It's a dedicated graphics card, they say. But it seems only now, thanks to AMD's latest arrival - the Ryzen AI 7 350 APU -, does that belief change. It carries with it the integrated Radeon 860M, which forms part of AMD's "Krackan Point" product line aimed at generating decent performance for affordable devices. But how does it really perform with great intensity?
Well, admittedly the Radeon 860 M would be touted as what would be deemed the lower-end of AMD's RDNA 3.5 family of graphics-it is still everything but a negative surprise really. Tech ETA Prime recently tested the Radeon 860M found in ASRock 4x4 Box AI350 mini PC with various tests on gaming performance benchmarks. The results? Let's just say it's more than capable than we would want to believe.
Gaming Performance: Surprising for 1080p
Not maxing out every option at 4K, but for 1080p gaming, the Ryzen AI 7 350 combo with the Radeon 860M seems to be overperforming its weight class. Here is a quicklightspeed rundown on some of the games tested, as well as how they fared:
- Spider-Man 2: Running at 1080p on Medium settings with FSR and frame generation enabled, it averaged around a smooth 80 FPS. That's pretty good for an integrated GPU.
- Forza Horizon 5: Cruised at 1080p on the Medium preset averaging 88 FPS. Racing games usually tend to be the most demanding in terms of their hardware needs so that is an excellent score.
- Doom Eternal: Doom Eternal at 1080p Medium is going to give you all the fast-paced action and holds above 60 FPS for most of the experience.
- Fallout 4: Going wasteland roaming at 1080p with the Medium preset has a locked 60 FPS. Solid performance for a game with such a massive open world.
- Cyberpunk 2077: Even Cyberpunk 2077, which typically demands robust hardware to get underwhelming performance numbers, was made available for integrated graphics, with an average of around 57 frames at 1080p on Low with balanced FSR. Gets closer to the 60 fps line in Cyberpunk on integrated graphics, which is worth noting.
Possible Bottlenecks: Power and Memory
The results are indeed interesting, but ETA Prime mentioned that two factors might slightly inhibit the performance of the Radeon 860M in the ASRock 4x4 Box AI350. One is the power profile of the mini PC, which does not always hit the acceptable 51W expectancy during gaming. Besides, the system is armed with 5600 MT/s memory, which is slower than ideal for integrated graphics using memory bandwidth. Fast memory could potentially yield even more performance.
THE VERDICT: BUDGET GAMING TO GET BETTER
Other than these minor limitations, however, gaming tests have amply shown that, for budget gamers, the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 with Radeon 860M pack quite a punch. If you want to play at 1080p, medium or lower settings, then this integrated graphics option could work well. It seems that AMD is drawing new lines when it comes to integrated graphics, making PC gaming even more accessible for everyone.
