A Look at AMD's New Gaming APUs

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD shares were up Monday after the company announced the launch of two chips chips meant to power gaming PCs.

AMD unveiled the new Quad-Core Ryzen 5 2400G and Ryzen 3 2200G desktop processors, which combine high-performance Radeon "Vega" architecture with "Zen" CPU cores on a single chip.

The processors are the first consumer desktop APUs, or accelerated processing units — a term AMD uses to refer to a processor with tightly integrated graphics. These APUs do not need a separate graphics card to function, according to Gizmodo.

The AMD desktop APUs, released nearly a year after the company launched its Ryzen family of processors, are meant to deliver superior console-class HD gaming performance on a desktop, according to the chipmaker. 

The Ryzen 5 2400G is priced at $169, while the Ryzen 3 2200G costs $99.

"AMD Ryzen Desktop APUs are a perfect example of the innovation we bring to market for consumer and commercial PC users. Combining our high-performance CPU and GPU architectures, this new category of Ryzen desktop processors is designed to deliver a smooth overall computing experience, as well as the ability to enjoy true 1080p HD gaming, eSports or advanced display features through the visual fidelity of the built-in Radeon Vega graphics," said Jim Anderson, the senior vice president and general manager of AMD's computing and graphics business group. 

The Ryzen 5 2400G series offers the same graphics performance in a single processor as a $199 Intel Corporation INTC Core i5-8400 and an $89 NVIDIA Corporation NVDA GeForce GT 1030 combined, according to AMD. 

A discrete GPU is a separate processor to perform any task related to graphics work, while an integrated GPU shares resources with the CPU for graphic work.

AMD said its product offers about 156 percent more graphics performance and 21 percent more system performance than the Intel Core i5-8400.

In 2017, AMD gained traction with new product launches, helping the stock make decent gains for much of the year save for a pullback after the company's third-quarter report. 

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