AMD Ryzen 7 3800X vs. 3700X: What's the Difference?

[Julio Franco]

The latest series of Ryzen CPUs has been out for six weeks and yet only about a week ago were we able to get our hands on the Ryzen 7 3800X for the first time. So what's the deal? Why has the 3800X been so hard to get, how does it differ from the 3700X and why has the TDP increased by over 60% for a 100 MHz increase in boost frequency?

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1899-ryzen-3800x-vs-3700x-difference/

 

[amstech]

I've come around on this a little bit.
If your going AMD get the 3600 IMO, what a bear that 6/12 CPU is for $200.
One of the best bargain chips ever, and I've been around for awhile.

If you step in the $300-$350 range and want pure gaming goodness, the 9700K/8700K are rompers here, albeit the actual noticeable difference between that and the 3700X might be so little to none, for most they may not care so the 3700X will be fine, but the 9700K and 8700K do have separation from the 3700X when it comes to gaming.
If spending all out, hard to argue against the 3900X in just about any application.

P.S.
I would like to see how the 9900X compares to the 3900X, even though it still has less cores and costs a silly amount of money, just to see how they stack up. Obviously the 3900X will be way better bang for the buck.

 

[redhat]

3800x/3600x are price gap filler not performance one

 

[bluetooth fairy]

I wonder why 3600/3600x is missed on the graphs here (while 7600k, 7700k and 9600k are not). Would be nice to see complete picture between the line of Zen2 products, finally. Thanks.

"The Ryzen 5 3600 remains king of value bar none, and the 3900X offers more cores for productivity, gaming may not benefit as we observed in our GPU scaling benchmark."
I know you tested 3600 and 3900x there, but referring to GPU scaling benchmark have sounded a bit weird (like a typo, CPU scaling comes to mind).

 

[yeeeeman]

The reviewer must have a lot of free time to test the difference between two CPUs that are basically the same...

 

[8tn Atn]

Thanks for this review. I generally tried to persuade others, not to buy 3800x, and, for pure gaming, even a 3600 is sufficient. These confirm what I believed to be the case, and I just love to cite references for anything I write or advice.. : ) Your site and YT channel are invaluable!

 

[Jeffrey2009]

I happen to have a Threadripper2920X, and I test it with Cinebench R20. The single core score is 423, which is 6 points lower than R7-2700X, but 23 points higher than TR1950X(which is 400 sharp).

Then I crossed my fingers and ran the multi-core test. The score was 5841, which is only 17% higher than the 8cores/16threads R7-3800X, but 18% lower than the same 12cores/24threads R9-3900X. The only news that comforts my broken heart is: R9-3900X's 7086 points score is even 6.2% higher than the 16cores/32threads TR1950X, whose score was only 6670.

As for Blender Open Data test, my TR2920X's total time-use was 12:50:80(BTW, I use the 4GHz Preset in the ASUS BIOS), which is 771 seconds, still nearly 2 mins slower than the Champion R9-3900X. And all of these wretched results for the 2nd generation Threadripper shows the great mighty of the Zen2 core's Ryzen3000-- that's why Lisa Su is not willing to release the 3rd generation Threadripper so soon, I believe.

The only hope for the TR19X0&TR29X0 users now is to pray: AMD LET X399 TO SUPPORT ZEN2 CORE'S THREADRIPPER39X0.

 

[Vulcanproject]

It seems a strange scenario where there is virtually no use in binning the 8 core parts, the disparity between them is miniscule. Almost as if they felt they had to offer two distinct models, when one would have been enough.

Binning is an inexact science, since you're twiddling your thumbs until you know how good the yields are in mass production, then you can align the goalposts accordingly. What clocks they can top out at, how many can hit X clocks at X voltage to be sold at X price before they must be cut down to lower end models to maximise profit and so forth.

This binning suggests AMD had very good yields and hit their targets. The chips are all coming back as usable 8 cores that are on the limit of the process/architecture.

 

[Evernessince]

I've come around on this a little bit.
If your going AMD get the 3600 IMO, what a bear that 6/12 CPU is for $200.
One of the best bargain chips ever, and I've been around for awhile.

If you step in the $300-$350 range and want pure gaming goodness, the 9700K/8700K are rompers here, albeit the actual noticeable difference between that and the 3700X might be so little to none, for most they may not care so the 3700X will be fine, but the 9700K and 8700K do have separation from the 3700X when it comes to gaming.
If spending all out, hard to argue against the 3900X in just about any application.

P.S.
I would like to see how the 9900X compares to the 3900X, even though it still has less cores and costs a silly amount of money, just to see how they stack up. Obviously the 3900X will be way better bang for the buck.

Yep, spend $200 on the 3600, another $80 on a quality B450 motherboard, and another $80 for DDR4 3000 and you've got yourself a killer gaming rig for measly $360. It leaves a ton of budget for the GPU and the best part is the 3600 doesn't even sacrifice much gaming performance to do it. There's less then 10% more to be hand with CPUs higher up but at more then double the cost.

AMD needs to start paying engineers to go out and program games to be more multi-threaded because as it stands they are leaving a lot of money on the table by not providing larger performance increases on their higher end CPUs.

 

[ypsylon]

The only hope for the TR19X0&TR29X0 users now is to pray: AMD LET X399 TO SUPPORT ZEN2 CORE'S THREADRIPPER39X0.

Why would we want that except short term stop gap? For maximum productivity I won't stick with X399. TR derived from Rome will come with wider memory controller. X399 are prone to being quirky as heck (I can testify to that). I sincerely hope so that RomeTR/X599 (or whatever moniker) comes with extra lanes because 60+4 is tight fit for few VGAs and stack of NVMe drives. Plus CPU model with less cores but tripled cache. I never required CPU for rendering as VGAs are just stupendously more powerful and power efficient at this workload, but for loading large projects or simulations that would be nice. And oh yes - Gaming, yeah! LOL

And what I require without question is TB3 support. Then at least I'm not constrained by SATA/M.2 ports on the motherboard.

Finally less RGB more fins on heatsinks.

 

[imdarkbreeze]

So, a 60% increase in TDP for a 6% increase in performance? Yeah, that makes sense.

 

[rub900]

Well laugh at me if you want. I got a 3800x. It runs at 4.5 all core boost most of the time. No over clock needed. Love the chip. Did I waste money? Guess I did. Still love the chip.

 

[ISNeko]

I never understand the need to fill the price bracket, even if the product performance doesn't justify its cost. But hey, if it keeps getting done then that means those items keeps getting purchased...

 

[RealNeil]

Well laugh at me if you want. I got a 3800x. It runs at 4.5 all core boost most of the time. No over clock needed. Love the chip. Did I waste money? Guess I did. Still love the chip.

Not a waste if you're happy with it. You only have to please yourself.

 

[Jeffrey2009]

Why would we want that except short term stop gap? For maximum productivity I won't stick with X399. TR derived from Rome will come with wider memory controller. X399 are prone to being quirky as heck (I can testify to that). I sincerely hope so that RomeTR/X599 (or whatever moniker) comes with extra lanes because 60+4 is tight fit for few VGAs and stack of NVMe drives. Plus CPU model with less cores but tripled cache. I never required CPU for rendering as VGAs are just stupendously more powerful and power efficient at this workload, but for loading large projects or simulations that would be nice. And oh yes - Gaming, yeah! LOL

And what I require without question is TB3 support. Then at least I'm not constrained by SATA/M.2 ports on the motherboard.

Finally less RGB more fins on heatsinks.

AMD will definitely release the new chipset(the rumors are conflict with each other regarding the naming X499/X599) for the next generation Threadripper of Zen2/Zen3 architecture, which supports PCI-E4.0 for sure, hardly more lanes, maybe TB3. But still, most TR19X0/29X0 users are satisfied with their 64 lanes of PCI-E3.0(compared to that strange 44 lanes on Intel's HEDT platform), not eager to have TB3 port.
However, the No.1 pain spot of X399 users are the similar with the X470/B450 users, which is the IMC performance. It is true that the volume is more meaningful than speed for the memory in a computer system. Some applications and games are bandwidth and speed sensitive after all.
New users don't have to buy an X399 board for sure, yet the current X399 users have right to hope upgrading their Zen/Zen+ old CPUs to the morden Zen2 architecture one at least-- I don't see any technical barriers to achieve that since the much older X370/B350 could support the brand new and powerful R9-3900X.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Well laugh at me if you want. I got a 3800x. It runs at 4.5 all core boost most of the time. No over clock needed. Love the chip. Did I waste money? Guess I did. Still love the chip.

Given that AMD themselves said the 4.5GHz rating was for single core, not multi core, and reviewers have been consistently unable to git 4.5 on all cores, I'm curious as to how you have managed this, and how it was verified?

 

[NotABadSlime]

The reviewer must have a lot of free time to test the difference between two CPUs that are basically the same...

Why hate on Steve for doing good work? Sometimes there is scientific value to demonstrate the expected result and NOT just take things for granted or just believing some assumption. These corporations work hard to fool the buyers into paying more for the same stuff. Any effort to disspell that is well worth the effort.

 

[Maxiking]

AMD should be sued for false advertising. I hope you will cover this, Stevie!

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/cusn2t/asus_amd_reduced_stock_ryzen_3000_boost_clocks/

 

[Mugsy]

Thank you for giving ample attention to TDP. That's actually an important issue for me.

Power hungry CPU's not only need more cooling, but cost more to operate (not just in CPU power usage but in extra cooling), shortens the life of the CPU, and typically crash more easily.

In the benchmarks, there is almost no noticeable performance difference between the 3700X & 3800X... definitely nothing to justify the massive increase in power usage.

I must be missing something. I don't see an advantage to having a 3800X at all when there is barely any significant performance difference between a 3700X & 3900X.

 

[Indekkusu]

Intel ain't no saint. But neither is AMD:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/a...ion-lawsuit-eight-cores-settlement,40256.html

This why articles like this that shows the truth (or at least an close approximation or attempt) is really valueable. And more proof that "moar cores" is the not the silver bullet for everything.

 

[Amet Monegro]

So, a 60% increase in TDP for a 6% increase in performance? Yeah, that makes sense.

TDP isn't actual power draw

 

[Amet Monegro]

This thread needs an update after new AGESA

greetings!

 

[Theinsanegamer]

This thread needs an update after new AGESA

greetings!

New AGESA wont change anything. Ryzen 3000 hits a hard wall with multi core load. Gamernexus already reviewed the new code, and found next to no difference save a single benchmark. A whopping 25 MHz difference at most.

The 3800x is a complete ripoff, for the money you are paying you'd be better off spending that $70 ona decent cooler, or save the money for a bigger SSD or better GPU.

 

[Renato Picinini]

So its the same as the 1700/1700X vs 1800X. I've got a 1800X for under 250 USD which is pretty cheap here in Brazil. Hope we can get a 3800X for the same price in a few years ! Im runin my 1800X at 4.0Ghz and I play on a 75Hz freesync monitor so maybe it wouldnt be an necessary upgrade to a 3800X.

 

[RealNeil]

Well laugh at me if you want. I got a 3800x. It runs at 4.5 all core boost most of the time. No over clock needed. Love the chip. Did I waste money? Guess I did. Still love the chip.

I replied to this post already, and I said: "Not a waste if you're happy with it. You only have to please yourself."
________________________________________________

As it turns out, I ended up selling my 8700K system and bought into Ryzen too. What did I get?
Why, I got a 3800X, of course! I plan to run my two Vega-64 GPUs in it and I have a 360mm AlphaCool Watercooling Kit for the CPU.
If anyone is laughing at my choices, I'll get over it.