3600 to 3700X or 5600X

MatteRB26 · 1 Jan 2022 at 09:28

I'm planning to upgrade my 3600 soon but I'm stuck between the 3700X or 5600X. My PC is primarily for 1080p wide gaming with a good amount of C# on the side running tools like Rider.

While I game at 1080p, I'm using a GTX 970 so I'm not expecting to big leaps in FPS seen in the benchmarks and reviews. I'm also wondering about the future of cores - 6 is already the minimum for a few games... Is the 3700X likely to do better than the 6 cores in the 5600X in future?

The multi core performance of the 3700X seems to be pretty appealing for when I'm doing thinks like side projects, game Dev etc. However, if I'm likely to see at least a reasonable gain from the 5600X in gaming (and other tasks) is it better to go for that? Especially if I end up getting a new GPU in the next couple of years.

Cost-wise, I'll likely be doing a "straight swap" of 3600 -> 3700X, however the 5600X I'll be selling my 3600 then topping to buy the 5600X. If I went with the 3700X, I could instead put that money into another 16gb ram to give me 32...

It's an absolute minefield :rolleyes:

welshrat · 1 Jan 2022 at 09:36

I have a 3700X paired with a rx6800 and I am really happy with the performance for gaming. My son has a 2600 paired with a 6600xt and a high refresh monitor 165hz 1440p and can hit 165 on a lot of games and over 100 on most. I use my PC daily for a whole load of dev work. Be it android studio, visual studio, pgadmin, vscode with python etc etc. I really would stick with 8 cores as it will become the norm soon and unless your chasing very highest framerate will serve you a lot better in the future. 32gb ram is fabulous for all the multi tasking I do though.

Joxeon · 1 Jan 2022 at 09:37

A 5600X would give you no extra gaming performance with a GTX 970 infact you'd need something like an RTX3070 @ 1080p to start seeing a difference so if you need the extra multicore performance then the 3700X would be a better option especially if it's quite a bit cheaper.

TT158 · 1 Jan 2022 at 10:14

5600x for gaming, hands down. As stated, not a massive difference while you have your 970, but if you upgrade in future the extra gaming performance will be welcome, especially in minimum frame rates. I went 3900x to 5800x and found the newer part gave a smoother performance in some games.

EsaT · 1 Jan 2022 at 10:30

Because of notably better Zen3 architecture and faster cores, 5600X is nearly as good as 3700X in everything "limitlessly" multithreading. (no dependancies between threads)
Again in anything depending on speed of some main thread etc, 5600X beats 3700X.

Anyway AMD should be releasing upgraded Zen3 CPUs with 3D stacked extra cache in CES.
So better to wait for that.
Even if new models would be out of support for your board, prices of current CPUs should move down.

MatteRB26 · 1 Jan 2022 at 12:35

Thanks guys, I did realise about the upcoming announcements, so I'll see what that does to pricing too, maybe I'll be able to squeeze out a 5800X...

Would the cores on the 3700X be worth considering for future proofing? It may be "slower" than the 5600X but as we move to more cores, wouldn't the extra thread power of the 3700X start to shine a bit? Or in reality, even if I compile a project on all threads for example, am I really going to notice..?

welshrat · 1 Jan 2022 at 12:50

MatteRB26 said:
Thanks guys, I did realise about the upcoming announcements, so I'll see what that does to pricing too, maybe I'll be able to squeeze out a 5800X...

Would the cores on the 3700X be worth considering for future proofing? It may be "slower" than the 5600X but as we move to more cores, wouldn't the extra thread power of the 3700X start to shine a bit? Or in reality, even if I compile a project on all threads for example, am I really going to notice..?

Honestly I wouldn't go 6 cores. If you can extend to a 5800X then I would suggest that is your best bet. I just feel with consoles going 8 core it won't be too long before games are coded to use them. Multitasking on my 3700X is a dream in terms of productivity especially with many ide's open with various projects. I can only go from my experience but I had a 2600 prior to 3700X and it was a nice upgrade for work.

MatteRB26 · 1 Jan 2022 at 12:57

welshrat said:
Honestly I wouldn't go 6 cores. If you can extend to a 5800X then I would suggest that is your best bet. I just feel with consoles going 8 core it won't be too long before games are coded to use them. Multitasking on my 3700X is a dream in terms of productivity especially with many ide's open with various projects. I can only go from my experience but I had a 2600 prior to 3700X and it was a nice upgrade for work.

My other benefit to going for the 3700X is instead of paying more to grab a 5600X, I can get more ram instead - my IDEs quickly eat up my 16GB.

I think I'll see what they new release does to the 5800x. I'm not on a rush, and neither is my brother who will be buying my 3600 from me.

muon · 1 Jan 2022 at 18:09

Paying money to go from a 3600 to a 3700X is pointless for gaming. Even in the future if you were to get a more powerful graphics card.

Moving to a 5600X is a lot less pointless as you will see a tangible benefit from the new arch, if not now, when you upgrade graphics card.

What I don't get is how you get a free swap to a 3700X. Obviously if it is free, then you may as well do it.

Cost-wise, I'll likely be doing a "straight swap" of 3600 -> 3700X, however the 5600X I'll be selling my 3600 then topping to buy the 5600X.

MatteRB26 · 1 Jan 2022 at 18:18

muon said:
Paying money to go from a 3600 to a 3700X is pointless for gaming. Even in the future if you were to get a more powerful graphics card.

Moving to a 5600X is a lot less pointless.

What I don't get is how you get a free swap to a 3700X. Obviously if it is free, then you may as well do it.

A friend is happy to sell me a 3700X for about the same as a used 3600, so I'll be selling on my 3600 to someone and use the money to take the 3700X. Orrrr I top up the difference for a used 5600X instead.

muon · 1 Jan 2022 at 18:21

MatteRB26 said:
A friend is happy to sell me a 3700X for about the same as a used 3600, so I'll be selling on my 3600 to someone and use the money to take the 3700X. Orrrr I top up the difference for a used 5600X instead.

Then go for the 3700X.

You can always sell the 3700X later.

Cyber-Mav · 1 Jan 2022 at 18:26

Faster cores are better than multiple slower ones. Im still shocked going from 1700 dropping 2 cores to a 5600x and video encoding performance is 70% faster.
And stuff that needs low thread single core speed like nintendo switch emulation runs considerably better on the 5600x than on a 3700x.

silvagti · 1 Jan 2022 at 18:53

Most CPUs are still priced way higher than they should be right now. There’s no way a 5600x is a ~£300 chip IMO given its age and the competition from Intel.

I’d wait and see if prices drop before upgrading especially when your current processor is perfectly adequate for gaming

jigger · 1 Jan 2022 at 19:06

silvagti said:
Most CPUs are still priced way higher than they should be right now. There’s no way a 5600x is a ~£300 chip IMO given its age and the competition from Intel.

I’d wait and see if prices drop before upgrading especially when your current processor is perfectly adequate for gaming

Everything is priced way higher than it should be. Intel are barely competitive, that’s why the 3000 and 5000 series are in such high demand.

gpuerrilla · 1 Jan 2022 at 19:14

The benefit of intel turning up is it may lower some of the ryzen pricing, as said above I would wait and see if there are any price drops first.

silvagti · 1 Jan 2022 at 19:32

My suspicion is that we'll see a sub £200 Ryzen 5600 chip to compete with the upcoming i5-12400 chip from intel or possibly a price drop on the current 5600x.

Joxeon · 1 Jan 2022 at 19:50

silvagti said:
My suspicion is that we'll see a sub £200 Ryzen 5600 chip to compete with the upcoming i5-12400 chip from intel or possibly a price drop on the current 5600x.

I think it'll be more likely a price drop given the 5600X is already a 65w TDP part so is essentially a 5600 in all but name, maybe AMD will release a 95w version instead to fill in at the old price point.

jigger · 1 Jan 2022 at 20:44

Always have the 5600G.

Cyber-Mav · 1 Jan 2022 at 23:15

If they keep selling out of CPUs then i dont think we will see any price drops. That can only come if they got more availablity.
Could do with more cores since im doing lots of video encoding these days.

MatteRB26 · 2 Jan 2022 at 06:52

I'm crossing fingers for a price drop and leaning towards the 5600X I think. The 5600X should hold its value better than a 3700X for future upgrade, and my thread-heavy loads aren't as common at the moment. I'd rather get a boost in gaming, even if I need to upgrade my 970 later for the real gains.