[SOLVED] Better Option, Ryzen 2600x with GT710 or Ryzen 3200g

[Bchmiels11]

I’m building an everyday computer (not for gaming) and got a ryzen 5 2600x for cheap on Black Friday. I had planned to use my old gtx 970 but the card won’t work with the case/motherboard I have. I was considering buying a refurbished GT 710 and just using that but I’m not sure how the performance of the system will be for everyday use (email, YouTube, Microsoft excel, web browsing). Would I be better off just getting a ryzen 3 3200g, or will a weak gpu not matter for overall performance for non-gaming tasks?

 

[King_V]

The only thing I might worry about is video decoding, and whether it'll handle higher refresh rates as higher resolutions. For example, the integrated graphics for my old Haswell era Pentium could handle my monitor's resolution of 3840x1600, but only at 30Hz. Video playback, say for example from YouTube, therefore was a little funny, and I'd get tearing.

I'm currently using an Athlon 200GE (see my sig), and that handles 3840x1600 just fine at 60Hz, with smooth video playback. Honestly, though, the new Athlon 3000G is a little faster than the 200GE, and costs a little less. For your use case, that would cover everything just fine - assuming you don't open a ton of browser tabs at once. Power consumption is pretty low as well, since all the Ryzen-based Athlons have a TDP rating of 35W (real-world, I don't think they ever hit even that modest level when maxed out)

But I don't know what resolution and refresh rate your monitor is, so the GT710 might be just fine. Depends on how much you're paying for that GT 710, too. Still, for your use, you don't need much CPU, either, and the 2600x would be overkill as well.

- EDIT: please note, though, that the Athlon APUs are 2-core, 4-thread, versus the 2200g/2400g/3200g/3400g being 4-core, 4-thread. If you do go with the 4-core parts, though, I'd stick with the 2200g or 2400g, considering that they will have about 90-95% of the performance of the 3200g/3400g, but likely offered at a significantly lower price.

 

[w41g872]

If you are not doing anything intensive, I would say you do not need those 6 cores. GT 710 imo is one of the worst value-to-performance cards unless you want to drive multiple old monitors. The integrated GPU in 3200G simply CRUSHES GT 710 in raw power if you look at any benchmarks.
As for video decoding, if it is more CPU or GPU intensive depends on the codec, but you will not be using all four cores unless you are looking at some raw 4K footage. So YouTube 4K should be more than fine. Also, since YouTube decoding uses both CPU and GPU, you will be more likely to run into a bottleneck if you choose the GT 710 build.