AMD Ryzen 7 8700G

1080p gaming with integrated graphics? Hell, yes

- CHRIS SZEWCZYK

IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T noticed, graphics cards are expensive, but AMD has a solution. Maybe. The Ryzen 8000-series APUs include the most powerful integrated graphics ever, and this Ryzen 7 8700G is the top chip of the lot. The basic idea? You won't need a graphics card for entry-level 1080p gaming.

This is the same Phoenix chip that first appeared in laptops about a year ago, and more recently in handheld gaming PCs. The latter application is intriguing. If Phoenix can deliver decent performance in a power-restricted handheld form factor, what is its fully unleashed potential in a desktop?

This $329 eight-core Ryzen 7 8700G with Radeon 780M graphics is joined by the $229 six-core Ryzen 5 8600G with 760M graphics, the $176 hybrid six-core Ryzen 5 8500G, and four-core 8300G. The latter two come with 740M graphics and a mix of Zen 4 and Zen 4c cores. It's a full range of CPUs, then. But can this rangetopper deliver on that 1080p promise?

Yes it can. The Radeon 780M IGP of the 8700G is enough to play all of our benchmarked games at 1080p. Forget that low-resolution, 720p, minimum detail nonsense. We're talking 1080p with at least medium settings.