CPU Upgrade Time (Ryzen) - Gaming & Possible Streaming

[CHokKA]

Hey everyone

I've got my eye on a new Ryzen system for gaming (at 1080p for now) and also possible single PC streaming to start with. I've been looking at the Ryzen 5 3600 for this. It's a significant upgrade for me over my ageing Intel Core i5 3570k for gaming, but would the 3600 be up to it if streaming at either 720 or 1080 as well?

The games I play are things like:

Elite: Dangerous
Farming Simulator 19
Apex Legends
Rage 2
Sekiro
No Man's Sky
Borderlands 3
I'd like the new Star Wars Game at some point
Wolfenstein series
Red Dead Redemption 2 at some point
The Witcher 3
The Outer Worlds
CyberPunk when it releases

I know my GPU (Radeon R390) is probably in need of an upgrade as well, but right now I'm really noticing my system is quite sluggish when doing multiple tasks and I only play games at 1080p for now. Even playing a game like Elite: Dangerous or Farming Simulator 19 on one monitor and having YouTube running 1080p on another monitor is causing my PC to chug along, hence my thoughts behind the CPU upgrade. I need one anyway, as the CPU was last upgraded in 2012 and with Ryzen prices dropping, it seems like a good time for it.

I've been looking at the following to go with the 3600:

MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon
16GB Crucial or Corsair 3200Mhz RAM
ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 512GB M.2

I was on the fence about whether to wait a few more months to get the Ryzen 7 3700X for the extra cores, but I know that game performance on that is slightly under the 3600. Still, extra cores are good but the 3600 already offers 2 extra cores and hyperthreading over my 3570k. I'm really feeling like I need the extra CPU power now as my PC is struggling quite a bit and even the 3600 will help.

The other option is to consider a 2700X, but I was worried that stepping back to last generation for a CPU upgrade wouldn't be a good idea for me. Although having said that, I am going with a previous generation board (cost is a factor).

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

[CHokKA]

If you can hang on another week for next friday there might be some deals to be had, also unless you need wifi, the tomahawk max might be a better board and cheaper

I thought that but the Pro Carbon also has better audio, Intel network controllers and two M2 slots which is why I was thinking of going with that board. Thanks for your suggestion

 

[CHokKA]

@CHokKA what @LeMson said.
3700X and 3600C16/14 ram.

Thanks for the suggestion dude. Only problem with that is that it pushes the price up significantly when you add 16GB RAM

 

[CHokKA]

Thanks for the suggestion dude. Only problem with that is that it pushes the price up significantly when you add 16GB RAM

Actually it doesn't. Although the RAM at £75 can't be great even though it's Patriot Vengeance.

Edit: Yeah, CL17 at that price.

 

[CHokKA]

Go R5 3600 if you plan on dropping a Ryzen 4000 next year. You can even go with a cheaper R7 2700 non X. I don't see any difference between the two with a 5700XT but i don't stream.

I don't plan on upgrading again for at least a few years unless absolutely necessary. Streaming might not even work out. And if it does I might have some extra cash to get newer hardware anyway. It's all a big if right now. Would the suggestion for a 3700X still stand if it's for mostly gaming and occasional streaming that might not even be a factor in a year or two?

 

[CHokKA]

And say bye-bye to the streaming. I don't know why you continue to recommend CPUs which are obviously lacking enough threads, so streaming that requires threads will be an issue.

Would streaming at 720 or 1080 really be terrible with 6 cores and 12 threads for the moment? I've watched a few YouTubers who say it should be OK. EposVox suggests the 3600 is just behind the 3700X for streaming, and I believe from most bench tests that the 3600 is the better choice for gaming.i don't want to be able to stream at high rates perfectly. I'm only starting out and it seemed a bit crazy to me to spend an extra £110 on a CPU just in case it might be better. It's difficult to know how things will work out though.

I know I've perhaps answered my own questions here, but I was hoping someone that has the 3600 and streams might be able to give their opinion!

 

[CHokKA]

...

Thanks. Further down in that same post on Reddit:

I was streaming with Ryzen 5 1600, GTX 1070 and 16GB 3000MHz Dual Channel RAM 8 months ago (@1080p and x264 Encoder). I was playing Overwatch and Apex Legends at ultra settings. There is no drop or frame loss. Now, I have Ryzen 5 3600, RTX 2080 and 16GB 3600MHz Dual Channel RAM. I'm playing at 2560x1440p and streaming at 1080p with x264 Encoder. Performance is amazing. By the way, I'm streaming with 1 PC and running Spotify, Kaspersky and browser etc. in the background. So, Ryzen 5 3600 is enough for gaming and streaming.

So it looks like the 3600 paired with decent RAM might be a decent shout to begin with. I can then take it from there

Thanks for your suggestions everyone

 

[CHokKA]

Sorry, I didn't know you have so serious problems with the financing of your purchase. I advise avoid Ryzen 5 3600. If you don't want to upgrade sooner rather than later.

It's not really so bad, I just want to stick within a certain budget for now

 

[CHokKA]

It is bad. People already report stuttering during gaming with six core CPUs. And you want to game and maybe stream.
I have always thought that the Ryzen 5 3600 is a hateful CPU, brought so high in the product stack by a dishonest and incompetent AMD which only pursues higher profits but completely ignores the problems of the gamers/users as a whole.

That's an interesting opinion to have. Reviewers with no affiliation with AMD rate the 3600 highly and are certainly happy with the performance. Even going so far as to suggest not getting the 3600X version because it's not worth it for the minimal differences.

Also, citing AMD and saying they only care about profits is laughable. They're a business and most do. Intel certainly don't care about the user. You only have to look at the recent hyperthreading security issues and how that was handled to see that.

 

[CHokKA]

Look:



https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3489-amd-ryzen-5-3600-cpu-review-benchmarks-vs-intel

And for some reason, they never did a streaming test on the Ryzen 5 3600.
Because it will fail.

That's for video editing and rendering though. Obviously the more cores the better for that purpose. But it doesn't say it's no good for that. In fact it states it's better than the same equivalents from Intel so I don't get what you're trying to say. Sure, there is a better option, but that is obvious anyway.

The article title also says "Strong recommendation" for the 3600. For someone trying to say it's poor, you sure are contradicting yourself with what you're posting up.

 

[CHokKA]

If budget is such a concern it’s worth considering a 2700x. They can be had so cheaply now and are barely any different to the 3700x in benchmarks.

Thanks for the suggestion. I had considered this but my conclusion was that I'm just not sure buying architecture from almost two years ago is worthwhile. Saying that, the Black Friday prices may just sway me. I know the 2700X offers similar FPS performance when up against the 3600. I do wonder how much of an impact the extra two cores and four threads would have for other stuff. That could make the 2700X viable.