Intel Core i5-8400 (B360) vs. AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (B350)

[Strawman]

Why don't we get Steve to test gaming power consumption? I'm sure the 8400 will be lower, so yes, more efficient.

Please explain to me how a 1600 that draws more power and delivers lower frame rates is the more efficient chip for gaming?

So your only metric for claiming it's more efficient is....your opinion? LOL, okay bro, you won the argument.

Efficiency is measured by performance / watt, not by watt alone. You have no idea do you? In Firestrike Ryzen consumes more power but it also gets 50% better performance. Check the first page of the benchmark and you'll see what I'm talking about.

 

[CheekyP]

So your only metric for claiming it's more efficient is....your opinion? LOL, okay bro, you won the argument.

Efficiency is measured by performance / watt, not by watt alone. You have no idea do you? In Firestrike Ryzen consumes more power but it also gets 50% better performance. Check the first page of the benchmark and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Gaming efficiency is frames vs wattage, it's not rocket science.

 

[Strawman]

Indeed, but you linked Firestrike where the 8400 is not more efficient.

 

[CheekyP]

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i5_8400/16.html

 

[CheekyP]

Indeed, but you linked Firestrike where the 8400 is not more efficient.

Actually it is still more efficient in Firestrike physics despite scoring lower, do you really want me to crunch the maths for you?

Look, at the end of the day, the lower power draw isn't of such a huge importance IMO. A 50W, or even a 100W difference, will barely be noticeable in the power bill, and it might make your room slightly warmer (not a bad thing in winter! ) Its just a small point in favour of the 8400 when it comes to gaming, that its faster and more efficient, just like how nVidia scores an extra point for having faster AND more efficient GPUs.

 

[CheekyP]

For pure gaming, Intel wins. Even more so if you can budget up for the unlocked CPUs where clock speed is a huge benefit for gaming.
For pure productivity, AMD wins. 12 threads are better than 6.
For a mix of productivity and gaming (especially game streaming), I think AMD wins.
But for budget / value gaming, where you won't have a GTX 1080 in the box, then it's a bit of a crapshoot. Right now, probably go for Intel but try to wait and see what the Ryzen2 chips offer.
Personally I am mostly gaming but still went for the Ryzen 1600 (OC to 3.8) as I don't game above 60fps and will probably upgrade to a future Ryzen chip on the same motherboard.

Agreed, and well said.

Personally, if I had a mixed workload of gaming and productivity, I would choose Ryzen in a heartbeat. As Steve said, the productivity advantage is huge when utilising software that can take advantage of 12 threads. And its not like you can't game on Ryzen, it just scores a bit lower than Intel. It ain't the end of the world, especially with a more mainstream graphics card or higher resolutions like 1440P where CPU performance matters a lot less.

Like you, I mainly game on my system, but I do have a 144Hz panel so I'm sticking with my 6700K @ 4.7GHz until games start bottlenecking on a 4C/8T CPU. I think it has a couple more years left in it yet as a decent gaming CPU, but time will tell.

 

[collector1924]

Hi Steve,
Nice article. I have one question for you though.
Are you using a meltdown patched i5 for the benchmark comparisons ?
I am referring to the meltdown patch intel released on Feb 21, 2018.
If you are using the STOCK previously published benchmark numbers from Intel unpatched then this is not a valid benchmark comparison IMO as all Intel CPUS will eventually have this patch applied and it has been shown to increase performance in some areas but greatly decrease it in others especially I/O and some of those benchmarks where Intel Beats AMD may no longer be true.

In any event don't you think that from this point forward that the benchmarks should say if the latest meltdown patches have been installed or not ?

PS:
If you want to see how much performance is affected with the meltdown patch see the conclusions page on this article. In fact some areas show improvement but many show a big performance loss.
Benchmarks that don't use this patch are just not doing fair comparison imo as all INTEL cpus must eventually install it...
"Meltdown & Spectre: Analyzing Performance Impacts on Intel's NUC7i7BNH"
by Ganesh T S on March 23, 2018 4:15 PM EST

Thanks,
Mark

All our test systems use the latest versions of Windows with all the updates applied as well as the latest drivers and firmware updates. I'm not sure where you're pointing me for information on the impact Meltdown & Spectre had on performance, but I covered this topic in quite some depth, so I'm aware.

So you retest all the Intel CPUS to get the numbers after meltdown patches applied ? I am not talking about the windows meltdown patch but the one that intel released on Feb 21 that is the real firmware update and the article I pointed you to shows a 10% drop in Responsiveness and 29% drop in storage bankwidth with the patches applied. These patches are not on 95% or more machines yet but will be..

 

[Capaill]

While I don't doubt that the Intel chip is more energy efficient, I'd still like to see power comparisons at different loads before I make a judgement. Remember that when you overclock a Ryzen 1600 CPU, you are running all 12 threads at that new speed all the time. Whereas the i5 8400 will overclock 1 to 6 cores depending on the load. Also the systems should be otherwise identical, including memory overclocking, for a fair comparison.

 

[darisalfafa]

Very interested to see you check the thing that I think should have long gone before. Low res gaming benchmarks. To me it is still a very bad method to infer something.

Maybe, with the amount of hardware and love that you have for the benchmark world, you can settle this debate for good. Test with a 2013 hardware (Ivy Bridge, Bulldozer, 290X, 780 Ti, 2013 drivers, 2013 games, 2018 drivers and 2018 games).

I know you have better things to do but I can only count on you

 

[dirtyferret]

Personally I would pass on both and wait for an actual IPC improvement from either camp. Currently the ryzen get a nice golf clap but nothing more and the Intel 8 series are late to the game with the B360 and h370 arriving as everyone else is packing up. Of the two and forced to make a choice I would go with the Intel for the better gaming, Ms office, and web performance.

 

[Sausagemeat]

Personally I would pass on both and wait for an actual IPC improvement from either camp. Currently the ryzen get a nice golf clap but nothing more and the Intel 8 series are late to the game with the B360 and h370 arriving as everyone else is packing up. Of the two and forced to make a choice I would go with the Intel for the better gaming, Ms office, and web performance.

Im with you, I think gaming, office and web perfomance suits my needs more. I also agree about IPC improvements, my 4 year old i7 is stronger than these Ryzen parts IPC wise and even if you have an older i5 from around a 2500k or above you shouldnt really need to be upgrading your CPU if paired with a midrange card. Ryzen makes a pretty solid upgrade if you were unfortunate enough to choose AMD's last FX lineup like I was but I feel most of us have migrated to Intel by now.

 

[tipstir]

Wow I see we're still at it with CPU wars AMD vs Intel. Since I own both CPU/APU I can clearly agree Intel has the edge here. AMD just as good but you have to really decide. Some features of AMD and some software/hardware might not play nice unless you go for Intel. As a programmer I've ran into this issue. I am on AMD APU now works well until the issue with HDMI sound issue with Windows 10. Glad they figure out how that was solved. Intel gear no issues with HDMI sound. AMD work harder to get games up to speed all I going to say on the matter.

 

[Nightfire]

Indeed, but you linked Firestrike where the 8400 is not more efficient.

First he shows Blender power usage to show gam8ng efficiency. Then he takes a snipet of the Firestrike usage to show efficiency.
Finally, he gets around to showing TPU , which had the 8400 at a whopping 5% power advantage.
Overall efficiency difference maybe be higher, but it is a far cry from the double claimed early on.

 

[meric]

Something bothers me, does the 8400 perform better on a z370 board or am I seeing this wrong? Does someone need a z370 to get the best performance from a locked 8400 now?

 

[Nightfire]

Why are you comparing it to the Ryzen 5 1600 when the Ryzen 5 2600 is going to be released in a little over a week?

There is more to this review than pretty blue graphs. Check out paragraph 3!

For the record, both configurations offer a good value. I said this early on before someone went into crazy mode a started posting all kinds of random charts to include Canarded PC.

For more b360 goodness:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/intel-core-i5-8600-processor-(65w)-review,1.html

 

[GetInTheSpace]

I wonder if Intel is going to start dropping the prices of their older CPU's, or if they are going to let AMD scavenge the entire budget PC market over the next few years. Historically Intel has been pretty rigid with pricing, relying on platform incompatibility to create scarcity to pull in top dollar from those few people looking to upgrade or replace slower / damaged CPUs.
In the next couple years you'll be able to buy Gen 1 Ryzen processors for Dirt Cheap. Intel are finally starting to pump up core counts to stay in the game but if AMD drops prices an additional 20-25% annually next year you'll be price comparing the i5-9400 and lesser processors to the 1700x and 2600x for about $200.
AMD is going to saturate the market with older SKUs that are still compatible with new motherboards.

I bet with the process shrink AMD moves to 6 or 8 core CCXs. If AMD is successful with their 7nm process next year where is Intel going to be?

I honestly can't understand why anyone on a budget would build an Intel machine. I built a 2200G rig on a tight budget last month. Good enough for now. In a few years when that 2200g is deathly slow I can replace it with what will probably be a 12 core 3800X and a graphics card for a few hundred dollars and have a monster of a PC. Where if you buy Intel you basically have no upgrade path. Intel expects everyone to build a whole new PC and pay top dollar for older CPUs for upgrades.

Intel's consumer PC business model seems to be relying on kids who will pay anything for that extra 5-10% single core performance for specific games and their extreme edition CPUs are for those who don't really have a budget? Am I missing something?

 

[Explz]

The 8400 review never featured 720p results bud. I think you are confused. I used the 1080 Ti and Vega 64 LC @ 1080p in that review.

Sorry my bad, it didn't have 720p benchmarks, but it did have a single 720p BF1 benchmark that is shown in the video and mentioned in the article, however the image of the graph is missing in that article.

 

[Steve]

Sorry my bad, it didn't have 720p benchmarks, but it did have a single 720p BF1 benchmark that is shown in the video and mentioned in the article, however the image of the graph is missing in that article.

That may be so but the article hasn't been changed or altered since it's release. Nor have any of the articles that feature 720p testing.

 

[Steve]

Was it Steve? Was It? Come on now...

Yes it was 100% a skit, how was that not obvious?

 

[CheekyP]

LOL. Stupid benchmarks from CanardPC who tested a Ryzen 7 2700X [105W processor] on an AsRock A320M-HDV which only support processors up to 65W.

Just wait another week for official benchmarks then, I'm fairly certain that's quite representative of how things will play out, with Ryzen having the advantage in heavily threaded workloads whilst being behind in gaming.

 

[FearlessLove]

It's irrelevant to make a comparison between an unclockable and a clockable CPU, if it would have compared that Ryzen 5 against the Intel 8400k that would be a different story, in which the Intel CPU would have been litteraly crushed the Ryzen 5.

 

[CheekyP]

First he shows Blender power usage to show gam8ng efficiency. Then he takes a snipet of the Firestrike usage to show efficiency.
Finally, he gets around to showing TPU , which had the 8400 at a whopping 5% power advantage.
Overall efficiency difference maybe be higher, but it is a far cry from the double claimed early on.

More efficient is more efficient. TPU shows stock settings, running Z370 chipsets. B360 is more power efficient, and once you overclock a 1600 (or any CPU for that matter) efficiency goes out the window. And overclocked AMD is *still* slower than Intel for gaming, at a higher cost, in terms of hardware, and power consumption.

I notice you had no comeback for my pricing ans value comparison once I pointed out to you how I came to my conclusions.

 

[CheekyP]

It's irrelevant to make a comparison between an unclockable and a clockable CPU, if it would have compared that Ryzen 5 against the Intel 8400k that would be a different story, in which the Intel CPU would have been litteraly crushed the Ryzen 5.

Seeing how one is locked and the other overclockable I think its totally fair to have two points of data for the 1600.

They are both the same price, so are still competing products.

 

[hqxt1964]

I actually picked up a Ryzen 5 1600 and an Gigabyte AB350 Gaming 3 motherboard.So far its fully living up to my expectations. CPU was full price $215 but the motherboard was only $68 as part of a bundle deal. Throw in 32 GB RAM for $128 and overall it was a cheap upgrade.

 

[Nightfire]

I notice you had no comeback for my pricing ans value comparison once I pointed out to you how I came to my conclusions.

I suppose it has to do with the fact that you are all over the place piece mealing data and it is hard to keep up. Gamers Nexus, TPU, and even Canarded for good measures. Let's just work with what Steve has for now, could we??

Let's take the aftermarket box cooler out of the equation and stick with a mild 3.7 GHZ o/c which the stock cooler can handle no problem. That is right between the stock clocks and the 4.0 Ghz setting. Fair enough?

1080p GAMING: (8400 vs. 1600) Aots -5%; AC +13%; BF1 +8%; FC5 +15%; OW +5%
Most of these were done in my head, but a 10% average should be VERY close when comparing the B360 8400 to the B350 1600 at 3.7 ghz.

EVERYTHING ELSE: Well, pretty much Ryzen.

Sure, you can make the argument for the ability to purchase Ram that is $20 cheaper, but then you are stuck with 2666 MHZ ram, and who wants that?