While AMD has practically abandoned quad-core designs for its Ryzen CPUs, the company still has one chip in its Epyc arsenal rocking four cores: Epyc 4124P. This quality naturally places it on the more affordable side of the price spectrum and it’s even compatible with Socket AM5 motherboards. Keen to know if this workstation warrior could serve as a surprise budget gaming processor, someone curious enough took the plunge and returned with surprising results.
Taking a closer look at Epyc 4124P, it packs four Zen 4 cores and eight threads clocked up to 5.1GHz. Though more difficult to find than Ryzen CPUs, you’ll typically find one for around $149. It’s the kind of processor I’d expect to see from a Ryzen 3 chip, if AMD hadn’t seemingly abandoned the family.
With an Epyc 4124P in hand, YouTuber RandomGaminginHD paired the processor with a GeForce RTX 4060 and put its gaming prowess to the test. At 1080p resolution with some settings tweaks, the CPU and GPU combo manages average frame rates north of 60fps in Cyberpunk 2077, Fortnite, Red Dead Redemption 2, STALKER 2, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
It unfortunately buckles under the weight of Microsoft Flight Simulator, falling to 53fps, but still manages to deliver surprisingly high frame rates in Counter-Strike 2. Further cementing its chops, it also beat Intel Core i3-14100F in Cinebench R23 with a score 1,832 to its competitors 1,817.
| Game | Average frame rate | Preset |
|---|---|---|
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 87fps | High |
| Stalker 2 | 62fps | Medium |
| Indiana Jones and the Great Circle | 95fps | Medium |
| Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 | 53fps | Medium |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 79fps | High w/o Ultra Textures |
| Counter-Strike 2 | 270fps | High |
| Fortnite | 96fps | Medium w/ Nanite |
Undoubtedly acceptable performance for cheap of its price, but it’s worth noting that Ryzen 5 7600X only costs an additional $44 ($194) at the time of writing. Those extra bucks will net you two additional cores and higher clock speeds, both of which will boost gaming performance.
All things considered, Epyc 4124P is proof that quad cores still have something to give. Come on AMD, let’s see Ryzen 3 processors make a comeback.
