AMD has announced today the worldwide release of their first Ryzen Desktop APUs with Vega graphics, could be an interesting choice for low-cost Linux gaming.

“When we launched our first Ryzen processors a year ago, we began driving innovation and competition across the PC market. We remain dedicated to this mission throughout 2018, as we further strengthen our Ryzen portfolio by adding two leadership APUs designed to meet the varying needs of today’s PC users,” said Jim Anderson, senior vice president and general manager, Computing and Graphics Business Group, AMD. "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."

They currently come in these two editions, with both supporting FreeSync:

Ryzen 5 2400G with Radeon RX Vega 11 Graphics: 4-Core, 8-Thread, 3.9 GHz, 1250 MHz, $169

Ryzen 3 2200G with Radeon Vega 8 Graphics: 4-Core, 4-Thread, 3.7 GHz, 1100 MHz, $99

AMD have said that they will continue to use the AM4 socket, with motherboards requiring a BIOS update.

According to the press release, AMD say the 2400G offers "up to 156% more graphics performance than the Intel Core i5-8400" and "up to 21% more system performance than the Intel Core i5-8400". It will be interesting to see how they perform on Linux! Considering the price, if those percentages are even close to real-world performance, that's a pretty good deal compared with the Intel offering.

The CPU market is certain a lot more interesting with AMD firmly back in the game.