The Best Value Gaming CPU: 13600K vs 12600K vs 7600X vs 5800X3D vs 5600X

[Lew Zealand]

What is funny here is that the 5600x will be bottlenecked by any GPU over RTX3080. Who will pair a $180 CPU with a $2000 GPU?

The 5600x can be bottlenecked in some games, but not many. I just got a 6800XT to play at 1440p 144Hz Hi/Ultra and with a standard 5600 stock (not PBO) the bottlenecks are rare. AC Odyssey (DRM??) and SotTR (50% CPU / 50% GPU limited) are the only ones that stand out. CP2077 is barely bringing down the GPU to 97% in some areas and haven't tried Horizon ZD which could conceivably be bottlenecked in heavy Bot/NPC scenes. Don't play Hitman 3 or WatchDogs, other CPU-heavy titles.

Other games are all GPU-limited. The 5600X is a good option for the vast majority of GPUs at this time.

 

[Rabit]

Thanks for a good article.
It seems like the 5800x3d is an obvious choice for AM4 users who want to have a final upgrade. It is my case now cause I'm struggling between 5600x and 5800x3d to pair with my 3070ti for 1080p gaming. Right now in Spain, the 5600x costs 195euros and the 5800x3d is 410. I'll hold my gun and wait for a better deal then.

I get on eBay second Hand 5600x with bend pins for 134 euro 3 monts ago fixed IT and sold my old 3600 for 105 euro my brother lasy week get 5600 used for 140, look for used ones deals

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Why are we testing with ludicrous 4090 and complaining how much dearer AM5 based systems are. Surely these tests should be done with something around a 6700xt, 3070 level. Also what happened to the AMD CPUs being stupidly overpriced taking into account overall system costs?

I don't just game and RL kicks the snot out of Zen 4 for productivity and why I'll be getting 13700K, unless 7900x3d comes in under $500, which won't happen.

 

[dalpilot]

This article illustrates (very starkly unfortunately) the demise of the entry level or "budget build" for gaming. If you strip it down to bare bones the person "attempting" to start gaming is behind an eight ball to start. Many sites (like this) used to post yearly the idea of a budget box, mid range, high end, and no holds barred recommendations for a DIY. There is no budget build any more. Using the figures above you're looking at $500 (at least) for either a ryzen 5 5600x or core i5-12600k. Somewhere between $60 and $100 for a case, $100 for a PCI-e NVME 1 TB SSD, $50-100 for a good PSU (80+ Gold in the 600-800W range), $100 for windows 10/11, AND $300-400 for an "entry level GPU) RTX 3050 or RX 6600XT. That's well over $1K for your budget box. It used to be every site (3 or more years ago) a budget box in the $600-$800 range got you a pretty nice system that would run many games on medium settings at 1080P with nice upgrade paths (especially on the AMD CPU AM4 side). What happened to the budget GPU - GTX 1060, RX 470/570-590/470 with both GPUs under $300. In this race for the top both Nvidia and AMD are forgetting high end gamer don't grow on trees they start out as budget games who work their way up to high end gamers. It's everyone's loss long term.

 

[AlaskaGuy]

This article illustrates (very starkly unfortunately) the demise of the entry level or "budget build" for gaming. If you strip it down to bare bones the person "attempting" to start gaming is behind an eight ball to start. Many sites (like this) used to post yearly the idea of a budget box, mid range, high end, and no holds barred recommendations for a DIY. There is no budget build any more. Using the figures above you're looking at $500 (at least) for either a ryzen 5 5600x or core i5-12600k. Somewhere between $60 and $100 for a case, $100 for a PCI-e NVME 1 TB SSD, $50-100 for a good PSU (80+ Gold in the 600-800W range), $100 for windows 10/11, AND $300-400 for an "entry level GPU) RTX 3050 or RX 6600XT. That's well over $1K for your budget box. It used to be every site (3 or more years ago) a budget box in the $600-$800 range got you a pretty nice system that would run many games on medium settings at 1080P with nice upgrade paths (especially on the AMD CPU AM4 side). What happened to the budget GPU - GTX 1060, RX 470/570-590/470 with both GPUs under $300. In this race for the top both Nvidia and AMD are forgetting high end gamer don't grow on trees they start out as budget games who work their way up to high end gamers. It's everyone's loss long term.

Lots of people still gaming at 1080P.

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COUGAR MX330-G Air Mid-Tower Case $62.99

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MSI PRO B660M-A DDR4 $109.99

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Intel Core i5 12400F $159.99 + $5 off w/ promo code SSBY823, limited offer

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Thermalright Assassin X 120 SE CPU Cooler $19.90

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Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z DDR4 3200 32GB (2x16GB) CL16 $79.99

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Total: $882.93 inc. promo codes

i5 12400 / 12400F gaming benchmarks.

 

[mbk34]

Why? Isn't the 5800x3d one of the fastest CPUs on the market for gaming?

Don't get me wrong, I really like the 5800x3d, but why would anyone spend a ridiculous amount on the GPU for "future proof" gaming and then buy a CPU that's locked into DDR4 RAM and AM4 with no upgrade path. It just doesn't seem like a sensible approach to me.

 

[Badelhas]

You can definitely get some serious good deals like a free z690 asus motherboard with purchase of an i72700k cpu at local Microcenter and the 5800x3d fell to $329.

https://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content...2700K-and-Free-ASUS-Z690-Motherboard-Deal.jpg

Where? Here in Europe I can't find a 5800x3d for less than 400 euros...
Cheers

 

[AlaskaGuy]

You can definitely get some serious good deals like a free z690 asus motherboard with purchase of an i72700k cpu at local Microcenter and the 5800x3d fell to $329.

https://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content...2700K-and-Free-ASUS-Z690-Motherboard-Deal.jpg

Microcenter is a walk in only deal and seeing how less than a dozen US states have a Microcenter store ...

 

[godrilla]

Microcenter is a walk in only deal and seeing how less than a dozen US states have a Microcenter store ...

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/help-topics/price-match-guarantee/pcmcat290300050002.c?id=pcmcat290300050002

cheers!

 

[MarcusNumb]

I get on eBay second Hand 5600x with bend pins for 134 euro 3 monts ago fixed IT and sold my old 3600 for 105 euro my brother lasy week get 5600 used for 140, look for used ones deals

Personally I dont prefer second hand CPU or components, but thanks for the advice. Another problem is that I have been reading reviews about upgrading from 3600x to 5600x or 5800x3D and it seems like its not totally worth it to pair with a 3070ti. I will gain probably 7 to 15fps more but in exchange for 400euros.

 

[Ohnooze]

Don't get me wrong, I really like the 5800x3d, but why would anyone spend a ridiculous amount on the GPU for "future proof" gaming and then buy a CPU that's locked into DDR4 RAM and AM4 with no upgrade path. It just doesn't seem like a sensible approach to me.

Fair point.

 

[noel24]

For most of Us, simple bread eaters, any of the above will do, cause one needs $2000 RTX4090 to max out those CPUs.

 

[Nintenboy01]

Isn't being dual rank likely giving a bigger performance boost for the DDR4 RAM as opposed to CL16 vs CL14?

 

[Avro Arrow]

I just bought an R7-5700X not too long ago, expecting to get an R7-5800X3D 6 months or so down the road but then, I saw this:

And... he's right. Canada Computers had VERY limited stock at CA$470 and Memory Express was completely sold out at CA$430. I happened to be talking to Memory Express about my 5700X purchase being only 13 days before the Uncharted Bundle was released. The staff there didn't know what to tell me but one of their regional customer service Big Cheeses was there and he took the phone to talk to me. He said that he was sorry but he couldn't give me the bundle. I said "It's ok, I wasn't really expecting it but I thought that I'd ask." and he thanked me for being understanding. I told him about how I used to work for Tiger Direct so I'd been on the other side of the counter myself and I knew that it wasn't his call.

He asked me if there was anything else that he could help me with and I said "As a matter of fact, yes. Are you expecting any more 5800X3Ds to arrive?" I was told that they were expecting 8 to arrive by Friday and he asked me if I was a registered customer with them. I told them that I was and so he took my phone number and reserved one of the 5800X3Ds for me.

It may be the last shipment of 5800X3Ds that they get because people are snapping these up like mad (and who can blame them?) and AMD isn't making AM4 CPUs anymore. I just consider myself lucky to be able to get this CPU because it will extend my AM4 experience for many years to come. Oh yeah, I'll also get that Uncharted Bundle this time!

I might use the money I saved to get some much faster RAM. I'll have to see what's out there.

EDIT: Oops, nope. The 5800X3D apparently derives no gaming benefit from DDR4 clocked above 3200MHz (which I already have). Maybe I'll just get 16GB more of it!

 

[godrilla]

Update I just left my local brick and mortar Microcenter that has a sale on the Zen 4 7000 series CPUs by now offering $50 off the motherboard combo and free ddr5 ram kits up to 6 ghz. That comes to about $750 for strix B650e, 7700x and 32 gigs of ddr5 ram kits at 6ghz.

https://www.microcenter.com/product...-8-core-boxed-processor-heatsink-not-included

FYI

also the 5800x is selling for $199 with $20 off motherboard combo before 5% members discount.

 

[passwordistaco]

I get the reason for testing with the 4090, to as much as possible eliminate the CPU bottleneck, but if you’re having a discussion about budget CPUs that cost less than $400, most such users will not use a 4090.

I would think they’d want to pay $600 max for a GPU (just a guess), if not less. So for this discussion on which CPU to get in the $400 range, doesn’t it make sense to test with a sub-$600 GPU? Probably the results/scaling will be the same. But just a thought that the 4090 seems out of place in this discussion.

Even with a 4090, the difference at 4K between a 13900K and a 13600K won't be noticeable. Spend the money on the best GPU you can get, and buy a CPU that's within 3% of the "fastest gaming" processor.

 

[rmcrys]

I'm just impressed how little CPUs have advanced for game performance at or above 60FPS

I think you mean "I'm just impressed how little optimization have the game coders done, so that game performance increases with core count"

The hardware cannot solve all software issues. If you have a very bad coding, even high-end software won't do much. Some weeks ago I saw a YouTube video and the review was about games pushing hard the hardware (in this case Apple) and most gashes went from 1080p to 4K and only the GPU was at max, the CPU was at 20-36% use. Why? Because games need much more the GPU but also because they usually use a couple of threads max. So it benefits more from frequency than core count, sadly.

 

[Badelhas]

I've heard rumors that AMD has stopped producing the 5800x3d to help selling the new Ryzen 7xxx, and so, the price is increasing since its the best cost performance ratio upgrade for someone on the Am4 platform, holding a 2600 or 3600, for example.
Do you guys believe that the price won't go down to 330, like recently and that it will be difficult to find one at the 2nd hand market in the future, at a decent price at least?
Cheers

 

[neeyik]

Some weeks ago I saw a YouTube video and the review was about games pushing hard the hardware (in this case Apple) and most gashes went from 1080p to 4K and only the GPU was at max, the CPU was at 20-36% use. Why? Because games need much more the GPU but also because they usually use a couple of threads max.

Modern games use a lot more than just a couple of threads. It's just that, for most titles, the majority of these require very little processor time to be evaluated. Ultimately, all games will only ever have a small number of threads that requires lots of cycles because the engine aspects such as input polling, path/NPC decision processing, environment changes, and frame layout all need to be done before the render command list is issued to the GPU.

 

[Stardude82]

The 5800X3D is neat, but 5600 is only US$120 right now. (Euro prices are also about the same excluding VAT.) That's one of the greatest CPU values ever my my reckoning. Too bad AM4 boards are drying up.

 

[HardReset]

I've heard rumors that AMD has stopped producing the 5800x3d to help selling the new Ryzen 7xxx, and so, the price is increasing since its the best cost performance ratio upgrade for someone on the Am4 platform, holding a 2600 or 3600, for example.
Do you guys believe that the price won't go down to 330, like recently and that it will be difficult to find one at the 2nd hand market in the future, at a decent price at least?
Cheers

3D Cache for Ryzen 5000 series had some problems and that's why one one model was released. Since AMD is releasing 7000 series with 3D cache pretty soon, it's inevitable that 5800X3D manufacturing will stop quite soon. Also those who want it had already 7 months to buy it. Since that CPU will be final upgrade for many, I doubt second hand market will have many available.

Predicting future pricing for new CPU models that have high demand is pretty much impossible.

 

[loki1944]

I think you mean "I'm just impressed how little optimization have the game coders done, so that game performance increases with core count"

The hardware cannot solve all software issues. If you have a very bad coding, even high-end software won't do much. Some weeks ago I saw a YouTube video and the review was about games pushing hard the hardware (in this case Apple) and most gashes went from 1080p to 4K and only the GPU was at max, the CPU was at 20-36% use. Why? Because games need much more the GPU but also because they usually use a couple of threads max. So it benefits more from frequency than core count, sadly.

Either way you dice it even a 2008 i7 920 can deliver a great experience with a 1080Ti; sure not as high avg vs a newer cpu; but more often than not 60FPS+ @3440x1440. Regardless of what you say it is still a sum game where upgrading a cpu for gaming is becoming a bit pointless.

 

[Scherpenseel]

Hello,

I heard that the 13600k performs better on a Z790 board vs the Z690 as the memory and cpu have better communication. Is this something that can be added to these test results ?

 

[neeyik]

I heard that the 13600k performs better on a Z790 board vs the Z690 as the memory and cpu have better communication.

It's not that Z790 has better communication between the CPU and RAM, than the Z690, it simply supports higher DDR5 speeds. For the Z690, the default, non-overclocked maximum is DDR5-4800B, whereas it's DDR5-5600B on the Z790 -- basically matching the memory controllers in the 12th and 13th gen Core processors, respectively.

If one tested a i7-13600K in two motherboards, one Z790 and the other a Z690, but used the same power limits and RAM speeds, you're unlikely to see any appreciable differences in testing.

 

[Khamul]

Best value gaming bar none.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 3.5 GHz 6-Core Processor ($120.00)
Motherboard: MSI A520M-A PRO Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($59.99 @ B&H)
Memory: Silicon Power GAMING 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($40.97 @ Amazon)
Storage: TEAMGROUP MP33 512 GB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($31.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI MECH 2X OC Radeon RX 6650 XT 8 GB Video Card ($249.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox Q300L MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($42.00 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Smart BM2 650 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $594.93