I recently built my girlfriend a gaming PC with a Ryzen 7 5700G, ASRock RX 9060 XT 8GB Challenger, 32GB of 3200MHz XPG memory, an ASRock B550M-HDV motherboard, and a 1TB Kingston M.2 SSD rated for 6000/4000MB/s. The system is in a Hyte Y60 case, and she plays on a 1440p monitor mainly because she prefers the larger display.
In Valorant, using low settings with multithreaded rendering enabled and most other options disabled, performance is usually around 230 FPS but can dip below 200 or occasionally reach 150–160 FPS. In Fortnite at medium settings, she gets roughly 100–150 FPS.
I realize this hardware is not aimed at maximizing 1440p performance, and I know results can vary between systems. However, I saw benchmark videos using the same CPU and GPU that showed noticeably higher frame rates. I also understand that the Ryzen 7 5700G is an APU, and I am unsure whether its integrated graphics or other design differences reduce performance compared with a conventional Ryzen processor.
The monitor is connected directly to the dedicated graphics card. I have updated the BIOS, AMD graphics drivers, and chipset drivers, and cooling does not appear to be a problem. The games are definitely using the RX 9060 XT, and the memory profile is enabled. Are these results reasonable for this hardware, or is there something else I should check?
4 Answers
Those numbers sound broadly normal for this combination, especially at 1440p. Valorant and Fortnite can become CPU-limited when targeting very high frame rates, while the 8GB graphics card can also become a limitation in more demanding games. The 5700G has less L3 cache than chips such as the 5700X and only supports PCIe 3.0, so it is slower in some gaming workloads, particularly in frame-time consistency. That does not necessarily mean anything is malfunctioning.
A faster AM4 gaming processor, such as a 5600X, 5700X, or especially a 3D V-Cache model, could improve high-refresh-rate gaming and 1% lows. The 5700G has only 16MB of L3 cache compared with 32MB on some regular Ryzen 5000 chips. However, if the games are smooth and the monitor cannot display all of those frames, there may be little practical benefit to upgrading right now. Check the monitor's refresh rate and consider setting a sensible FPS cap.
Use an on-screen hardware monitor such as MSI Afterburner with RivaTuner while playing. Check GPU usage, CPU usage per core, temperatures, clock speeds, VRAM usage, RAM speed, and frame times. If the GPU is near 95–100% usage, the graphics card or resolution is limiting performance. If GPU usage is low while one or two CPU cores are heavily loaded, the processor is the bottleneck. You can also test at 1080p: a large FPS increase points toward a GPU limit, while nearly identical FPS suggests a CPU limit.
Run a repeatable benchmark such as 3DMark Time Spy or a comparable CPU and GPU test, then compare the result with systems using the same parts. This is more reliable than comparing against a random gameplay video, since benchmark videos may use different memory settings, game versions, maps, drivers, background programs, or overclocks. Also confirm that the motherboard is actually running the memory at its rated 3200MHz profile after the BIOS update.
Benchmark scores can still be influenced by overclocked systems, so a slightly below-average result is not automatically a problem. Large differences are what deserve investigation.
The 5700G is still perfectly usable for this system. The difference matters more when trying to push 200-plus FPS than during ordinary gaming, so upgrading is optional rather than necessary.