3600 v 5600X

Rowan88 · 29 May 2021 at 20:50

Hi,

I've been slowly upgrading my nephews old 4-5 year old PC.

I recently just put in a MSI Tomahawk Max II B450 motherboard and 32GB 3600Mhz DDR4 ram.

The next two steps would be a CPU and GPU.

Unfortunately the GPU isn't going to happen anytime soon so he will need to deal with the 1050 he has currently.

However what is a better option, the R5 3600 or R5 5600X?

He's happy to pay £250 for the 5600X but I just want to make sure the price difference is worth it.

MagicBoy · 29 May 2021 at 20:52

He already has the 3600?

mickyflinn · 29 May 2021 at 21:07

In terms of value the 5600x isnt worth the extra cost but if you after every frame and gaming at 1080p then you may want to go for the 5600x.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.techspot.com/amp/review/2185-amd-zen-3-ryzen-5600-versus/

Rowan88 · 29 May 2021 at 21:13

MagicBoy said:
He already has the 3600?

Sorry no he has an old R5 1500 I think, so either or would definitely be an upgrade.

mickyflinn said:
In terms of value the 5600x isnt worth the extra cost but if you after every frame and gaming at 1080p then you may want to go for the 5600x.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.techspot.com/amp/review/2185-amd-zen-3-ryzen-5600-versus/

Cheers I'll let him know, I did mention I think its like 20% more performance for £100-120 extra but it was more just because he was going to be getting one of the new GPUs soon I wondered if the 5600X was better for these over the 3600 (aka would the 3600 bottleneck a 3070 for example)

mickyflinn · 29 May 2021 at 21:19

Rowan88 said:
Sorry no he has an old R5 1500 I think, so either or would definitely be an upgrade.

Cheers I'll let him know, I did mention I think its like 20% more performance for £100-120 extra but it was more just because he was going to be getting one of the new GPUs soon I wondered if the 5600X was better for these over the 3600 (aka would the 3600 bottleneck a 3070 for example)

Not bottleneck as such but there is a performance drop compared to the 5600x

The higher the gaming resoloution the smaller the margin.

Check out the reviews and may be get him to read them also .

MagicBoy · 29 May 2021 at 21:21

Rowan88 said:
Sorry no he has an old R5 1500 I think, so either or would definitely be an upgrade.

Yeah. Very much depends on what he's using it for. 5600 has a big efficiency jump at the same clockspeed, so for single threaded games/workloads it may well be worth the extra.

Psycho Sonny · 29 May 2021 at 21:29

Rowan88 said:
Sorry no he has an old R5 1500 I think, so either or would definitely be an upgrade.

Cheers I'll let him know, I did mention I think its like 20% more performance for £100-120 extra but it was more just because he was going to be getting one of the new GPUs soon I wondered if the 5600X was better for these over the 3600 (aka would the 3600 bottleneck a 3070 for example)

20% more cpu performance translates to 1-5% in game so it's £120 for on average 2-3% gain. IMO not worth it but the 5600x would allow him to keep the same system for longer and only require gpu upgrades for the next 5-10 years

EsaT · 30 May 2021 at 09:29

Psycho Sonny said:
but the 5600x would allow him to keep the same system for longer and only require gpu upgrades for the next 5-10 years

Starting level six cores isn't enough for that longer time frame.
Remember current consoles dedicate seven cores exclusively for use of the games giving game developers incentive to find ways/new uses for lots of cores.

Psycho Sonny · 30 May 2021 at 09:37

EsaT said:
Starting level six cores isn't enough for that longer time frame.
Remember current consoles dedicate seven cores exclusively for use of the games giving game developers incentive to find ways/new uses for lots of cores.

And what's the speed of those 7 cores Vs the 6 in the 5600x in terms of benchmarks?

As an example.

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Ryzen-7-1700X-vs-AMD-Ryzen-5-5600X/3915vs4084

This 6 core CPU beats an 8 core CPU in 8 core benchmarks.

I don't see us using more cores cpu speed and efficiency at those speeds is far more important.

How long have desktop users had access to 16 - 32 threads?

Yet the 5600x the lowest in the Ryzen range is still the go to processor for gaming.

It's not as simple as saying utilise more cores. Usually you need stuff to be done in an order rather than all simultaneously. Like one job requires another to be done first. Yes they have gotten better at it but realistically speaking 6 cores with 12 threads will still be the gaming king in 5 years time.

How many cores did the PlayStation 3 have again? And when did that launch?

EsaT · 30 May 2021 at 10:09

Psycho Sonny said:
And what's the speed of those 7 cores Vs the 6 in the 5600x in terms of benchmarks...

First of all stop giving that LuserBenchmark Intel scammer site any visits and ad downloads!
https://ownsnap.com/userbenchmark-i...ite-has-a-zero-credibility-in-tech-community/

And after multithreading things which multithread, those often scale easily above couple threads.
Cyberpunk 2077 has fps minimum performance scaling up to 12 cores:
https://overclock3d.net/reviews/software/cyberpunk_2077_performance_review_and_optimisation_guide/4
Without Intel stagnation era getting over couple cores would have happened years ago.

And PS3 is super bad example with its very different hard to program CPU architecture.
Something you should know.

Journey · 30 May 2021 at 10:19

What's the point in upgrading the CPU until he can get a GPU, the CPU are only going to get cheaper, so you are just throwing money down the toilet.

Joxeon · 30 May 2021 at 10:57

Yeah I would agree with what @Journey is saying in getting the GPU first then grab the CPU as a CPU upgrade now will make no real impact with a 1050 and with the XT variants coming in the summer CPUs like the 5600X should drop further in price.

Psycho Sonny · 30 May 2021 at 11:28

EsaT said:
First of all stop giving that LuserBenchmark Intel scammer site any visits and ad downloads!
https://ownsnap.com/userbenchmark-i...ite-has-a-zero-credibility-in-tech-community/

And after multithreading things which multithread, those often scale easily above couple threads.
Cyberpunk 2077 has fps minimum performance scaling up to 12 cores:
https://overclock3d.net/reviews/software/cyberpunk_2077_performance_review_and_optimisation_guide/4
Without Intel stagnation era getting over couple cores would have happened years ago.

And PS3 is super bad example with its very different hard to program CPU architecture.
Something you should know.

It looks like it scales to 8 cores to me not 12.

It hits 70 on average and stays there. Percentile doesn't really matter especially 1st or 99th.