours as possible.

The first is that Ryzen CPU cores thrive on fast, dual-channel memory, so you'll get more CPU performance. The other is that a portion of your system memory will be reserved for use by the GPU cores. So on both fronts, make sure you've got the most you can from your RAM.

Performance tests

Below are some example frame rates, resolutions, and detail settings run on a variety of games using only the 3400G and its integrated graphics. All were run with the GPU overclocked to 1600 MHz on our test bench using 16GB of RAM clocked at 2933 MHz.

The fact you can play games like F1 2019 and Forza Horizon 4 at 1080p at all on integrated graphics is mindblowing. It's not all as rosy as it seems, however, with some titles like Forza Horizon 4 exhibiting low frame times and stutters that nothing seems to fix — likewise in the newer Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Nevertheless, these are merely examples to show off what kind of performance you can get. If your budget build is more for older games, things like Fortnite or lighter, or so called "esports games" like CS:GO and League of Legends, you will have a great time.