Is Zen 3 Worth It for Gaming? Ryzen 5600X vs. 3600 vs. Core i5-10400F

[Steve]

In order to wrap up our 6 core/12 thread CPU testing, we had to add the Ryzen 5 5600X to the mix. We're going back to the data we recently collected for testing the Core i5-10400F and Ryzen 5 3600, all of it using the Radeon RX 6800 in a range of PC games at 1080p, 1440p and 4K resolutions.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/review/2185-amd-zen-3-ryzen-5600-versus/

 

[AMN3S1AC]

I have a 3600 running at 4.2ghz paired with a 3060 ti, and I have not experienced any issues with the cpu potentially not being fast enough. Given the relative price difference (and availability) between the 3000 series and 5000 series, the 3600 is still ane excellent option for people looking for a cpu that can keep up with the latest gpus.

 

[Clynt]

Looks like most of those fall within margin of error on benchmarking. It is great to see at last

 

[R00sT3R]

Right now, I see no prospect of needing to upgrade my 9900K for many years to come.

In fact the only reason to upgrade would be for the new developments around CPU's on the motherboard side of things, such as faster DDR5 memory, more PCI lanes for faster SSD speeds & whatever else they come up with over the next few years, but even then we're only going to be talking about marginal gains in performance and nothing transformative.

 

[Lounds]

Do we think that in a few years time that 6 core 12 threads won't be enough for gaming though? Would it be worth buying a 3700X at a decent price for more CPU demanding titles in the future?

 

[Puiu]

It's something we already knew. The higher end CPUs are mostly for people that either have money to burn or can actually use the extra cores for something other than gaming.

 

[Tantor]

Ok, but what about gaming with a 1800x? Is there any benefit to upgrade to a Ryzen 5 3600 or 5600x? Honestly, I game at 4k and it seems to run Dying Light pretty well.

 

[Shadowboxer]

Why would you use a Radeon for a real world test? Radeon has like 15% of the market including their APUs. And also we know that GeForce 30xx is sold out everywhere but at least cards are listed and you can see streamers using them etc. Radeon 6xxx series is barely even listed at most retailers in the U.K. and I’ve never seen a streamer using one or so. In fact I wouldn’t know they exist had the tech press not told me. The cards use different drivers and can have a different CPU overhead.

Also I hear claims that ray tracing uses some CPU power so would be nice to know if the 10400 has enough power for ray tracing compared to the others. Ray tracing is mainstream now (console games get it) and it would be good for consumers to know if the CPU they buy won’t be holding them back.

 

[amghwk]

Just goes to show only dunces with lots of money will go for the top-of-anything purchase. Has always been the case but that doesn't stop them from bragging again and again.

A good purchaser is a wise purchaser. Holds true vice versa.

 

[ilovelinux]

Why not test CS:GO? Apparently that sees a big boost with Zen 3 and makes 240/360hz monitors have some relevance...

 

[swagman]

Can y’all test 1080p lows now

 

[Qlittles]

This article is misleading! By limiting the GPU, the benchmark doesn't show the true difference between the CPUs. Notice how so many have the same fps numbers - that's the GPU bottleneck- not the CPU. If you use a 3090 rtx, the graphs will show that the 5600x is faster than the 10900k in more games than not. Is Techspot being biased to nurf 5600x artificially? Check out the benchmarks on more reputable tech sites

 

[Tom Yum]

So, if the 5600X is as fast as the 10900K in gaming, and is over $150 cheaper, and you are saying that people should skip the 5600X because it doesn't offer enough over the 3600, does that mean Techspot is advocating against the entire upper stack of the Intel line (10700 and upwards)? Because for years the tech gaming press have been advocating for intel hardware 'for gamers' based on 2-5% gaming performance delta's. It just seems that the moment that delta disappears, suddenly the tech press care about value for money again? I don't disagree with the findings, but the change in focus is abrupt. It isn't like the RX6800 is a cheap GPU, so this isn't a 'best gamers pc for $800' article or something.

 

[Big Royce]

This article is misleading! By limiting the GPU, the benchmark doesn't show the true difference between the CPUs. Notice how so many have the same fps numbers - that's the GPU bottleneck- not the CPU. If you use a 3090 rtx, the graphs will show that the 5600x is faster than the 10900k in more games than not. Is Techspot being biased to nurf 5600x artificially? Check out the benchmarks on more reputable tech sites

Please Read the first 4 paragraphs.

 

[Mugsy]

When my MoBo died late last year, I purchased a Ryzen 3 3100 as a cheap "placeholder" CPU until the Zen 3 series came out.

Even stock, the 3100 is the same speed as the overclocked 4770K it replaced. A benchmark of the R5 5600 says it is effectively "twice" as fast as the 3100, so I'm wondering what to expect from an R7 Zen3?

 

[Puiu]

Ok, but what about gaming with a 1800x? Is there any benefit to upgrade to a Ryzen 5 3600 or 5600x? Honestly, I game at 4k and it seems to run Dying Light pretty well.

Yes, the upgrade is worth it, but I'm not sure you can go for the 5000 series with your mobo. Just wait for a good 3700x second hand price.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Sadly for AMD, the lack of 5600X's in stock has swayed me to stick with my 2700X until the 5600X is heavily discounted.

My 2700X was 55% off early last year and I know I can easily wait at least 6 more months before I make any decision.

 

[Puiu]

Sadly for AMD, the lack of 5600X's in stock has swayed me to stick with my 2700X until the 5600X is heavily discounted.

My 2700X was 55% off early last year and I know I can easily wait at least 6 more months before I make any decision.

maybe wait for the 5700 (non-x). who knows, maybe it will be good
I would try to get at least the same number of cores if possible.

 

[CybaGirl]

I currently have a 4790K with 16GB of RAM. But I would like to go to 32GB RAM. But with the prices of the RAM I want I am wondering if I would be better to upgrade to a Ryzen 5 3600 as DDR4 memory seems to be cheaper.

Is the Ryzen 5 3600 a better CPU over my 4790K and I am mainly looking at a gaming aspect only.

Thoughts?

 

[Tom Yum]

I currently have a 4790K with 16GB of RAM. But I would like to go to 32GB RAM. But with the prices of the RAM I want I am wondering if I would be better to upgrade to a Ryzen 5 3600 as DDR4 memory seems to be cheaper.

Is the Ryzen 5 3600 a better CPU over my 4790K and I am mainly looking at a gaming aspect only.

Thoughts?

Well a Ryzen 3600 is faster in gaming than a 7700K (

) which is faster than your 4790K, so it'll definitely be faster in gaming, especially newer games that can use more threads, but it also depends on your graphics card. Below a GTX1070 you are unlikely to see a difference.

You'd also get access to NVMe not choked over a 4 lane DMI connection and PCI-E 4.0, for example. So it would be a meaningful upgrade, but up to you if you think it's worth the dollars.

 

[Markoni35]

Is the Ryzen 5 3600 a better CPU over my 4790K and I am mainly looking at a gaming aspect only.

According to these benchmarks:
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Ryzen-5-3600-vs-Intel-Core-i7-4790K/4040vs2384
and
https://www.gpucheck.com/compare-ga...tel-core-i7-4790k-4-00ghz-vs-amd-ryzen-5-3600

Ryzen 3600 is only slightly better than your current CPU. It's much better in apps that use 6 or more cores, but in gaming that's no so important.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

It's something we already knew. The higher end CPUs are mostly for people that either have money to burn or can actually use the extra cores for something other than gaming.

I do a gaming but I also do a lot of photo processing and actually run simulations using Matlab, Mathematica, Comsol, Ansys etc, so actually the Zen3 CPU's are a better choice for me, but I can't get one or if you can it's at a 300% mark-up. I may have to settle for a Zen 2 for now. I only game at 1440p so it doesn't really matter in that regard but I tend to keep a fresh build for at least 5 years so Zen 3 would future proof me a lot more for non-gaming.

 

[Flight808HNL]

What about Microsoft Flight Sim 2020 ?

 

[ZackL04]

Hmmm

I would have liked to have seen a 9400 in there too. How much help hyperthreading adding?

Also drop in a new i3 for good measure?

Lets get some budget gaming numbers here

I care more to see what little I can spend and still maintain frames vs each companies flagship gaming cpu vs one another. They are all the same when your talking $300

 

[Gezzer]

Do we think that in a few years time that 6 core 12 threads won't be enough for gaming though? Would it be worth buying a 3700X at a decent price for more CPU demanding titles in the future?

IMHO, no... well better put, not for the majority of titles.

The thing you have to consider is that it's impossible to build a system that doesn't have bottlenecks. You can minimize them by not doing something foolish like pairing a 2 core Pentium@ 3Ghz with a RTX 3080. But no matter how carefully you plan a system there will be bottlenecks because the bottlenecks vary depending on the task your running.

Some programs are quite simple to break into portions and have them each run on a separate thread, like compression or rendering. But other programs have threads that are dependent on the results of other threads and aren't as easy to break down. Games are one of these due to the fact that the game engine has to respond to the users input.

I'm not saying that games never benefit from extra cores, but unless a game has a lot of complex AI you reach a point where extra cores/threads start to have diminishing returns, and things like IPC/clock speed start to have a bigger impact. There are still new games where the recommended specification is a 4 thread CPU for a reason, they simply don't need the extra threads. By the time that 12 threads becomes a minimum specification, anything you bought to future proof for this will be obsolete.