I have an AM4 based desktop with the following current configuration:

  • Ryzen 2200G CPU
  • 8 x 2 DDR4 3000 MHz RAM
  • RX 7600 GPU
  • Gigabyte B450M D3SH motherboard
  • Corsair RM550 PSU
  • 1 GB M2 NVME disk
  • 2 HDDs - 1 mirroring the NVME and the other as data drive
  • Acer FullHD flat panel with FreeSync

Goals are casual gaming at 1080p or slightly lower resolution, target fps 30+

Please give me suggestions for:

  1. Best AM4 CPU available now (a) with no integrated graphics (b) with integrated graphics.
  2. How would you rate Ryzen 5700G for this setup? It is available and budget friendly.
  3. Can I buy 3200 MHz RAM to fill the 2 vacant RAM slots in my motherboard so that I can continue to get dual channel benefit? 3000 MHz RAM seems to be no longer available from the brand/locally.
  4. 1 GB SATA SSD for cheap purely to store game installations (Crucial BX) but there is no spare SATA port in the motherboard, is there a way to connect 2 HDDs to same SATA port?

EDIT 1: I think there are 3 HDDs and 1 DVD drive occupying all 4 motherboard SATA ports. I erred in the post above earlier.

  • @CeeBee_Eh
    2•21 hours ago

    The only reson I can think of to want integrated graphics is because you have 5 monitors and graphics cards generally only have 4 outputs, but if that’s not the case, you should be fine without.

    I thought this too at one point, and I deeply regret it. Having an integrated GPU can make many things much easier. Such as using the video encoder/decoder on the CPU while leaving the deducted GPU alone to do other things, like rendering a game.

    But it also opens up 2nd hand use cases too. I can’t use my current CPU in another system as efficiently as I would want once I upgrade.

    And CPU’s without an integrated GPU are few and far between ones with an integrated GPU. There’s no real benefit in going out of your way to get one.

    • @voracreadOPEnglish
      2•21 hours ago

      I think in Ryzen CPUs having integrated GPU means loss of some memory bandwidth due to internal traffic or some other reason. This was true at least for the initial generation or two. Not sure about present.

      One other reason I am looking at integrated graphics is as a backup solution for times the discrete one conks off and I need to get another or get it serviced which could be upwards of 2 weeks easily.