Table of Contents
The AMD Ryzen 5 3600
The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 is based on Zen 2 micro-architecture and a great performance six-cores and twelve-threads CPU. This chip runs at a 4.2 GHz base, 4.0 GHz all cores, and the thermal design power (TDP) is 65 Watts. It is designed for AM4 CPU sockets which guarantee its compatibility with other up-to-date desktop hardware upgrades. The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 offers an amazing gaming experience and consumes relatively less power. This chip is a great of money for gaming fanatics as well as those who are looking for a high-end performing CPU at a low price. The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 was launched in the third quarter of 2019.
The AMD Ryzen 7 5800x 3D
The AMD Ryzen 7 5800x 3D is a high-end performance eight-cores and sixteen-threads CPU. This chip runs at a 4.5 GHz base, 4.20 GHz all cores, and the thermal design power (TDP) is 105 Watts. Just like AMD Ryzen 3600, it is also designed for AM4 CPU sockets which guarantee its compatibility with other up-to-date desktop hardware upgrades. The AMD Ryzen 7 5800x 3D offers an amazing and fascinating gaming experience and consumes relatively more power. This chip is a great of money for gaming enthusiasts as well as those who are looking for a great-performing CPU at a reasonable price. The AMD Ryzen 7 5800x 3D was launched in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Testing System Specification
In this article, we have made a comparison of both chips for 23 games at 1080p and 1440p. We have also included the Ryzen 5 5600 data for an extra comparison.
For testing, we have used both the Radeon RX 6950 XT and 6600 XT with SAM enabled. The motherboard used for all this testing is the old MSI B350 Tomahawk with the latest Bios revision based on the G SAT 1.2.0.7 microcode. This enables resizable bar support along with support for Ryzen 5000 series processors. We also used the 32 gigabytes of DDR4 3200 CL 14 dual rack dual channel memory. This same configuration was used for testing all processes. Let’s go over about a dozen of the games tested and then we’ll take a look at the 23-game average.
Counter-Strike Global Offensive
Starting with Counter-Strike Global Offensive, we found the one percent lows of the 5800x 3D are improved by 81% from the 3600. The average frame rate was boosted by 55% from 245 FPS up to 380 FPS. Different games believe that more serious Counter-Strike Global Offensive players like to target up to over 300 FPS. So, if that happens to be you, then the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D will be a worthwhile upgrade over the Ryzen 5 3600. It’s also interesting to note that although the 5600 and 5800x 3D are much closer when it comes to average frame rate performance. The 3D V-Cache model boosted one percent lows by a massive 55 percent margin.
Assetto Corsa Competizione
Moving on to Assetto Corsa Competizione (ACC), we found the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 offers a reasonable step forward from the Ryzen 5 3600. It increased one percent lows by 22% and the average frame rate by 25%. The Ryzen 7 5800x 3D increased frame rates from the Ryzen 5 3600 by 95 percent with the 6950 XT at 1080p. Even with the 6600 XT installed, we observed a gain between 90 and 100% at 1080p and even up to 60% at 1440p.
Cyberpunk 2077
Talking about Cyberpunk 2077 which is a title that’s typically GPU limited. Using the 6950 XT at 1080p, we saw the 5800x 3D race ahead by up to a 55% margin hitting 171 FPS on average. Though the game did become far more GPU fallen at 1440p, the one percent lows were still 30% greater using the 3D V-Cache part when compared to the 3600.
Dying Light 2
Dying light 2 [DX 12] is a single-player title that relies heavily on GPU performance. It does not lean on the CPU all that much. In extreme conditions, the 5800x 3D improved one percent lows but the Ryzen 5 3600 is more than sufficient for this sort of title. So, depending on the games you’re playing the upgrade won’t always be that significant.
Formula One 2021
Formula One 2021 plays very well on the Ryzen 5 3600. If you’re after even better performance, the Ryzen 5 5600 will probably have you covered. However, if you want to go for a high-end gaming experience, the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D is delivering up to 111% more performance than the 6950 XT at 1080p. With the 6600 XT, we observed up to a 47% boost at 1080p.
Far Cry 6
Far Cry 6 is not a very well optimized game as it lightly utilizes the CPU causing an artificial CPU bottleneck. The extra L 3 cache of the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D helps a lot in extending the performance. The Ryzen 5 5600 is not an upgrade at all for Ryzen 5 3600 owners. So, using the 6950 XT at 1080p observed the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D delivered up to 40% stronger performance.
Forza Horizon 5
Forza Horizon 5, like Dying Light 2, it’s not a high CPU-demanding game. However, unlike Far Cry 6, it doesn’t need to be. The Ryzen 5 3600 is very capable of driving over 200 FPS with the 6950 XT at both 1440p and 1080p. The Ryzen 7 5800x 3D was up to 30% faster hitting 271 FPS on average, with one percent lows of 224 FPS. That margin is reduced to 15% at 1440p and then we saw very little difference between them when using the 6600 XT.
Hitman 3
Moving on to Hitman 3, this is another game that doesn’t exactly need hundreds of frames per second. Yet, if you still want to get as many frames per second as possible you’ll appreciate the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D. The Ryzen 7 5800x 3D was 41% faster than Ryzen 5 3600 when comparing the average frame rate. At 1440p the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D was 20 percent faster. Interestingly, that margin opens up to 28 percent with the 6600 XT at 1080p.
Rift Breaker
The Rift Breaker is a high CPU-demanding game. It is particularly sensitive to cache performance. That is why the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D was up to 106 percent faster than the Ryzen 5 3600 when comparing the one-percent low data at 1080p with the 6950 XT. Even with the 6600 XT, the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D showed up to 73 percent greater performance. At 1440p, it delivered 42% stronger performance.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction
Talking about Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction that can be played at hundreds of frames per second even with the Ryzen 5 3600. That is why the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D has little to offer here. So, any of these CPUs work well in this title.
Watch Dogs: Legion
Watch Dogs: Legion is a CPU-demanding game. We saw that the Ryzen 5 5600 was 14% faster than the Ryzen 5 3600. However, the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D was up to 85 percent faster than Ryzen 5 3600, pushing the average frame rate for the 6950 XT at 1080p to 174 FPS. Even at 1440p, the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D was 65 percent faster. With the 6600 XT at 1080p that margin of 65% was reduced to 23%.
23 Game Average
Let’s have a look at the 23-game average. We observed that in case of more CPU limits, the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D offered massive performance gains. Using the 6950 XT at 1080p, we observed on average 48% greater one percent lows, with average frame rates boosted by 46%. Even at 1440p, the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D provided up to 35 percent greater performance. These margins are greatly reduced with the 6600 XT, still, at 1080p the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D was on average up to 24 faster. It further reduced to 13% at 1440p.
Radeon RX 6950 XT
Let’s look at the one percent lows between the various games tested with the 6950 XT. We found that the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D can deliver more than double frame rates under the right conditions as seen in Formula One 2021 and the Rift breaker. We also saw over 70% performance gains in seven of the 23 games tested. Most games showed over a 50% uplift and hence the 51% gain on average. There were just five games where the margin was less than 20% and two of them were heavily GPU limited.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Well, the Ryzen 5 3600 owners certainly stand to gain a lot of extra performance from upgrading to the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D assuming they have a capable GPU or they’re targeting lower quality settings.
You can either upgrade now and still enjoy big performance gains or wait around until Zen 4 makes sense and then go for a full upgrade. However, it is not even clear if the first wave of Zen 4 CPUs will be faster than the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D for gaming. Of course, you will also need to buy some DDR5 memory which makes that upgrade significantly more expensive.
So, if you have managed to get two to three years out of your Ryzen 5 3600 and are now willing to go all out on the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D. How much of an upgrade is the fastest AM4 CPU for gaming? Well, as it turns out it’s a lot faster as we just saw earlier. For those of you running into CPU-bound situations, the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D will solve that. Normally people might recommend the Ryzen 5 5600 as a smart Zen 3 upgrade but as we found previously for 3600 owners it’s not a huge step forward. Also, in many instances, the performance uplift is going to be fairly negligible. After all, it was only 17% faster on average at 1080p using a Radeon 6950 XT. Whereas, the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D was 46% faster.
Hence, if you already have a Zen 2 Ryzen 5, 7, or 9 processor and you’re primarily gaming, you probably want at least a Ryzen 7 5700x. It costs only 280 USD. However, it is only about five percent faster than the 5600. So, at that point, we suggest you get the Ryzen 7 5800x 3D and be done with it.