Ryzen 5 3600... Upgrade?

[McVoxy]

I just spent some cash and upgraded to a 3070 FE and to a 1440p monitor. Is my 3600 going to bottleneck my GPU when I'm trying to get the best out of games at 1440p? Currently RDR2 is my hungriest game for resources, and it does not hit 144 fps when playing, although that us at the high settings graphically. Should I get better fps or is my 3600 holding me back?

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

 

[Hawk Tuah]

I seriously doubt a 3600 is going to bottleneck anything.

 

[Grimley]

I seriously doubt a 3600 is going to bottleneck anything.

This. A 3600 is considered best VFM for gaming. watch this vid.

 

[McVoxy]

Thank you, I just wanted to check. The video was very helpful.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Depends on game and rez you play at. But in some stuff it will bottleneck.

 

[HangTime]

Use afterburner or similar to see where the bottleneck lies. At 1440p 144hz I suspect it will be the gfx card a lot of the time, aside from the odd game. 3080 is a lot faster than 3070 in RDR2 at 1440p for example.

 

[R3v4n]

This. A 3600 is considered best VFM for gaming. watch this vid.

Oh interesting.

I was actually considering an upgrade too my CPU soon. But based on this seems like there isn't much value in it really I game at 1440p majority of the time, some slightly older games at 4K.

I was also going to look at OCing it further than just the BIOS PBO that I'm currently using but again from what I've seen doesn't look like the 3600x really gains very much.

Maybe a RAM upgrade would be nice, currently have 3200mhz...hmm...

 

[subbytna]

Oh interesting.

I was actually considering an upgrade too my CPU soon. But based on this seems like there isn't much value in it really I game at 1440p majority of the time, some slightly older games at 4K.

I was also going to look at OCing it further than just the BIOS PBO that I'm currently using but again from what I've seen doesn't look like the 3600x really gains very much.

Maybe a RAM upgrade would be nice, currently have 3200mhz...hmm...

32 gig of 3600mhz is your next RAM upgrade

 

[SurfXombie]

I just spent some cash and upgraded to a 3070 FE and to a 1440p monitor. Is my 3600 going to bottleneck my GPU when I'm trying to get the best out of games at 1440p? Currently RDR2 is my hungriest game for resources, and it does not hit 144 fps when playing, although that us at the high settings graphically. Should I get better fps or is my 3600 holding me back?

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

You will be fine with teh 3600 at 1440p. To see any difference you would need a bigger GPU and even then it is not huge.

You may have to drop some settings if you want to push FPS, it's a trade of of FPS vs Quality and 120fps is fine. Even in games like Cyberpunk no one is busting over 60fps with everything maxed out.

 

[SurfXombie]

Oh interesting.

I was actually considering an upgrade too my CPU soon. But based on this seems like there isn't much value in it really I game at 1440p majority of the time, some slightly older games at 4K.

I was also going to look at OCing it further than just the BIOS PBO that I'm currently using but again from what I've seen doesn't look like the 3600x really gains very much.

Maybe a RAM upgrade would be nice, currently have 3200mhz...hmm...

I run a 3700x and with just some PBO settings it sits at 4350MHz in games. I am not sure a fixed OC would gain you much at all.

In terms of your RAM you could run it at 3600 but again the gains are slim. If you have 16Gb moving to 32Gb may help with some of the smoothness (eg 1% lows).

 

[R3v4n]

32 gig of 3600mhz is your next RAM upgrade

I run a 3700x and with just some PBO settings it sits at 4350MHz in games. I am not sure a fixed OC would gain you much at all.

In terms of your RAM you could run it at 3600 but again the gains are slim. If you have 16Gb moving to 32Gb may help with some of the smoothness (eg 1% lows).

Yeah I had a look at some new RAM this morning, but it looks like a costly upgrade for quite a small improvement I guess.

I could always get another X2 8GB RAM sticks I guess, the same model as mine, but I assume x2 16GB modules is more the ideal setup anyway.

Out of interest is there anything in particular that would be good

 

[subbytna]

Dual Channel (2 sticks) is best - 4 will work but best to go for 2 x 16 of 3600 DDR4 or wait until DDR5 and a new platform (new mobo needed)

 

[R3v4n]

Dual Channel (2 sticks) is best - 4 will work but best to go for 2 x 16 of 3600 DDR4 or wait until DDR5 and a new platform (new mobo needed)

Fair enough -

▷ Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4… | OcUK (overclockers.co.uk)

That's what I have right now, I'm assume even if I buy another set I can't lose any performance by going for 4 instead of 2 sticks?

 

[humbug]

This. A 3600 is considered best VFM for gaming. watch this vid.

If find videos like this really strange.

They pose the question "is the 5600X faster for gaming than the 3600" and then start the video by explaining very fast GPU's are unrealistic so they are to be disregarded, then use a slower GPU and conclude the 5600X is not really a faster CPU, its only 10%.

No Steve it isn't, that CPU is about 30% faster, if not more, you're not testing the CPU so much as you are the GPU. This is why people have to upgrade their CPU's constantly.

He thinks he can force AMD / Intel into low pricing on their products by pushing the narrative that there is little difference between the cheaper older CPU's and more expensive newer CPU's, he thinks this because the Ryzen 3600 sold in massive numbers due to reviews showing them "Only 6% slower than a 9900K" those results also came from results engendered to be a GPU bottleneck rather than the CPU's performance, in reality the 9900K is much more than 6% faster than the Ryzen 3600 in games and i have always said if you want the best gaming CPU get the 9900K, those who did and now have a faster GPU are not looking at upgrading thier CPU's again because the CPU can handle the faster GPU, what a ####### surprise!

There is nothing wrong with "which CPU can handle the RX 6800" videos and that's what this is, if you are going to make "which CPU is fastest" videos then make your testing methodology such that the CPU's can stretch their legs to the fullest extent, Like Anand do, even if it means testing some games at 380P to push them to their respective limits.

You do have a lot of influence on what people buy, but you don't have any effect on Intel or AMD, they are quite happy for your viewers to buy more CPU's rather than keep them for longer, 2 sales are better than one.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Yes it will be a bottleneck in some games,especially with older lightly threaded,latency sensitives games,and some newer games under DX12/Vulkan using an Ampere GPU. The issue is the Ryzen 5 5600X street price is now essentially over £300,so it makes more sense to look for motherboard/CPU bundle deals on the Ryzen 7 5800X and get those instead. Also with Intel clearing out stocks of the CFL CPUs,you can get some excellent deals on the CFL Core i5 CPUs. I have seen Core i5 10600K CPUs for as low as £170~£180 ,and with a B560 motherboard you can run the RAM at XMP. I just also got a Core i5 10400 for £100 for a secondary build,which shows you the great deals you can get on CFL CPUs.

Even if the Rocketlake CPUs are a sidegrade over CFL,they also have PCI-E 4.0 for the GPU and at least one NVME SSD. Something like the Core i5 11400F,which looks like its going to be well under £200 makes a Ryzen 5 3600 look relatively poor value. The only thing which really counts in the favour of AMD is the platform upgrades upto 16 cores,but again the pricing is so high I doubt many who are really only going to spend less than £200 on a CPU will intend to spend £400+ on an 8 core Zen3 CPU. I also think until Intel can beat AMD in pure CPU performance,AMD won't be pricing any of its 8 cores below £350 for quite a while,and might even increase RRPs with the next refresh.

However,AMD really need to replace the Ryzen 5 3600 now at around £200,with some form of Ryzen 5 5600 non-X,even a version with less L3 cache,etc.

 

[humbug]

If find videos like this really strange.

They pose the question "is the 5600X faster for gaming than the 3600" and then start the video by explaining very fast GPU's are unrealistic so they are to be disregarded, then use a slower GPU and conclude the 5600X is not really a faster CPU, its only 10%.

No Steve it isn't, that CPU is about 30% faster, if not more, you're not testing the CPU so much as you are the GPU. This is why people have to upgrade their CPU's constantly.

He thinks he can force AMD / Intel into low pricing on their products by pushing the narrative that there is little difference between the cheaper older CPU's and more expensive newer CPU's, he thinks this because the Ryzen 3600 sold in massive numbers due to reviews showing them "Only 6% slower than a 9900K" those results also came from results engendered to be a GPU bottleneck rather than the CPU's performance, in reality the 9900K is much more than 6% faster than the Ryzen 3600 in games and i have always said if you want the best gaming CPU get the 9900K, those who did and now have a faster GPU are not looking at upgrading thier CPU's again because the CPU can handle the faster GPU, what a ####### surprise!

There is nothing wrong with "which CPU can handle the RX 6800" videos and that's what this is, if you are going to make "which CPU is fastest" videos then make your testing methodology such that the CPU's can stretch their legs to the fullest extent, Like Anand do, even if it means testing some games at 380P to push them to their respective limits.

You do have a lot of influence on what people buy, but you don't have any effect on Intel or AMD, they are quite happy for your viewers to buy more CPU's rather than keep them for longer, 2 sales are better than one.

Really? Steve, 7%? try 46%.

 

[humbug]

Its so ######## obvious when you look at those slides, Hardware Unboxed topped out at around 220 FPS for all CPU's, Which just so happens to be where the Ryzen 3600 tops out. this is not the CPU that was the limiting factor, its the RX 6800 None XT he used, with slightly lower IQ settings and a much faster GPU GN was able to get 50% higher FPS allowing the 5600X to stretch a lead of 46% over the 3600, its true performance comparison.

This is the sort of crap that i'm talking about, if you're watching Hardware Unboxes you're thinking there is no reason to get anything faster than a 3600, and then you upgrade your GPU too and wonder why you're not getting any more performance. You were spoon feed an agenda, hard luck now you have to buy another CPU and spend more this time anyway. good show!

 

[R3v4n]

Essentially this boils to, check your performance before you buy a CPU?

My thoughts were always if under gaming load CPU is at 60% and my GPU is at 99% then a CPU upgrade won't do much for me.

If CPU is 99% and GPU is 60% under load that's when a new CPU is going to see some improvement.

 

[heartburnron]

I upgraded from the 3600 to the 5800x and saw double digit percentage increases in almost all games. For games particularly CPU bound, such as Shadow of The Tomb Raider, the performance increase was considerably more. It depends at what point your GPU becomes fully utilised, which in turn depends on how powerful your GPU is. I have the 6900XT so for the majority of games, it isn't being fully utilised at 3440x1440 so the CPU does then come in to play a bit more. Perhaps with 3070 is being fully utilised so the CPU becomes less of a factor. You should find that your 1% lows improve a good bit with such an upgrade though.

Well articulated above by @R3v4n

 

[Moeks]

Talking about the 3600 and weather you need more or not, I think need is a strong word, but want more, yes in some circumstances, specifically if you are trying to drive everything you have as close to 144fps as you can. I actually upgraded from a 3600 when the 10th gen Intel's launched, I bought a 10700. However as an example of the difference between them in games, take an old game that's quite cpu latency and IPC sensitive, World of Warcraft, there is an area in that where I would consistently get on my 3600 with my GTX 1080Ti between 122-128 fps (in contrast my previous CPU a Ryzen 1700 with the same GPU would get about 85-91 in the same area) ...well the I7 10700 (none K, using PL2 overclocking which sustains 4.6Ghz all core and will hit 4.7Ghz with 1 or 2) again using the same GPU at the same resolution (3400x1440) will run right into the frame limit I set of 144fps ..which is as you may imagine because that's the refresh rate of my monitor, I actually haven' tried lifting the limit to see where it will stop but in the same zone doing roughly the same thing (flying over it) with the same settings that is the difference between 3 CPU's all on the same GPU and that is at a high resolution aswell. Albeit in a game that really like's low latency high IPC chips more than it does lots of cores most other things I play the difference is less evident at such a high resolution but none the less I do notice it, 10-30fps here and there can make or break things when you specifically want to try and lock out at 144fp even though the 3600 was always more than playable and never felt slow and I would have been happy to keep it tbh, I just knew I wanted 'more'. The other place I noticed the biggest difference was Shadow of the Tomb Raider, that game will make a lot of CPU's sweat, it actually balances GPU and CPU demand quite well.

I hadn't realised just how bottle-necked my 1080Ti really was when I bought it and I had a Ryzen 1700, it's been the gift that has kept on giving as I have upgraded CPU's. I do feel it's running out of talent a bit now though but none the less, it can still get down in the dirt and brawl with a 3060 nearly 5 years later (none Ti model)