Question RX 6400 vs Ryzen 5600G iGPU ?

[yankeeDDL]

Hello,

I have a relatively old PC with a Ryzen 1600.
It used to run with an R9 270, which today failed.
I used it occasionally for gaming, but for some time now it has mostly been used for browsing, light gaming, videos a minor editing. Nothing too demanding.

So I was looking for an entry level GPU, preferably AMD, and I saw the RX 6400 (my screen is 1920x1080 btw) which should run comfortably older games. It's probably comparable in performance to the R9 270, but at a fraction of the Power (power is a concern as ventilation is somewhat limited).

I almost went for the RX 6400, but then I thought that a 5600G costs almost the same, but would give me an upgrade on "everything else" and provide a GPU that is only a bit below the 6400 (at least on paper).
As small added bonus, I'd be able to upgrade to Win11 (the Ryzen 1600 is not supported officially).

The differences are small and not critical: Win11 is *not* a must (but Win10 will stop being supported in Oct 2025, and I still would like to run the PC by then), but I'd imagine that the 6400 would provide a better experience with gaming (even those not so demanding).

So I thought I'd ask if any of you has any relevant experience and could help steering the decision ?

Thanks!

 

[hotaru.hino]

The main problem with the RX 6400 is it's heavily reliant on having a PCIe 4.0 bus due being a 4-lane card and having a relatively small amount of VRAM. If the card starts running out of VRAM, its performance will take a nose dive.

I'd say go with the 5600G, assuming your motherboard is compatible with it. That will give you a baseline that'll carry you much farther than an RX 6400.

 

[yankeeDDL]

It's a good point, thank you.
I have a Tomahawk B350, so the 5600G is supported, yes, but it is PCIe 3.0.
I was also thinking that the 5600G could be an intermediate step: if I see I need more graphic power I can also add a new GPU later. Perhaps by that time a "7400", or some newer low-power, high efficiency card would have come out.