So, you think you want to build a decent PC? 

Well, you probably do, especially if you’re reading this article.

However, what might not be so clear is whether you should build a Ryzen-based rig or use one of the more recently-released Intel chips. With the new Zen 4 chips not due out until the second half of 2022, the latest offerings from AMD have now been on the market for well over a year. 

With that said, they still pack some punch. Today, we’re going to see how the i5-12600K, which is around a year younger than its counterpart, stacks up against the Ryzen 7 5800X. 

We’ll be comparing the specs, affordability, feature set, power consumption, and the benchmark results of both chips, before making a recommendation which will hopefully make it clear exactly where you should be putting your cash.

Specifications

1. Specification Comparison

The 12600K has ten cores and sixteen threads, while the 5800X has around 20% fewer cores (eight) and the same number of threads (sixteen). Working in AMD’s favour, though, is the fact that it does have a smaller processor manufacturing node, meaning that there is a shorter distance between transistors (7nm, as opposed to the 10nm distance on Intel’s new chips).

The 5800X also has a significantly larger L3 Cache, and lower TDP. This is all good news for the Ryzen line, but Intel – having the newer product on the market – have made the wise decision to include support for DDR5 and LPDDR5 in their Alder Lake range. And, while the 12600K definitely draws more power between these two, it also is capable of a higher boost clock speed.

Verdict: Despite all of the good intentions of AMD to make a much more energy-efficient chip here, the fact that Intel have the more powerful product (on paper, at least), and have included support for the next generation of memory, makes it hard to justify picking the 5800X (except, maybe, for gamers particularly concerned about their ecological footprint).

2. Price & Availability

The 12600K, as with most of Intel’s processors right now, is only available on Amazon via third-party sellers. When we last checked, the cheapest you’ll be able to find it for is $349, which is around 16% higher than its list price.

The 5800X paints a much more appealing picture for buyers, being readily available at a discount of just over 21% ($427.99). Also working in the favour of this Ryzen chip is the fact that it will be compatible with many older motherboards (those with AM4 sockets), while anyone picking up an Alder Lake CPU will also find themselves an extra couple of hundred dollars down due to the need for a new LGA 1700 board.

Verdict: The fact that buying a 12600K means having to deal with scalpers is off-putting. Having to buy a brand-new motherboard with it will only compound that. On the other hand, the 5800X could actually save you a significant amount of cash, especially if you already have an AM4 mobo. So, if money is a serious factor you need to consider, go with the 5800X.

3. Included Features

The 12600k belongs to the Alder Lake line, which brings with it some very interesting new features. Perhaps the most notable of these is the Golden Cove architecture, which has been designed from scratch and combines two different types of cores (“Performance Cores” and “Efficiency Cores”). In theory, this allows for better scaling in power-consumption according to how the PC is being used.

Additionally, DDR5 and LPDDR5 compatibility provide a significant head start for Intel’s offering. AMD have now announced that their AM5 chips will support the next generation of memory, but their release has now been put back to at least “2H 2022” (so expect them in the summer at the earliest).

And, as with the other chips in their ‘K’ range, the 12600K comes with an integrated GPU (the UHD 770). While it’s modest – much more modest than a good dedicated GPU, and significantly lower-powered than the iGPUs of the Ryzen’s ‘G’ series – it does provide a fall-back option that the 5800X does not. If you do choose to rely on the 770 while shopping for a more powerful graphics card, we’d advise you to temper your expectations; it’s absolutely fine for Rocket League and other eSports games, but it’s not going to provide impressive visual results by most measures.

The 5800X, being part of Ryzen’s newest generation of chips, has a much less eye-catching list of features this time around. However, one of the most talked about inclusions on this chip is the entirely new architecture design which takes the emphasis off of the Infinity Fabric. This is due to the Core Complex Dies (CCD) now being able to hold eight cores rather than four; consequently, AMD have significantly lowered the need for IF as each of the eight cores can access the 20MB L3 Cache without any inherent latency. Their higher-end chips still support IF (for example, on 12-core chipsets), but there’s no need for one in this case.

Verdict: Intel have really outdone themselves with their latest generation of chips. By taking a much more forward-thinking approach, their support for PCIe 5.0, DDR5, and LPDDR5 has given them the much stronger feature-set on paper. If your main concern is whether or not your CPU can support the latest technologies, it’s hard to recommend against the 12600K.

4. Power Efficiency

One of the most interesting shifts Intel have made is to redefine the power consumption of their Alder Lake processors. Rather than using the TDP definition, they’ve now moved to two separate terms; the first is PBP (which stands for “Processor Base Power”), and the other is MTP (“Maximum Turbo Power”). What they have kept fairly quiet is that these chips can scale up their power toward the MTP without the user really being aware of it.

The 5800X has a base TDP of 105W, which is a 16% decrease compared to the 12600K’s base clock. Even when overclocked, any AM4 chip won’t be able to pull more than 142W, which is still lower than the MTP of Intel’s chip (150W).

Verdict: Again, AMD have always done a good job of making their chips power efficient. With the latest Ryzen line, this has continued to be the case, and the 5800X is capable of providing staggering gaming performance while using significantly less juice than its competitor. Definitely worthy of consideration for any eco-minded gamers out there. 

5. Benchmark Comparison

To get the best possible understanding of how these two chips stack up against each other, we’ll be pulling the benchmarking results from several different sources. These should help us to not only understand which chip has better processing capabilities on paper, but also how that actually carries through into real-world usage.

The first source we’ll look at will be UserBenchmark, which attempts to compute and analyse “millions of benchmarks”. Their results tend to be good for getting a rough overview of what to actually expect from these chips. 

Based on their generated report, the 12600K appears to be the vastly superior product. It outshines the AMD in just about any area most gamers are likely to be concerned with; things like faster single, dual, quad, and octa-core speeds (whether at base clock or overclocked). The 5800X, on the other hand, has slightly better memory latency and looks to be more energy efficient.

Thankfully, we can also get some actual game-performance scores, thanks to Tom’s Hardware. Their comparison of the two CPUs (as well as the 5900X) allows us to see exactly how they each handle some of the most demanding titles on the market today.

The first of these is Horizon Zero Dawn, which was tested at 1080P with the Ultra graphics preset. In that test, the 5800X was the marginal victor with an average FPS of 178.7; ever so slightly beating the 12600K, whether it was paired with DDR4 (176.4 FPS) or DDR5 (176.5 FPS).

With the resolution bumped up to 1440P, something a little interesting happens. The 5800X still churns out a perfectly good 153.3 FPS on average, but the 12600K with DDR5 now out-performs it with an average of 154.4 FPS. However, pair the 12600K with DDR4 and you’ll see a fairly inconsequential drop to 152.3 FPS.

One of the most startling gaming tests was their comparison of both chips while running Microsoft’s Flight Simulator at 1080P and Ultra settings. In that matchup, the 12600K with DDR4 pulled a very impressive average of 143 FPS. Switch that memory to DDR5, though, and there is a somewhat severe reduction of just under 19 FPS. The 5800X sits more-or-less right between them, with 135.6 FPS on average.

Likewise, the Red Dead Redemption 2 comparison (at 1080P with the Ultra preset) had somewhat surprising results. The 5800X managed an average of 171.9 FPS, beating the 12600K with both DDR4 (162.1 FPS) and DDR5 (160.1 FPS) RAM.

With results like these, it’s a good idea to bring in a third set of benchmarking results. For that, we looked at CPU Monkey, which looks at the results of benchmarking utilities like Cinebench and Geekbench, allowing readers to easily compare them.

In almost every single Cinebench test, the victory went to the 12600K. Sometimes this was by a fairly narrow margin (like 1% with Cinebench R15), while it grew to as large as 15% in others (R23 Single-Core, R23 Multi-Core, and R20 Multi-Core). The one W for the 5800X was the Cinebench R15 Multi-Core test (where it was the better-performing chip by 1%). 

Even in the Geekbench Single and Multi-Core tests, the 12600K was the clear victor (by 12% and 7%, respectively).

Verdict: It was very surprising to look at these results. Based on Cinebench, Geekbench, and User Benchmark scores, you could hardly be blamed for expecting the 12600K to be the superior CPU. However, it looks like the 5800X has genuinely better real-world performance, despite being limited to DDR4 memory.

6. Verdict

Consumers looking to put together a workbench machine should look no further than the 12600K. The Cinebench and Geekbench scores alone were enough to settle our minds in this regard, and the fact that this chip can also support the latest and greatest technologies is just another reason to invest in it. It might be more expensive initially, but we have a feeling that its longevity is going to make it a worthwhile investment.

For gamers, both of these chips will do a great job. However, the clear winner is absolutely the 12600K. While some of its wins over the 5800X were a little marginal, we feel that future titles are going to make much better use of DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 technology. Again, the initial overheads of getting set up with the processor are going to be higher, but we have a feeling that it’s going to be well worth it if it means you can get an extra year or two out of your machine.

If you’re only looking for a general use machine, we’d recommend going with the 5800X. It’s still going to churn out impressive performance during heavy multimedia editing work and gaming, and the cost (especially when you factor in the more affordable motherboards) make it an absolute no-brainer.

The post Intel Core i5-12600K vs AMD Ryzen 7 5800X: Which is Best Value? appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Intel’s new generation of CPUs was released last month including the core i7-12700K. We’ve been given one to test and review. In this article, we’ll put it through its paces against the flagships from the last year to see how it measures up.

Intel has been lagging behind in the CPU wars for a couple of generations now. The 11^th generation failed to challenge AMD’s Zen 3 line up and the 10 core i9-10900K is the last true powerhouse they released, now 18 months old. 

To remedy this Intel have redefined CPU architecture, releasing the 12^th generation, known as ‘Alder Lake’ with a hybrid design with both powerful P-cores for performance, and more efficient e-cores. This apes ‘big-little’ design CPUs found on mobile devices where efficiency is king, but we still want some high-performance cores for demanding tasks.

This CPU is fabricated at 10nm, which should improve efficiency and lower power use. Meanwhile, there are 8 P-cores on the 12700K, which have hyperthreading and can hit 4.9GHz all core speeds, and 4 e-cores too, which clocks at 3.9GHz maximum and lack hyperthreading. That makes this a 12 physical, 20 logical core CPU. Backing it up it’s got 25MB L3 cache, Intels UHD770 integrated graphics, and the K specification means this CPU is unlocked, so it can be tweaked for performance on Z690 chipset motherboards.

This CPU is vital for Intel to stamp their authority on the enthusiast CPU market, so we’re eager to find out what it can do.

Test methodology and System

We’ve taken great care to ensure this test is fair. To do that we’ve controlled every variable that we can. All the synthetic and gaming results you’ll see are obtained with the same RAM settings across the CPUs under test. We’ve tested using an MSI Tomahawk Z690 Motherboard for the i7-12700K, A Z590 ROG Maximus XIII Hero for the 10^th and 11^th gen Intel CPUs, and the MSI Mortar B550 for the Ryzen 5800X.

For all the gaming and synthetic tests, we kept to Intel’s specifications for multi-core enhancements, power limits, and Thermal Velocity Boost. We did this because to our mind this is comparable to how we’ve tested the 5800X using PBO. Both CPUs were allowed to perform as they do with minimal set-up, according to the manufacturer’s intentions, but with the automatic optimisations in place. It’s also the default behaviour of the MSI Tomahawk Z690. 

We verified this behaviour with A-B testing in a number of metrics and with both our RAM settings and motherboard settings the results represent this CPU performing at its best, outside of more involved manual tuning or overclocking. RAM was set to 3600MHz CL16-16-16-32 in all tests except the specific memory tests.
We tested primarily with a Noctua NH-D15S cooler, but the performance was also verified with an Arctic Liquid Freezer II 240mm AIO. Thermal throttling was not encountered in any of the tests presented in this review.
For the GPU we used the EVGA RTX 3080 XC3 ultra but run our test settings in order to expose the CPU performance as much as possible, this powerful and consistent GPU helped us do that. 

So, let’s dig into our results!

1. Synthetic Tests

Cinebench R20

Cinebench R20 allows us to test multicore or single-core performance whilst rendering a scene. It is almost entirely independent of memory speed which allows us to isolate raw CPU performance. 

We conducted three runs and averaged to obtain these results. The i7-12700K Clearly brings its core advantage to this test, with 12 physical cores overwhelming the 10 cores of the 10850K.  Running a single-core test demonstrates the performance of a single P-Core: The score of 737 points is a clear 100 points above that of the other three CPUs under test. Our main regret here is not having a 12 core 5900X available for test: No doubt it would be a close-run battle here for the multi-core crown. 

Blender

Using Blender to render a couple of scenes, we get a sense of the rendering performance of these CPUs. This test is highly multithreaded, using all cores to maximum capacity until the workload is complete. 

Note that shorter bars are better indicating less time taken: In this test, we can see that for the ‘Classroom’ render, the i7-12700K is a full 100 seconds faster to complete this workload than the next fastest CPU, the Ryzen 5800X. In the shorter BMW27 test, the Alder lake CPU is 30 seconds faster than the second-fastest CPU, the i9-10850K.

We feel obliged to point out that we’re using this as a synthetic test of the CPUs, and if you’re actually looking to accelerate 3D rendering an NVidia GPU will complete the task in a fraction of the time of even the 12^th Gen Intel CPU here. 

Clearly, the i7-12700K is very potent in multi-core workloads, with only the Ryzen 9 CPUs and the i9-12900K able to challenge it. It comfortably wins every test in this section.

3D Mark

Using 3D Mark we focus on the CPU component of the Fire Strike and Time Spy benchmarks. These tests do bring memory performance into play somewhat and also heavily favour higher core counts as it’s a parallel test that uses all cores. 

The i7-12700K stamps its authority on these tests as well, making significant gains over every other CPU on test. Just as in the other synthetic benchmarks, it’s the clear winner. 

2. Game benchmarks

We ran our gaming benchmarks at 1080p and high settings to isolate CPU performance as much as possible, but retained settings that are relevant in the real world. The RTX 3080 helps us see differences in underlying performance. 

Rainbow 6 Siege

Rainbow 6 Siege has an inbuilt benchmark which we’ve found very consistent.

In this benchmark, the i7-12700K turns the synthetic performance results into tangible performance gains, with 80FPS more than the 5800X, and more than 100FPS more than the flagship Intel 10^th and 11^th generation CPUs. 

Doom Enternal

Doom Eternal is also very well optimised and capable of high frame rates and we logged two minutes of play to give us these results:

This test initially showed the Ryzen 5800X beating the 12700K by a small amount: That’s an interesting result given the apparent single-core advantage of the Intel CPU. Brief analysis showed that Doom eternal is one of the games that Windows 11 struggles with on Alder Lake, so a switch back to Win 10 and a re-test showed the 12700K improving to the tune of 10fps average. At 380 FPS the performance is no slouch on either, but the 8 Core Zen 3 CPU still holds its own here.  This result also highlights the challenges of a brand new platform and a new Operating System – performance refinements will continue as the operating system matures and better allocates tasks on this complex CPU.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Moving on to more demanding titles, Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s inbuilt benchmark has exceptional consistency and gives us a breakdown of CPU performance, it’s those numbers we’re looking at here to completely isolate it from GPU performance.

This test swings back to the i7-12700K’s favour, with a clear 40FPS advantage over the other CPUs. Note we have isolated CPU performance here, so this isn’t indicative of actual FPS which will be GPU limited. 

Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 is another strong showing for the Ryzen 5800X.

Again it’s surprising to see the Ryzen 5800X doing well against the 12700K, with just a few FPS to the new CPUs favour. It’s possible we’re finding the limits of even an RTX 3080 at 1080p ultra settings, and whilst lower settings might show wider gaps we think it’s more interesting to demonstrate how close these CPUs can be ‘in the real world’. We re-ran this benchmark in Windows 10 and Windows 11 and found no appreciable performance difference, so this isn’t a case of the operating system limiting the new CPU architecture.

Flight Simulator 2020

And finally, the game that places the biggest demand on CPU power here, Flight Simulator 2020. This benchmark comprises a three-minute flight from La Guardia over Manhattan and delivers a stern test of the CPU. GPU utilisation stays under 70% here and performance is ultimately dependent on CPU speed. We’ve omitted the i9-11900K here as recent game updates have invalidated older testing with that CPU.

Here the i7-12700K is again the best performing CPU on test, using that spectacular single-core speed to deliver a 107FPS average. Note that core count doesn’t matter here, you can disable the 5800X or 10850K to 6 cores and obtain the same results. This test is all about cache size, and single-core speed and the 12700K has both in spades. We’ve got tonnes more in-depth testing on this game which will form a separate article, so if this sim is your focus you’ll want to keep an eye out for that. However, as a spoiler, the 12700K is absolutely the best option for this Simulator right now. 

Gaming performance conclusions

Our game testing sees the i7-12700K either match or beat every comparable CPU in gaming. The Ryzen 5800X runs it pretty close in a couple of titles, however, in others we see a commanding 10% or so FPS lead. We’ve purposefully run these tests at more representative settings, do demonstrate rather than overstate the differences you’ll find between these CPUs.

Nonetheless, the result here is clear: At $400 The i7-12700K beats the Ryzen 5800X, and the outgoing Intel flagships. Given what we know of the 5900X and 5950X, where their performance in games is largely dependent on that same single-core speed as the 5800X, they don’t offer any compelling advantage in gaming except for in a few specific titles. 

3. Memory Speed Scaling

RAM is the hot topic of Intels 12^th Generation, since depending on your choice of motherboard you can use either DDR4 or DDR5 RAM. The newer specification remains very expensive and hard to find, whilst performance benefits outside of very specific tasks aren’t clear cut. We’ve tested with DDR4 Ram throughout this review: We feel it’s what the bulk of people will choose for this generation, particularly with the more sensibly priced i7-12700K.

However, the message persists that ‘intel doesn’t scale with RAM speed like Ryzen’ so we wanted to find out if the i7-12700K was sensitive to RAM speeds.

To illustrate this, we ran the Shadow of the Tomb Raider Benchmark in a variety of speed configurations:

These tests cover the spectrum from ‘getting it wrong’ with default JDEC specification RAM, such as you’d encounter if you failed to set XMP, through to commonly available kits from 3200Mhz and 3600Mhz CL16, up to overclocked and somewhat optimised DDR4 RAM at 4000MHz Cl15-16-16-32 in Gear1.

You can see there is relatively consistent performance scaling as RAM latency decreases, but it’s not dramatic. We use Shadow of the Tomb Raider for this demonstration because it is responsive to RAM tweaking, many situations are not. Nonetheless, we can see that with a relatively affordable 3600MHz CL16 RAM kit, we have the bulk of performance on offer with minimal investment in both money and time. It remains our pick for the best RAM option for high-performance Intel CPUs into the 12^th Generation. That said, we found memory overclocking easy and fun on this platform: If you do want to tweak, we can recommend a high-performance B-Die kit, and no doubt timings could be significantly optimised from those used to demonstrate this result.

We have separate content coming expanding on this aspect of Alder lake CPU performance. 

4. Power and Thermals

Power draw and the consequent heat output has long since been the cost of high performance on Intel’s CPUs. We ran tests to explore this on the i7-12700K. We opted for the popular NH-D15S Cooler to examine the performance of a top tier air cooling solution on this CPU.

This CPU Maintains the Intel standard of a 190W PL1 for the duration of this test. Core speeds remain at 4.7GHz throughout – and did not throttle even in an extended 10-minute test. CPU temperature is maintained at a thoroughly manageable 79 °C. We repeated this test with an Arctic Liquid Freezer 240mm AIO and obtained the same results – both coolers were plenty capable of handling this CPU at default settings.
We ventured into overclocking, adding 1000 points to our Cinebench R23 Score with a 5GHz P-core and 4GHz e-core target. Results came at the expense of a 240W Power draw, and temperatures in the mid 90’s despite a -50mV undervolt. If you do intend on overclocking this CPU, we’d advise a 280mm or 360mm AIO as a minimum. That said it was thoroughly manageable and entertaining to see an Intel CPU respond to overclocking positively once again. 

Who is this CPU for?

The i7-12700K suits a broad range of workloads and needs. It’s the sweet spot for high-end gaming, content creation and computational workloads. Whilst the Ryzen 9 CPUs offer more physical cores, the times when they are brought to bear on most peoples tasks are minimal. Meanwhile, the faster individual core speeds of the 12^th generation assist much more of the time, delivering higher FPS in gaming, snappier processing in adobe apps and other tasks of that nature. The iGPU is also a bonus to many workloads, accelerating transcodes and transforms for video editors and digital artists.

The i5-12600K is a very valid option at around $100 less, for those workloads if you’re on a budget or for gamers who don’t need 8 P-Cores. The i9-12900K adds 4 more e-cores and remains the preserve of the high-end enthusiast. Most people will be better off saving money with an i7-12700K and buying a better GPU, more SSD space or more RAM.

The imminent release of the non-K CPUs also looks compelling. The first test of the i7-12700 show it performing incredibly close to the K variant: It may well be a sensible choice to keep budgets in control. Meanwhile, the i5-12400 looks set to become the new budget gaming champion, eclipsing the performance of the Ryzen 5600X in a $200 product.

AMD is now left somewhat out in the cold: Whilst the platform costs of the Zen 3 CPUs are lower, the 5800X at $400 still makes little sense against a $400 i7-12700K, and at $300 the i5-12600K matches or outperforms it an offsets the higher motherboard cost. AMD have a response in the pipeline in early 2022 with the ‘stacked V-Cache’ version of the 5800X, the 5800X3D CPUs, so it will be interesting to see how much 92MB total cache can make up the performance gap. The Ryzen 9 CPUs are still significantly more expensive, and their core counts don’t help most users nearly as much as the faster cores of Intels 12^th Gen. You need a very specific workload for a Ryzen 9 to be the best choice of CPU right now. 

However, if you’re sitting there with an Intel 10^th generation or a Ryzen Zen 3 CPU – I wouldn’t take the hype around this release as a cue to upgrade. This CPU is a good step forwards, but it’s not enough of a leap to warrant a platform change from those relatively recent and still high-performance CPUs unless you’re suffering poor performance due to CPU limitations. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, it has been nice to be impressed by an Intel CPU. The i7-12700K is an absolutely storming CPU and excels across a range of workloads, from heavily multithreaded productivity tasks to gaming. This i7 CPU happily beats the last 2 flagship Intel CPU’s, and it’s only challenged in multithreaded superiority by the Ryzen 9 CPUs and the current flagship i9-12900K.

This generation has righted many of the wrongs from the 11^th generation: Power draw and temperature are once again sensible. Performance is outstanding. Where the i9-11900K felt like you had to work to extract performance from it, the i7-12700K willingly demonstrates its prowess.

This CPU does many things right, and for most people looking to build a PC now, this or the i5-12600K are the right choices. However, if these CPUs and the accompanying $200+ Z690 motherboards push you over budget, keep an eye out: Early 2022 will see the value options become available, the i5-12400 and i3 parts based on this platform, as well as more affordable B660 motherboards. On the evidence of these flagship CPUs, and given the dearth of budget AMD CPU options at the moment, we should see Intel regain a dominant position In the CPU market. 

The post Intel Core i7-12700K Review: Alder Lake to the Rescue? Tested vs 5800X, i9-10850K and i9-11900K appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Keeping CPU temperature under control is key to your computer’s performance. Whether you are playing games, doing work, or even simply browsing the internet, your CPU could raise in temperature. Fluctuations based on how complex the task is are normal; however, there is still an upper limit to what your CPU should reach.

Going beyond your CPU’s temperature limit is dangerous and could ruin the CPU or motherboard. Modern CPUs have built-in temperature controllers that will automatically turn off the computer if it gets too hot, but it is best to not rely on these. Instead, taking a few simple steps now will help keep your CPU temperatures low.

Why To Keep Your CPU Temperatures Low

Keeping CPU temperatures low is important for maintaining the longevity and performance of your computer. While all parts of a computer are affected by temperature, the CPU is one of the most sensitive parts. Overheating can lead to reduced performance, shutdowns, and even total failure of the computer. There are plenty of other reasons as well – ultimately, they all lead back to improving the performance of your computer. With almost all electronics, the lower the temperature, the better. Most temperature increases happen because of increased power consumption in the CPU and limited airflow.

As complex tasks continue over a period of time, temperatures rise. This is due to several factors, one of which is stagnant air – with poor airflow, hot air generated from the chip is pushed out into the case and simply sits there. In an ideal situation, cooler air flows into the case from the outside while hot air is expelled from the inside. This creates a “neutral” airflow, where the air inside the case is roughly room temperature.

Why Temperatures Rise

As you begin any task on your computer – from opening a program to simulating high-intensity 3D models – your CPU draws additional power. This scales with the complexity of the task, so running a game will draw more power than browsing the internet. You can find the general limits of this power for your CPU by looking up its TDP, or thermal design power. This is the maximum amount of heat generated by the chip that can be dispersed.

Some chips are much more efficient with their temperature placement than others – in recent years, AMD has taken the lead over Intel here. Still, this is unlikely to be an issue outside of particularly small builds (such as those in micro-ATX cases) or those with particularly bad airflow. However, if you are worried, you should double-check your chip to be sure.

Regardless of your chip manufacturer, keeping temperatures low is important. Most CPUs want to be somewhere between 50-70°C while under load. While idle or only engaging in light activity, temperatures should be a bit lower than even that. Any chip hitting above 80°C will likely experience throttling, and above 90°C, shutdowns should occur. These are all lower than the listed “maximum” temperatures on chips (most are slightly above 100°C), but that does not mean they are safe to operate in for long.

Reducing CPU Temperatures

There are plenty of different ways to decrease your CPU temperature, ranging from short term solutions to basic maintenance. We’ll go into more detail on three of the biggest and best changes you can make here. Many of these methods are made up of smaller tasks that you may have heard of or even already be doing. We’ve also focused on easier methods that can see immediate changes. While changing your thermal paste is likely a good idea, it is unlikely to be the only factor.

If your CPU temperatures are particularly bad – consistently above 80°C or throttling during high-stress activities – you can use a combination of methods to see the most effective results. Before entering into some of the more complicated solutions, this list of quick fixes may cause noticeable improvements:

• Control Fan RPM
  • A program on your computer can allow you to monitor your fan speeds, ensure they all work, and deliberately control them.
• Move Your Computer
  • If your computer is on a carpet or in a particularly hot area, consider moving it somewhere else. Carpet can reduce airflow around the PC. For cooling to be effective, the air outside the case needs to be colder than inside.
• Keep the Case Closed
  • Although it may seem like opening your case is a good idea to increase airflow, this actually has a negative effect on temperatures. Dust easily enters the system and clogs up airflow, and any fans become less effective at their job. Leave the side on.

Method #1: Increase Airflow

A consistent and good airflow around your PC and CPU is one of the most important parts of reducing temperatures. Computer parts constantly give off heat, even when barely idle. Stagnant air allows this heat to build up and stay around the internal components while slowly rising.

To avoid that, you need to introduce intake and outtake options into the case. Ideally, the intake and outtake through the case is equal – creating a neutral airflow setup. Normally, this is done through designating intake fans and exhaust fans at opposite ends of the case, with intake at the front. Depending on your chassis, airflow may need to take another form, such as bottom to top.

Whatever the case may be, it is important that you always allow for good airflow. A few quick tips include:

• Make Sure Your Fans Are Situated Correctly
  • Every fan can serve as an intake or outtake option. Some are equipped with handy arrows that show what direction the air will flow; simply flip the fan to direct air where you need it to go. Otherwise, you can generally find what the airflow direction will be by locating the grille on the fan. Air will flow toward the grille (the back of the fan).
• Use the Largest Fans Possible
  • Computer case fans come in a variety of sizes, commonly ranging from 80mm to 240mm. Use the largest fans that fit in your case to reduce RPMs, noise, and heat generation.
• Make A Plan
  • When setting up your fans, consider how they will fit together. Ensure that you do not have any fans pushing against the general flow of the case. Your case may include recommendations for airflow in the instructions to optimize everything.

Method #2: Keep Your Case Clean

Keeping your case clean somewhat fits into the “improve airflow” method, but it is so important that it deserves its own section. By keeping your computer case clear of obstructions, you allow air to flow more easily and do not trap dust or hot air. This allows everything to flow much more smoothly. Cleaning your case is made up of two parts: properly organizing the build and removing dust and other build-up from the inside. Luckily, these also split evenly into “setup” and “maintenance”, so you only have to worry about one at a time

Cable Management

If you built your computer yourself, you likely considered cable management – even if only long enough to ignore it. Managing your PC’s cables is not just for aesthetics; they take up a significant amount of space in the case and can directly interfere with airflow. Most modern cases contain space on the back or in a separate compartment to store additional wires and tighten up lengths. If you have not revisited your cables in a while, take the time to do so.

Try to make the area of airflow in your computer as clear as possible. In most mid-ATX towers, this is the area directly above the CPU anyway, so it is sure to help with temperatures. This also includes moving around fan wires or any additional lighting you’ve installed.

Cleaning Your Computer

Cleaning your computer is one of the best ways to see an immediate drop in temperatures, especially if you do not do it often. As fans push and pull air, they naturally accumulate dust. This is better than the dust settling on components, but it means that they slowly become less effective over time. Regularly cleaning your fans and other components can keep them fresh and working wonderfully.

Luckily, cleaning computer components is easy to do. Especially if you built your PC yourself, you will already be comfortable with the various parts and steps. Some tools that may be helpful for cleaning include:

• A can of compressed air
• A clean microfiber cloth
• A soft paintbrush
• A dust mask

Not all of these are required – you can see effective results with any one of them, really – they can work in tandem to make your job easier. A dust mask may not be required if you recently cleaned the computer.

The Cleaning Process

To start, open your computer by removing the side panel. Use the compressed air upright and a safe distance from the electronics to clear out any visible dust. Be sure to follow the directions on the can to ensure that no liquid comes out with the air, as it can damage electronics. You can also use a clean microfiber cloth to gently wipe away dust on larger areas.

With the general computer cleaned, focus on the fans. Hold them still with your hand and blow the dust that has accumulated on the blades away from the computer. The paintbrush can be particularly useful here for caked-on grime. Try not to move the fans while cleaning, as it can needlessly wear down the ball bearings and other components.

Finally, focus on the power supply – this is normally accessible on the underside of the case, often behind a mesh screen on newer cases. Use the compressed air here once again. When you’re done, simple replace the side of the computer and see your thermal performance improve.

Dust traps in heat and significantly reduces airflow, so this is one of the best ways to improve your CPU performance. Especially focus on your CPU cooler’s fan if temperatures on the CPU, in particular, seem high.

Method #3: Check Your CPU Cooler

After improving your computer’s airflow and giving it a proper cleaning, temperatures may still be high. In this case, a hardware change may be required. This can be as minor as replacing the thermal paste between the CPU and its cooler, or as extensive as upgrading the CPU cooler itself. Before deciding on what path to take, take a close look at the current CPU cooler and ensure it is properly working.

The fans should spin without issue, be rigidly connected to the chip, and all pins should be plugged into the motherboard. You can also ensure that the fan properly works by confirming with a third-party fan app on your PC.

If the CPU cooler works correctly, reapplying thermal paste is the next recommendation. Especially if your system is aging or was prebuilt, the thermal paste may have dried out or not fully cover the chip. To replace the thermal paste, remove the current CPU cooler and wipe the chip and connecting plate clean. Apply a small dot to the center of the CPU – when the cooler is placed back on, the pressure will evenly distribute it to the entire chip.

While it is important to have enough thermal paste, be careful about putting on too much. It should not spill out at all when the cooler is placed on top. For better coverage, you can slightly wiggle the CPU cooler on top of the chip before settling it. Thermal paste should be replaced every time the CPU cooler is taken on or off the CPU for maximum performance.

Upgrading the CPU Cooler

If your CPU cooler is stock, it may not provide enough cooling to the chip for high intensity tasks. This is especially relevant for those overclocking their CPU, as it dramatically increases the heat production of your PC. Replacing the CPU cooler with an aftermarket option – whether air cooled or liquid – is a good idea. Given the price of a good aftermarket CPU fan, however, this is normally a final option (unless you are planning other upgrades).

The largest choice here is between an air-cooled CPU fan or a liquid-cooled radiator combo. A liquid-cooled option is generally better, but this depends on your climate, case space, and support. Consider the space in your case, current cooling solutions, and budget before deciding.

Summary

There are plenty of ways to reduce the temperature of your CPU, and the most effective method will change depending on a number of factors. Start with the cheapest options first and ensure that your case is clean and all the fans are working. Tracking your temperatures using a third-party application is a great way to make sure there is actually an issue before moving onto larger fixes.

Airflow is king when it comes to cooling your computer in general. It is especially important for expensive parts like the CPU and GPU. Focus on creating a neutral airflow where cool air is consistently entering the case. Upgrading your cooing solutions is always an option but is often expensive. If you are upgrading, consider your different options and what fits in your case.

The post How to Reduce CPU Temperatures (Benefits, How to Steps, Methods) appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Intel’s 11^th generation CPUs hit the market late last March. With data to back up their statistics and test their performance, it is time to consider how they shape up to one another. The 11^th generation saw Intel finally catch up to AMD in technology by including PCIe 4.0 support, expanded memory speeds, and updated hyperthreading capabilities. However, across all processors, sacrifices were made. Intel still uses 14nm architecture for their chips and retrofitted their 10nm productions to this size for the generation. This has resulted in a cutting of cores and threads from the previous generation, most notable on the new flagship Core i9-11900k. Was it worth it?

Meanwhile, the newest Core i5-11600k aims to take over the midrange CPU market once again. Targeted to take on AMD’s strong presence at this price point, Intel packed in a variety of features and speeds at an incredible price point. The i5 has always been a strong contender for the best value purchase for gamers, and that may hold true here again. On the enthusiast side of things, the Core i9-11900k sees Intel trying once again to push the envelope and prove their worth. It is certainly not a processor for everyone, and not one that most people will ever need. Upon release, it was lambasted as an overpriced option that served little purpose in the market. Has it gotten any better since then?

With both chips tested and ready to compare, it is time to take them on a fresh spin and see which is the value option for the average user.

Specifications

Processor	Core i5-11600k	Core i9-11900k
Design
Architecture	14nm Rocket Lake	14nm Rocket Lake
Cores	6	8
Threads	12	16
Base Clock	3.9 GHz	3.5 GHz
Boost Clock	4.9 GHz	5.30 GHz
Memory Types	DDR4 3200	DDR4 3200
L3 Cache	12 MB	16 MB
TDP	125W	125W
PCIe	4	4
Price	$262 - 272	$539 – 549
Availability	Amazon.com	Amazon.com

Intel Core i5-11600k

The Core i5-11600k is shaping up to be the best offering of Intel’s newest 11^th generation. It features six cores and twelve threads with a base clock speed of 3.9 GHz that can boost up to 4.9 GHz. A 12MB L3 cache and thermal design power of 125W complete the main package. Unfortunately, all of Intel’s chips continue to boast a high TDP, allowing AMD to dominate the power efficiency category.

The i5-11600k’s memory speed capacity officially supports DDR4 3200 and features a maximum memory bandwidth of 50 GB/s. This is a nice upgrade over the 10^th generation, which needed to overclock to reach these levels. It is also equal to higher-end models of the 11^th generation such as the Core i9-11900k, swinging value in favor of this cheaper processor. Intel has finally upgraded to PCIe 4.0 support, making any processor from this generation more future-proofed. Better data transfer speeds of 16 Gb/s allow the system to fully support the newest graphics cards and other additions.

Sadly, Intel has made some choices that make using the i5-11600k as a mid-range CPU more difficult. Because it is an unlocked processor – hence the “k” denomination – no stock cooler comes with the chip. While the high TDP suggests hotter performance anyway, making an aftermarket cooler a good idea, it still would have been nice for some builds.

Unlike most other offerings from Intel’s 11^th generation, the value on the i5-11600k is quite high. While it certainly does not offer the best statistics or performance, it is a respectable mid-range CPU that can more than keep up with modern demand. It may even be enough to challenge AMD’s hold over the budget gaming CPU market with their Ryzen 5 5600X. Notably, even now, a few months after release, prices on the i5 remain close to MSRP. In the current time of turbulent prices, that alone is notable.

The value packed into this offering makes it a great deal but also challenges the place of Intel’s other offerings. Combined with the lackluster stats of the Core i9-11900k, as we will see in a moment, it places Intel’s lineup in an awkward position.

Intel Core i9-11900k

As the flagship model for Intel’s 11^th generation, expectations were high for the Core i9-11900k. Unfortunately, the processor has taken a few too many steps back to represent what entries in the i9 series have in the past. Featuring fewer cores and similar speeds to the 10^th generation core i9, questions about why this processor even needed to exist come into view. Many of these changes are thanks to Intel retrofitting their 10nm mobile architecture to 14nm for this Rocket Lake adaptation. The cuts largely come in the form of fewer cores. The i9-11900k has eight cores and 16 threads – last generation’s 10850k has 10 cores and 20 threads for comparison. Clock speeds for the new offering are average to slightly below average for its price point with a 3.5 GHz base speed and a single-core boost of 5.3 GHz.

In exchange for these reduced and shifted numbers, Intel focused instead on optimization. The advanced technologies seen across the 11^th generation are astounding, and the i9 features all the best options. Most interesting among the improvements is Adaptive Boost Technology, a feature meant to increase raw speed through increased power consumption. It only activates when three or more cores are in use but should provide a nice boost to the processor. Another is Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0, which singles out the best performing core and increases performance when available.

These changes are nice and help keep the i9-11900k in the running but may not be enough to offset the high price point. However, power efficiency is a concern here. The Core i9-11900k has a TDP of 120 Watts, and across multiple tests rises well above that. Especially when compared to AMD’s offerings, thermal efficiency is an issue on this chip. Good aftermarket cooling is an absolute necessity for this chip, as it can throttle quickly.

General upgrades seen in the Core i5-11600k hold here as well. Memory speed support boosts up to DDR4 3200, and memory bandwidth ups to 50 GB/s. PCIe 4.0 support also hits this processor, upping transfer speeds to 16 Gb/s – double that of PCIe 3.0. While not essential for newer graphics cards, it is a welcome upgrade for the future. Still, with all the improvements made here, the Core i9-11900k is expensive and has underperformed across many tests. As the flagship for the next generation, this processor should be cleanly leading the pack across every test – it does not. Combined with the slight downgrade in paper specs and how killer the i5-11600k is, it is tough to find reasons why anyone but the most enthusiast builders should pay for the upgrade.

Intel Core i5-11600k vs Core i9-11900k: Gaming Benchmarks

Over the past few months, we have seen some proper gaming benchmarks come out on Intel’s 11^th generation. The Core i9-11900k especially received attention as Intel tried to take its throne back from AMD, making it an easy comparison. For more detailed reports on that processor, check out our article considering how it fits in the current CPU space. As for the i5-11600k, it has received praise and tested well across the mid-level CPU competition. Expect the i9 to outperform the i5 across all benchmarks; the true question is how closely the two perform to one another. At almost double the MSRP, and over double the price in real-world markets, the Core i9-11900k needs to blow the Core i5-11600k away to be worth the increase.

Unfortunately for Intel, that has not been the case across testing. UserBenchmark found that across most games in 1080p on Max settings, there was – at most – a 3% increase. Games tested include CSGO, which saw a 3% increase in FPS, GTA V with a 1% increase, Overwatch and PUBG with 3% increases each, and Fortnite with a 1% increase. As expected, all of these were in favor of the Core i9-11900k. While performance is inarguably better, the upgrade is less than expected.

Similarly, effective speed tests across over 1,000 user benchmarks saw only minor increases for the Core i9. These tests are particularly nice for comparison because they are user submitted and, by extension, cover a wide variety of system configurations. Across all of them, the Core i9-11900k saw an average increase of 8% performance over the Core i5-11600k. The only notable area where the Core i9 significantly outperformed the Core i5 was in octa-core speed tests – obvious, given that the i5 has only six. Testing in other games resulted in similar spreads. In Far Cry 5 in 1080p, Eurogamer found that the 11900k outperformed the 11600k by an average of 20 FPS: 158 to 138. In Cyberpunk 2077, they found only a three percent upgrade once again. Their testing used a 2080TI graphics card and the same rig across all testing.

Final Verdict – Core i5-11600k

Intel has nailed the value ratio for the 11^th generation Core i5-11600k. The higher price of the Core i9-11900k was already difficult to justify, and Intel overdelivering on the new i5 makes it even harder. For all but the most dedicated enthusiasts looking to wring out every drop of performance, the Core i5-11600k is more than enough. The i5 being available at or near MSRP is also a huge boon; its main competition is AMD’s offerings, which tend to be $100-$200 over MSRP currently. All things considered, it just may be the best value per dollar across all processors right now.

Of course, some common concerns still reside; The Ryzen 5 5600X found at MSRP is still likely a better option, for instance. Intel’s power consumption and, by extension, thermals, are still abnormally high for those looking to create small and lightweight builds. Some intense workstation builds may also prefer the performance of the i9-11900k or i7-11700k. However, the i5-11600k cuts through these downsides with great performance and pricing. Intel fans likely have AMD to thank for the i5-11600k’s great offering. AMD’s powerful midrange offerings are likely a strong reason why this processor packs so much in at a cheap price. With that said, intel has delivered an incredible processor for a fantastic price that is readily available. For all gaming and most workstation use, it is currently the Intel processor to beat – in both price and value.

Relevant Guides

Want to learn more about the Intel Core i5-11600k? We’ve created a guide on how to purchase one now that it has released. Or compare it to some more processors:

• Where to Buy Intel Core i5-11600K: Pre-Order, Release Date, Price
• Intel Core i5-11600k vs Core i7-11700k: What Are the Key Differences?
• Intel Core i5-11600K vs AMD Ryzen 5600X: What are the Key Differences?

The post Intel Core i5-11600k VS. Core i9-11900k: Which Is the Best Value? appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

If you’re a gamer or any productivity user, deciding on which CPU to buy is always a tough choice. Moreover, if you plan on building on a budget but still want the best performance for your money; you’d be asking yourself “Intel or AMD?”  

As it stands now, its Team Blue who offers cheaper options in their latest line-up. The surprisingly competent Core i5 11400F is a tiny beast of a CPU. Nonetheless, it’s only fair that we compare it to Team Red’s cheapest offering among their latest Zen 3 processors; the Ryzen 5 5600X. Read on to find out whether you really need to cough up more dough for AMD, or if you’ll be just fine sticking to Intel’s newly crowned budget champ.

Specifications

Model	Core i5 11400	Ryzen 5 5600x
Design
Cores/Threads	6/12	6/12
Base Clock	2.6GHz	3.7GHz
Boost Clock	4.4GHz	4.6GHz
TDP	65W	65W
Included Cooler	Intel Stock Cooler	Wraith Stealth
MSRP	$157	$299
Availability	Amazon.com	Amazon.com

At first glance, the specifications show that the Ryzen 5 5600X will vastly outperform the Core i5 11400F. However, it’s also clear why since Team Red’s cheapest Zen 3 offering costs nearly twice as much as the 11400F at its MSRP. The base clock speed of the Ryzen 5 is much higher than that of the Core i5 11400F, while its boost clock is another 200MHz higher than that of Team Blue.

Both have the same advertised thermal design power; however, this means little since in real use cases the power draw of both chips will be higher.

In order to see just how much these two processors differ in terms of performance, let’s turn to the benchmarks.

1080p Gaming- Mixed

*Benchmarks courtesy of Benchmark– YouTube

The 1080p gaming benchmarks show the Ryzen 5 5600X being mostly ahead of the Core i5 11400F. The only exceptions being Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Red Dead Redemption 2; two very GPU intensive games that both have equal average framerates on both processors. Cyberpunk 2077 sees a slightly higher framerate on the Core i5 11400F. But this difference is a tossup between either, so your mileage may vary. The largest variation in FPS is shown in Metro Exodus, with the Ryzen 5 gaining 12 frames per second over the Core i5.

All-in-all, the eight game averages for Team Blue and Team Red are 134 and 137.25 respectively. It goes without saying that for games, paying nearly double for an average 2% increase in framerate does not seem all that worth it.

Productivity Benchmarks- Ryzen 5 5600X

Moving onto CPU intensive productivity workloads, we can see how the $157 MSRP Core i5 11400F fares against the much more expensive Ryzen 5 5600X.

 Starting off with the Cinebench R20 Multi Core benchmark, the Core i5 11400F cores 3954, while the Ryzen 5 5600X scored 4462; an expected gain. Moving onto the Single Core workloads in Cinebench R20, Team Blue manages to obtain a score of 541 with Team Red blasting past with a score of 600.

The 7-Zip File Manager Compression test shows the Core i5 11400F achieve a score of 59002. The Ryzen 5 5600X again trumps Intel with a score of 72344. In the Decompression test, the 11400F scored 64461 while the 5600X was ahead by a good margin with 86940.

In the SiSoft Sandra Cryptography Multi Threaded performance test, the Core i5 11400F achieved a speed of 18.2 GB/s, and as usual the Ryzen 5 5600X was faster at 19.2 GB/s. Meanwhile the 11400F managed to complete the Chromium Code Compile test in 7995 seconds, while the faster Zen 3 5600X completed it in 7047 seconds. The DaVinci Resolve 4K benchmarks scores show that Team Blue and Team Red are quite close, with the former having a score of 969, though the latter outdoes it with a score of 1017.

The Adobe Premiere Pro 2020 benchmark results award the 11400F and 5600X with scores of 677 and 746 respectively. The two processors are again quite close in the Adobe Photoshop 2020 test, with the Core i5 having a score of 1017 and the Ryzen 5 having a score of 1076.

Finally, the Blender Open Data render times for both CPUs show that the Ryzen 5 5600X reached completion in 1122 seconds while the 11400F took longer at 1233 seconds.

Unlike the gaming benchmark, the productivity results for the two CPUs give a very binary result. The Zen 3 based Ryzen 5 5600X is clearly much faster than Intel’s Rocket Lake budget counterpart. Users primarily aiming for a workstation build would appreciate the added performance and faster render times provided by Team Red; even if it means it costs much more. However, it is impressive to see the results of the Core i5 11400F often surpassing last year’s Core i5 10600K; which was a much pricier processor at launch.

*Benchmarks courtesy of Hardware Unboxed– YouTube

Power Consumption- Ryzen 5 5600X

When it comes to total system power draw, there are no surprises here. Intel’s notoriously high power consumption is again evident here, as the Core i5 11400F equipped system had a total power draw of 181W during the Blender render. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 5600X consumed less power at 157W while outperforming the Team Blue variant during the same test. So, if you wish to build a cool Small Form Factor PC, it might be worth spending extra to get the less power-hungry CPU.

Compatibility- Both

In terms of motherboard inter-generational compatibility, both Intel and AMD are on their last legs. The long-supported socket AM4 ends its compatibility with the Ryzen 5000 series of processors. Similarly; as Intel only supports two generations of CPU per socket, the support for LGA 1200 ends with the Rocket Lake line-up of CPUs. So, if you ever wish to upgrade from either processor, you will need to spend extra on a newer motherboard as well.

Verdict

If you’re planning on solely gaming on your PC, there really is only one way to go: Intel. But this is not because they’ve got the most powerful gaming processors. In fact, it’s only because of the enormous demand and supply constraints that have affected the Ryzen 5000 series that you will be better off with the 11^th Gen Core i5 11400F. Currently, the Ryzen 5 5600X sells for $450 US Dollars on Amazon. In contrast, the street price of the Core i5 11400F is only $174. Since it’s simply dull-witted to spend $276 dollars more for a 10 FPS gain, gamers are better off with the newly crowned budget champ; the 11400F.

If you’re a workstation or productivity user on a budget however, you might need to consider ponying up the premium for a Ryzen 5 5600X. It outperforms the Intel counterpart in productivity workloads by quite a margin, and since time is money; you will probably be glad you chose AMD in the long run.

Check out some of our guides below to help you with your next Intel or AMD build:

Core i5 11400F Builds:

• Best Intel Core i5-11400(F) Build for 2021 (Gaming / All-Round Use)
• 6 Best Z590 Motherboards for Intel ‘Rocket Lake’ Builds

Ryzen 5 5600X builds:

• 4 Best CPU Coolers for the Ryzen 5 5600X
• 4 Best Power Supplies for Ryzen 5 5600X Builds
• 5 Best Motherboards for the Ryzen 5 5600X
• $1400 Ryzen 5 5600X Gaming Build – The Best Value PC Build for
• 4 Best Graphics Cards for Ryzen 5 5600X Builds
• $1800 Ryzen 5 5600X ITX Gaming Build for 2021

The post Intel Core i5 11400F vs AMD Ryzen 5 5600X: Which Is Best For You? appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

This is a question which will not die until desktop gaming dies. It’s not a bad question by any means, but the typical answers are lacking and might even be bad advice. The consensus today is that AMD is the best for gaming, and before that it was Intel for many, many years. Now, to answer this question, I could just take all the Ryzen 5000 reviews and average out the results, but there’s a clear problem with that: the reviews aren’t consistent. They do consistently agree that Ryzen 5000 CPUs are in the lead, but they can’t agree by how much. Yet most reviewers were pretty consistent on RX 6000 vs. RTX 3000 around the same time, so what gives? Solving this conundrum is key to understanding which gaming CPU is best. Yes, I am going to get very technical in this article, so if you just want to know which one is better then feel free to skip to the end.

Why are gaming CPUs good at gaming?

Firstly, what even makes a CPU good at gaming? AMD’s last generation of Ryzen CPUs, the 3000 series, was well ahead of Intel in almost everything with the very notable exception of gaming. Games are, by nature, highly dependent on good latency, and they also tend to not use many actual resources. A long 4K video taking about an hour to render is pretty good, but gamers want a brand-new frame at least every 33 millisecond (which translates to 30 FPS) and most PC gamers want a new frame every 16 ms (60 FPS). There is very little time create a single frame, but thankfully game applications don’t ask very much of the CPU; to get the job done, all the CPU needs to do is handle a small amount of data, do a little math on it, and communicate that to the rest of the system.

Ryzen 3000, despite its beefy cores, suffered in gaming because of one of its key design features: the core complex (or CCX). One of the building blocks of modern AMD CPUs is the CCX, which from 2017 to 2020 was a group of 4 cores (or 2 cores in some very low-end CPUs). A CCX has components like cache which are normally shared across the entire CPU. To add more cores, AMD has to add more CCXs, which works very well for tasks which demanded large amounts of resources. However, the CCX has a fatal flaw; when a core within one CCX needs to communicate with a core in another CCX, there is a high amount of latency. Non-shared cache was better than having less cache (because asking the RAM for something takes forever), but shared cache would have been so much better.

This is the key reason why AMD struggled to catch up to Intel in gaming despite introducing new instructions, new features, bigger cores, and more cores. Though Intel did not change the design of its cores for 6 years, their CPUs were able to stay ahead because they had very low latency from core to core and from core to RAM, and they had sufficient amounts of resources. Any AMD CPU with more than 4 cores had to use multiple CCXs, which severely impacted gaming performance where more than 4 cores was needed. While Intel’s old Skylake cores could not match AMD’s modern Zen 2 cores in most applications, if latency was at all important, then Intel would be able to stay ahead or at least be competitive.

In 2020, AMD flipped the tables with Zen 3. They enlarged the size of the CCX to 8 cores, and consequently all Ryzen 5000 CPUs with 8 cores or less have just one CCX and a single block of cache. Now AMD is on top in gaming thanks to the combination of low latency and a massive amount of cache. Meanwhile, Intel’s new Rocket Lake based 11^th gen actually lost ground in some games compared to their previous 10^th gen, because their new cores increased latency by a significant amount.

Why are the benchmarks inconsistent?

A good gaming CPU has low latency and the right amount of resources for certain tasks. So why is the benchmarking data for this all over the place? Well, here’s the other piece of the puzzle: games aren’t demanding much if any more resources from the CPU in order to increase the framerate. You can test this yourself in any game of your choice. Open up MSI Afterburner or even Task Manager and monitor CPU usage and power consumption. Then, set a framerate cap using your driver suite or third party software (MSI Afterburner also comes with Rivatuner which can limit the framerate). If you steadily increase the framerate, CPU usage doesn’t go up very much and neither does power consumption. This is very much unlike GPUs, which would have to increase resource and power consumption to achieve higher framerates, assuming there’s still headroom for more frames without decreasing visual quality settings. If GPU Alpha is twice as fast as GPU Beta at “ultra quality”, it’ll probably be about twice as fast at “high quality”. But CPU Gamma and CPU Zeta might be the same performance at both presets, or maybe they’ll be the same performance at “ultra quality” but suddenly show a gap at “high quality”.

CPU gaming benchmarks are complicated by the fact that there is a limit to how many frames a CPU can create in each game. You can’t just keep tweaking settings to decrease the load on the CPU when there are few if any of those settings to tweak, and even if there were, reading and executing code is always going to take up some time because the code might be imperfect or because there’s no hardware acceleration. The basic rule for CPU benchmarking is that, as the framerate on the fastest CPU increases, the gap between it and slower CPUs will also increase. Let’s say CPU Gamma can do 240 FPS while CPU Zeta can only do 200 in a certain title. They can both do 200 FPS, however, and if the GPU isn’t fast enough to output more than 200 FPS, the two CPUs will appear to be equal. But if the GPU is fast enough for 240 FPS, then suddenly there’s a noticeable gap between CPU Gamma and CPU Zeta, and this is exactly what is happening with the Ryzen 5000 reviews. Most of the reviews which find little difference between AMD and Intel are only getting 200 FPS or less on the fastest CPU, while the reviews which find a big difference between AMD and Intel are seeing the fastest CPU reach at least 500 FPS.

In the most absolute sense, AMD is the clear winner for gaming. Even at its worst, Ryzen 5000 is tying Intel CPUs, and at its best it can be faster by 30% or more and approaches 1000 FPS in titles like Strange Brigade. I’ve linked to Anandtech’s review here because it gives such good insight into CPU performance and how it varies depending on test conditions. But here’s another question: does it matter? Gaming monitors only go up to 360Hz, and it’s unlikely that anyone but an esports professional can notice the difference between a frame coming every single ms vs. just every three ms. If you just want 120 FPS or even just 60, then plenty of recent CPUs can do just fine.

Pricing

If performance is pretty much fine across the board, then we need to find a different angle. Pricing is a much more interesting discussion for comparing AMD and Intel. In today’s market, when supply is good, CPU pricing for prior generations is pretty good. I would regard Ryzen 1000, 2000, and 3000 as generally being the best value (especially in the used market, Intel CPUs retain their value far too well), but Intel 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th gen can be worthwhile if you want a consistently higher framerate; previous Ryzen CPUs can struggle in certain games and only Ryzen 3000 is truly competitive most of the time with Intel. That being said, all of these CPUs should reliably do 60 FPS gaming but only if they have 6 cores. 4 core CPUs can perform well but newer games are starting to demand resources which few 4 core CPUs can muster. Even a cheap 6 core CPU is a good investment.

Platform

The platform differences between the two are also really important. I would again consider AMD to be the better choice here, because AMD offers more features, and the single most important feature here is the Ryzen upgrade path. A budget PC gamer might decide to go with a Ryzen 5 2600X and a B550 motherboard, and down the line they can upgrade to a 2700X, or any Ryzen 3000 or 5000 CPU. Intel’s upgrade path is more limited, as their 8^th and 9^th gen CPUs are limited to 200 and 300 series boards, and they’re both architecturally identical. 10^th gen is alongside 11^th gen on the 400 and 500 series boards, but 11^th gen isn’t much of an upgrade from 10^th. This, not pricing, is the most important reason to go with AMD, in my opinion.

Other things

Finally, we can’t forget about things that some users might care about even if they’re not related to gaming. Intel CPUs perform well enough but AMD is significantly ahead in several types of applications; thankfully, these are usually hobby or work oriented applications for things like rendering, so casual users won’t need to worry. Intel CPUs also consume quite a bit more power than Ryzen 3000 and 5000 CPUs and consequently require better power supplies and cooling. If you want to build a small form factor PC (or if you just want less heat in general), AMD is a better bet.

Verdict: AMD and Intel are both fine

Generally speaking, I think older AMD Ryzen CPUs are the most ideal for the budget-conscious gamer, but it’s not like buying Intel is a waste of money. In this market, Intel might be your only option depending on what the supply looks like, and if you’re just gaming, then it’s honestly not a bad choice. Really, choosing between AMD and Intel is like choosing between different kinds of pizza; they’re both pizza at the end of the day and they’ll taste pretty much the same. Buy a Ryzen 5000 CPU if you need every single frame possible. Buy Intel or Ryzen 3000 if you want more than 120 FPS reliably. Buy Ryzen 1000 or 2000 if you’re comfortable with 60-120 FPS. Finally, make sure whatever CPU you buy has 6 cores. That’s really all you need to worry about, and if you follow these simple guidelines, you should have little issue gaming the way you want to.

Sources:

• “AMD Ryzen 9 5950X Review”, Techspot.
• “AMD Zen 3 Ryzen Deep Dive Review: 5950X, 5900X, 5800X and 5600X Tested”, Anandtech.

The post AMD vs Intel: Which is Best for Gaming? appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Intel’s brand new flagship, the Core i9-11900K releases today and we’ve been given one to test and review. In this article, we’ll put it through its paces against its closest competitor in specification: The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, and we’ve got an Intel Core i9-10850K for comparison as well because it’s the current high-performance value champion.

Intel has been lagging behind in the CPU wars for six months now. They’ve lacked a CPU that can challenge AMD’s Zen 3 line up for raw performance and were missing features notably PCIe 4.0 support. The new 11^th generation Rocket Lake CPUs seek to address that Intel is making some bold performance claims.

This i9-11900K CPU boasts 5.3GHz peak boost speeds using Thermal Velocity Boost, 8 cores, and 16 threads. It uses the new Xe architecture integrated GPU. The road to Rocket lake hasn’t been smooth though: it’s suffered a convoluted development, originally scheduled to be released on a 10nm production process, then backported to 14nm when that failed. This the end of the line for this architecture, this process node, and this socket as far as Intel are concerned. This should represent the pinnacle of their current capability so we’re eager to find out what it can do.

Test methodology

We’ve taken great care to ensure this test is fair. To do that we’ve controlled every variable that we can. All the synthetic and gaming results you’ll see are obtained with the same RAM settings across the 3 CPUs under test. We’ve tested using an up to date BIOS (0605), released just 6 days before this release. We’ve used exactly the same motherboard for both Intel CPUs, and a B550 motherboard for the Ryzen 5800X, the MSI Mortar. 

For all the gaming and synthetic tests, we kept to Intel’s specifications for multi-core enhancements, power limits, and Thermal Velocity Boost. We did this because to our mind this is comparable to how we’ve tested the 5800X using PBO. Both CPUs were allowed to perform as they do with minimal setup, according to the manufacturer’s intentions, but with the automatic optimisations in place. It’s also the default behaviour of this motherboard. 

We verified this behaviour with A-B testing in a number of metrics and with both our RAM settings and motherboard settings the results represent this CPU performing at its best, outside of more involved manual tuning or overclocking. RAM was set to 3600MHz CL16-16-16-32 in all tests except the specific memory tests. There’s also the issue of ‘Gear 1 and Gear 2’ memory controller settings analogous to Ryzen’s Infinity Fabric and memory controller ratio settings – these tests are run in Gear 1 with the memory controller speed matched to memory speed. We’ve also got a separate article digging deeper into the impacts of Memory speed on performance on this CPU.

The Test System

We ran both Intel CPUs in the Asus Z590 ROG Maximus XIII Hero. With 14 phase 90Amp VRMs this high-end Z590 motherboard is an overclockers dream and we found it very flexible in terms of memory settings. We ran the tests with the 0605 BIOS from ASUS including Intel’s latest Microcode updates. We used a Fractal Design Celcius S28+ AIO Cooler and an Ion+ 860W Platinum Power supply. 

For RAM, we used our 16GB Samsung B-Die 4400MHz CL16 kit, but run it at 3600MHz CL16 in order to match as closely as possible the settings in our Ryzen testing.

For the GPU we used the EVGA RTX 3080 XC3 Ultra but run our test settings in order to expose the CPU performance as much as possible, this powerful and consistent GPU helped us do that. 

The Ryzen comparison system is identical with the exception of an MSI Mortar B550 Motherboard.

Specifications

CPU	Intel Core i9-11900K	Intel Core i9-10850K	AMD Ryzen 5800X
Design
Price	$539	~$380	~$449
Cores/Threads	8/16	10/20	8/16
Process	14nm	14nm	7nm
Architecture	Rocket Lake-S	Comet Lake-S	Zen 3
Peak boost	5.2GHz	5.2GHz	4.7GHz
Boost Technologies	TVB, Turbo Boost Max 3.0, Adaptive Boost Technology	TVB, Turbo Boost Max 3.0	PBO
On Board Graphics	UHD 750	UHD 630	None
Power Draw	125W (TDP) ~250W Max	125W (TDP) ~250W Max	105W (TDP)

Intel Core i9-11900K Performance Analysis

Synthetic Benchmarks

Cinebench R20

Cinebench R20 is a test of single and multicore performance whilst rendering a scene. It is almost entirely independent of memory speed which allows us to isolate raw CPU performance. 

We conducted three runs and averaged to obtain these results. In the multi-core tests, we see that the 10850K and 5800X are neck and neck, both ahead 100 points at 5990 to the 11900K’s 5860. The 4 point difference between the 10850K and 5800X is imperceptible but the last-gen Intel CPU has 10 cores, not 8 to obtain this result.

Looking at the single-core performance again averaged over 3 runs we can see the difference: Both the 11900K and 5800X score an identical 624 points average, whilst the 10850K lags 100 points behind with a score of 516. 

This result is close enough that cooling set up or silicon quality on the chip could influence it but on the raw numbers, the Ryzen 7 CPU performs best in Cinebench R20 overall by matching the 10850K’s multi-core score, and the 11900K’s single-core score.  

Blender

Using Blender to render a couple of scenes, again we get a sense of the rendering performance of these CPUs.

Note that shorter bars are better indicating less time taken: Different scenes favour different aspects of a CPUs performance, and in this test, we can see that for the ‘Classroom’ render, the 11900K and 10850K are neck and neck at 435 seconds, but the 5800X finishes first about 20 seconds quicker.

In BMW27 the i9-10850K takes the lead at 135 seconds, the 11900K is 10 seconds slower, and the 5800X finishes last about 20 seconds behind. There’s no clear winner here, and I feel obliged to point out that we’re using this as a test of the CPUs, and if you’re actually looking to accelerate 3D rendering a GPU will complete the task in a fraction of the time of these CPUs.

3DMark

Moving on to gaming-oriented benchmarks, 3D Mark. Focussing in on the CPU component of the Fire Strike and Time Spy benchmarks, these tests do bring memory performance into play somewhat and also heavily favour higher core counts as it’s a parallel test that uses all cores. 

The i9-11900K places last in Fire Strike, 500 points behind, and splits the difference between the other two CPUs under test in Time Spy. 

So rounding out our synthetic benchmarks, we see a picture of the i9-11900K having a high single-core speed, on a par with the 5800X and able to match the 10850K in some workloads despite having 2 fewer cores. But it’s not faster and struggles to make a mark in these tests.

Game Benchmarks

We ran our gaming benchmarks at 1080p to isolate CPU performance as much as possible, but retained settings that are relevant in the real world. The RTX 3080 helps us see differences in underlying performance. 

Call of Duty: Warzone

Call of Duty: Warzone is our first test, and we ran a 5-minute battle Royale against bots to try and give an overview of performance, not a snapshot. This game is a mix of CPU and GPU performance and you need both to really achieve high frame rates even at 1080p.

We can see that the 10850K and 11900K perform almost identically here, within a couple of FPS on Average scoring just over 200FPS, min and maximum metrics. The 5800X is the clear winner though with stellar performance and 240FPS average. It’s disappointing that we’re not realising a generational performance lift in this test.

Rainbow 6 Siege

Rainbow 6 Siege has an inbuilt benchmark which we’ve found very consistent.

Here the i9-11900K falls about 20 FPS behind the 10850K on average but is 60 FPS behind the 5800X. Obviously, all three CPUs develop very high performance but it’s a shock to see Intel’s latest flagship unable to outperform either their last generation of AMD’s current equivalent in this highly CPU dependent game.

Doom Eternal

Doom Eternal is also very well optimised and capable of high frame rates and we logged two minutes of play to give us these results:

The 11900K and 10850K perform nearly identically here again, with the 5800X clearly in the lead demonstrating that even with higher settings we’re not GPU-limited in these tests thanks to the power of the RTX 3080.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Moving on to more demanding titles, Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s inbuilt benchmark has exceptional consistency and gives us a breakdown of CPU performance, it’s those numbers we’re looking at here to completely isolate it from GPU performance.

This test is a close-run thing, the i9-10850K is marginally behind, the 5800X marginally in front on average. In reality, it’ll be your GPU that dictates performance in this game, but we’re seeing a trend in performance emerge now between these three CPUs.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 hands another win to the Ryzen 5800X.

Again it’s surprising to see the newest CPU bringing up the rear here, 15 FPS on average behind the 5800X and slightly behind the 10850K.

Flight Simulator 2020

And finally, the game that places the biggest demand on CPU power here, Flight Simulator 2020. This benchmark comprises a three-minute flight from La Guardia over Manhattan and delivers a stern test of the CPU. GPU utilisation stays under 70% here and performance is ultimately dependent on CPU speed.

Here the i9-11900K outperforms the 10850K across the board, delivering 61 FPS on average. That’s not a bad score by any means, but the 5800X beats it once again at 63 FPS average, although performance is slightly less consistent with lower lows, 1% lows and 0.1% lows. Intel made bold claims in their launch presentation about the 11900K’s performance, stating that it was capable of beating the 5900X by 11% – it’s possible that that is the case in other tests or different circumstances, but in this benchmark, it’s not the case falling slightly behind on average.

Gaming performance conclusions

Rounding up the game testing sees the Intel Core i9-11900K in an interesting position: We’re used to seeing the latest component develop a commanding lead. In these tests Intel’s new flagship, the i9-11900K, not only failing to beat a six-month-old part from AMD, but on occasion struggling to match the last generation part from Intel themselves, and one that’s not even their top-flight product.

Memory Speed Scaling

There’s been some discussion online about memory ratios – ‘Gear 1 and Gear 2’ modes in relation to the i7-11700K and i9-11900K. It also helps explain how we arrived at our memory settings for these benchmarks. We’ll touch on this now to cover key points but if it interests you please see our companion article which digs deeper into the effects of memory latency on performance for this CPU and the i9-10850K.

Gear 1 and Gear 2 are simply the full speed or half speed memory controller ratios for the CPU to control RAM. Much like Ryzen’s ‘uclock’ setting this controller to half speed induces latency, and that latency induces a performance penalty. 

Let’s look at a couple of A-B tests in our most consistent benchmarks to demonstrate this effect: 

You can see that ‘Gear One’ offers a slight performance bump, a few FPS, but it’s not a marked difference.

RAM speed also has its own impact on latency. To demonstrate here’s a series of runs of Shadow of the Tomb Raiders benchmarks at different RAM frequencies, but timings retained at CL 16-16-16-32 up to 3600Mhz, and CL17 at 4000MHz for stability. We’re running Gear 2 throughout here because Gear 1 wasn’t stable at 4000MHz: Remember this CPU is only officially rated up to 3200MHz or a 1600MHz Memory Clock speed because the actual RAM clock speed is half the transfer speed.

You can see how the performance gain is significant, but peaks at around 3600MHz and tails off at 4000MHz because we have to loosen timings to maintain stability. The detriment of running 2400MHz RAM is serious, and this data challenges the notion that ram speed is unimportant to Intel CPUs or less important than Ryzen. It clearly makes a big difference to potential performance. This is why we felt it was vitally important to give this CPU the same advantage as the 5800X, and as it happens that occurs around the same RAM settings, 3600MHZ CL16 and gear 1. Overall RAM latency clearly has a big impact on this CPU’s performance. 

If you’d like to see a more in-depth analysis of this including data from the 10850K, please read our linked article focussing on the topic here.

Power and thermals

Power draw and the consequent heat output has long since been the cost of high performance on Intel’s 14nm CPUs. We ran tests to explore this on the i9-11900K. 

The most illuminating result was using the all-core load in Cinebench, and toggling Thermal Velocity Boost to ascertain its effects on both CPU temperature and power draw. These numbers are reported by HWinfo64, total package power and temperature, and in both cases with the 280MM AIO running at full speed.

The first run to the left shows behaviour with the thermal velocity boost enabled – you can see that stock power limits are enforced and the CPU regulates power to 250W. The ASUS motherboard allows this behaviour in its default configuration. All cores sit at about 4.7GHz and the CPU does a good job of holding temperatures at 70°C.  In the second run to the right, disabling Thermal Velocity boost actually allows the CPU to disobey power limits to achieve and maintain as high clock speeds as possible and it goes pretty wild, drawing up to 330W and hitting its new target of 90C before backing off the power and clocks to prevent overheating. Before that, a few cores are hitting 5.1GHz with most at 5Ghz. As a result of over-riding the power and thermal constraints, it scores 6042 points vs around 5900 points in the first run where the lower power limit is enforced. 

This second run is very much a ‘gloves off no limits’ approach, with normal behaviour overridden just to demonstrate the kind of power draw you may encounter if you’re looking to overclock this CPU. The first run is much more indicative of ‘normal’ behaviour and power draw, although in most cases after the higher power time limit, Tau expires, the package power will drop to 125W for extended full core loads. 

Another result of note is that simply changing the CPU cooler settings from automatic behaviour where it scales speed with CPU temperature to full speed all the time yields a 100 point increase in Cinebench R20 – cooling the CPU more aggressively and holding lower temperatures allows it to achieve higher performance. 

The power draw of this CPU can be pretty insane, and you do need both a very solid motherboard power delivery set up and a high-end cooling solution to get the best of it, particularly if you intend on overclocking it.

Conclusion

So, where does this information leave us?

This CPU is a disappointment. We’ve got Intel’s flagship product here, and yet we see it fail to consistently outperform their last-generation chip, and fail to beat the primary competitor from AMD.
Let’s not pretend Intel haven’t tried: They’re used to the top dog position and if they could beat AMD they would. The Zen 3 CPUs were released six months ago so there was a clear target to aim for, and in the synthetics, we can see that they’ve matched it, like for like. But in the gaming tests, it can’t compete.

Ultimately what we’re seeing here is the consequences of the limitations of that ageing 14nm process. At 10nm perhaps this CPU would have run cooler, more efficiently, and at a higher clock speed. Perhaps it would have less cache latency helping gaming performance. But that’s not the case. Intel has laid it all on the table and this is it. 

Then we come onto the real issue, which is price. This is a $539 product. You have to ask yourself what justifies that price? The raw performance doesn’t, and to cap it all you need to invest at least $250 more in a motherboard plus a top tier cooling solution to support it. Not only is the Ryzen 7 5800X $100 cheaper, but it also delivered the results here running on a $150 motherboard. For the cost difference, you could have a 5900X and 12 core performance that blows the 11900K into the weeds for any application that can make use of them. 

This 11^th CPU generation needs to be viewed as what it is – a stopgap that brings Intel up to the specification of Zen 3 chips, with native PCIe 4.0 support but cannot compete on raw performance. It’s also the end of the line for this process, a representation of what many years of refinement and tweaking can do but also what it can’t do. It can’t beat the competition. 

An area we haven’t assessed is the performance of the new integrated GPU – it has some features that may make a significant difference if you do a lot of video encoding or transcoding and again Intel make some bold claims in their productivity slides – so if you’re considering the 11^th Generation for a PC focussed on those tasks it will pay to dig out more specific benchmarks. 

Finally, Asus released yet another BIOS just 5 days before this release, giving us insufficient time to re-test and revalidate all our results. It claims to enable ‘Adaptive Boost Technology’ for this specific CPU, the only one in the product stack to use it. That may give a small bump in multi-core workloads in a correctly configured system, but given that it’s a Beta, and this CPU has actually existed for some time prior to launch, we don’t see it making a step-change in performance. It’s something we’ll review later.

Alternatives?

Ultimately, if you need a PCIe 4.0 platform for content creation or high-performance computing you’ll be looking at AMD anyway, the Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X are seriously performant parts when available.
If you want a very powerful CPU on a budget then Intel caters to that at the moment with the i9-10850K which has been as low as $320, the i7-10700K or if you do want Rocket lake then I cannot see there is a huge gap in performance between this i9-11900K and the i7-11700K beneath it – it’s still an 8-core, 16-thread parts with very good gaming performance and more than enough versatility. And of course, if it’s just gaming you’re interested in, then the Zen 3 Ryzen 5 5600X and 7 5800X which are now more readily available offer the same or better performance at just $300 and $450 respectively, and with a lower platform cost, whilst the i5-10600K is discounted, doesn’t need as expensive of a motherboard, and offers excellent gaming performance as well. 

Nice try Intel, but sadly this CPU just isn’t good enough to justify its price tag. The box is really lovely though. 

The post Intel Core i9-11900K Review: Intel’s Last Stand | Performance Analysis vs 5800X vs 10850K appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Nvidia has released the RTX 3060 Ti and it’s the performance-per-dollar star of the Ampere line-up so far. The RTX 3060 Ti starts at $399 but make no mistake, this is no entry-level GPU. With performance surpassing the outgoing RTX 2080 Super, this GPU can deliver high framerates even in demanding games and at high resolutions. With advanced technologies like RTX cores and DLSS 2.0 for upscaling, it brings high-performance graphics to a price point not seen before, and can also utilise advanced features like OPTIX enabled rendering in 3D graphics production or tensor core enabled AI training. This makes it a versatile and desirable graphics card, but to get the most out of it you’ll need to partner it with a CPU that’s up to the task. In this article, we’ll run you through the best CPUs to pair with the RTX 3060 Ti – whatever your price point and intended use.

Best CPUs for RTX 3060 Ti – Our Recommendations

Award	Design	Model
Best High-FPS Gaming CPU for RTX 3060 Ti		Ryzen 5 5600X
Best Intel Gaming CPU for RTX 3060 Ti		Intel Core i5-10600K
Best Budget CPU for RTX 3060 Ti		Ryzen 5 3600
Best Budget Intel CPU for RTX 3060 Ti		Intel Core i5-10400
Best All-rounder CPU for RTX 3060 Ti		Intel Core i7-10700K
Best Productivity CPU for RTX 3060 Ti		Intel Core i9-10850K

Best High-FPS Gaming CPU for RTX 3060 Ti

AMD’s Zen 3 CPUs have redefined the upper limits of performance and the Ryzen 5 5600X is the new CPU to beat for outright gaming performance without breaking the bank. If every last frame matters to you in competitive online play, then this CPU will run games as fast as any processor currently available but costs $300. It uses 6 cores and 12 threads, giving it ample headroom and our testing has shown it runs games like COD: Warzone and Rainbow 6 Siege just as fast as its 8 Core bigger brother the 5800X. It is supplied with a stock CPU cooler but for best performance, we’d recommend a pairing with a better 240mm AIO cooler such as the Arctic Freezer 2 240mm Water cooling loop: Keeping temperatures low will ensure the CPU doesn’t throttle when working hard. For a focussed gaming PC aimed at the highest frame rates possible at 1080p, this is the CPU to get and a perfect pairing with the RTX 3060 Ti.

Best Intel Gaming CPU for RTX 3060 Ti

One downside of the Ryzen 5 5600X is that being in high demand and limited supply, it can be hard to find and prices may be inflated. In that case there’s little lost in opting for the intel competitor instead. The Intel Core i5-10600K is around $50 cheaper than the 5600X but uses the same 6-core and 12 thread basis for a high performance gaming CPU. It really shines when overclocked so we recommend that you pair it with a decent Z490 motherboard to unlock the potential, and invest that $30 saving in a capable CPU cooler to keep temperatures down. This CPU will perform within a couple of percent off the 5600X, and whilst it lacks PCIe 4.0 functionality that is no detriment to performance as the 3060 Ti cannot exceed the bandwidth of PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 4.0 NVMe solid-state drives offer no practical benefit for a gaming PC. Overall the i5-10600K is no poor relation to the Ryzen 5 5600X, and you will not be disappointed with the performance on offer.

Best Budget CPU for RTX 3060 Ti

If you’re looking to maximise the potential of the 3060 Ti without breaking the bank, the Ryzen 5 3600 is an excellent option. This capable Zen 2 CPU performs well in a wide range of games with 6 cores and 12 threads and a 4.4GHz boost clock. At 1440p the demanding resolution will properly load the GPU and ensure that very high frame rates do not trouble the Ryzen Zen 2 CPU, but you still get the ability to reach 144FPS in fast-paced titles, whilst AAA titles like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 will run excellently as they rely more on the GPU than the CPU. It has proven its capability running the most demanding titles at good frame rates, and it makes an ideal pairing with the RTX 3060 Ti at 1440p for an all round gaming PC. However, if you are looking to play at 1080p and achieve very high frame rates, we’d advise you to look at one of the higher performance options to ensure you achieve the full potential of the RTX 3060 Ti. 

Best Budget Intel CPU for RTX 3060 Ti

Stiff competition from AMD throughout 2020 has seen intel increase the performance and features of it’s CPUs and this has made the Core i5-10400 is a compelling option. The Comet Lake CPU has gained hyperthreading so it now mirrors the Ryzen 3600’s 6 core/12 thread specification. It boosts to 4.3 GHz and whilst that’s not directly comparable to the Ryzen 5 owing to their architectural differences, testing shows them very evenly matched in benchmarks. This CPU can also use a cost-effective B460 motherboard keeping costs down. Whilst it can’t be overclocked, it is more than fast enough for a gaming and general-purpose PC. If you’re squeezing every last dollar out of your build, it makes sense to focus on getting a high-performance GPU like the RTX 3060 Ti, and the i5-10400 lets you do that. There is also an F variant which lacks the integrated graphics of the non-F CPU – at time of writing it’s more expensive, and you should only consider it if it’s at least $20 cheaper than the vanilla 10400: An iGPU is useful for troubleshooting, swapping GPUs, and it even assists in some video encoding tasks making it a worthwhile feature unless the price is right to do without it. 

Best All-rounder CPU for RTX 3060 Ti

The Intel Core i7-10700K is Intels ‘Comet lake’ 8 core offering. With a 5.1 GHz boost speed and hyperthreading presenting 16 logical cores, it’s equally adept at gaming and productivity. The $350 price point sees it outperform the AMD Ryzen 7 3800X in per-core performance, but it saves $100 over the 10 core i9-10850K and the new Zen 3 Ryzen 5800X which also has 8 cores but is slightly faster. The i7-10700K makes a strong case as the ‘do it all’ CPU if you mix work and pleasure on the same PC but need a cost-effective pairing with the RTX 3060 Ti. This CPU will happily support high-performance games as well as demanding titles like Cyberpunk or Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, but will also be capable in productivity tasks like photo and video editing and rendering or graphic design. Use a Z490 Chipset motherboard to gain access to overclocking of both the CPU and RAM and extract maximum potential from this CPU. With intel now being forced to compete on price, this is a great value CPU considering the performance on offer.

Best Productivity CPU for RTX 3060 Ti

Intel may have lost the ultimate performance crown to AMD but it would be unwise to dismiss their products as outdated. The Core i9-10850K is a 10-core, 20-thread CPU with a 5.2GHz boost clock and ideally runs on the Z490 platform. It is in effect a slightly downclocked i9-10900K, but loses very little in actual performance. It shines in tasks that can use high core counts, like rendering video and 3D scenes but it’s no slouch for gaming either. It will also work well in audio production and Games development environments like Unity.  At $400 it significantly undercuts even the last generation Ryzen 3900X, whilst the Ryzen 5900X outperforms the i9 but costs at least $150 more and is suffering supply restrictions at present. Therefore the i9 CPU makes a good alternative and isn’t lacking performance at the price point. It’s a great pairing with the RTX 3060 Ti and will form the basis of a powerful workstation whilst keeping costs in check. 

Conclusion

Whilst it’s easy to get trapped by the halo effect of the top-performing products, it’s usually the case that you get best value looking a little bit lower down the price list. The CPUs in this article are all recent high-performance CPUs that excel in the areas we’ve described: Pick one of these and you’ll be sure that you maximise the performance of your next RTX 3060 Ti-based PC whilst keeping a firm check on the budget. 

The post 6 Best CPUs for RTX 3060 Ti Builds in 2021 appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

The next batch of AMD Ryzen 5000 Series CPUs is finally upon us after the initial launch saw AMD’s available units sell out within minutes. And though this launch was disappointing to many, it did allow reviewers to thoroughly test these processors, and release benchmarks that can help us make a more educated assessment in regards to which CPU is best for each intended purpose.

A somewhat controversial topic, when it comes to comparing the recently announced Zen 3 processors, has been gaming. This controversy is related to the fact that all four Ryzen 5000 Series processors seem to perform similarly when it comes to framerate benchmarks, with only slight differences between each model. What makes this an impressive feat for the Ryzen 5600X, which is the least expensive of the Zen 3 lineup, is that it performs similarly to the Intel’s flagship i9-10900K, at almost half the cost. If one were to add the additional value that an AMD Radeon RX GPU would add to any Ryzen processor, with their mutual use of Smart Access Memory, then this benchmarked framerate becomes even more remarkable.

Despite knowing that predicting the distant future is practically impossible, what we can foresee is that game developers are much more likely to optimize their titles based on both AMD’s CPU and GPU capabilities and features, as both new-generation consoles – the Xbox Series X and Playstation 5 – utilize these AMD hardware components. Therefore, this lead that AMD processors and graphics cards hold over their Intel and Nvidia counterparts, may very well increase as time passes by; and, as developers continue to optimize their games to the potential of these processors, the hardware demands that these games will have will also see an equivalent increase. So, the current six cores and twelve threads that are currently necessary to run any game perfectly fine, may become outdated in just a few years’ time.

What differentiates AMD’s current Ryzen CPUs with their previous generation, Zen 2, processors, is Zen-3’s new CCX (Core Complex) architecture – which has doubled in size. Previously, each CCD (Core Chiplet Die) could hold up to four CCXs, and each CCX could contain four cores and 16 MB of L3 Cache. Now, a CCD only needs to hold two CCXs, as each can now contain eight cores and 32 MB of L3 Cache. Because these CCXs are not required to communicate with each other through AMD’s IF (Infinity Fabric) to gain access to all 32 MB of L3 cache, each core can reach much higher single-core speeds; which gaming applications are more dependent on. Hence why we see such a significant generational leap between the Ryzen 3000 and Ryzen 5000 Series CPUs, in terms of framerate output. Additionally, because games are not reliant on multi-core performance, a single CCX is more than enough for processing games, even at a high level. Out of the currently four announced Ryzen 5000 Series processors, two models have a single CCX: The Ryzen 5 5600X, and the Ryzen 7 5800X.

The price difference between these two CPUs is of the order of 50%, so choosing which processor to invest in can be a tough choice to make. To better assess whether or not the Ryzen 7 5800X’s specifications justify its cost – when compared to the Ryzen 5 5600X – we will analyze their features, power efficiency, benchmark performance, price and availability, and come to a conclusion on which Zen 3 CPU provides the best value for gaming, and other applications.

Ryzen 5600X vs 5800X – Specifications

	Ryzen 5 5600X	Ryzen 7 5800X
Design
Processing Node	TSMC 7 nm FinFET	TSMC 7 nm FinFET
Cores	6	8
Threads	12	16
Level 3 Cache	32 MB	32 MB
CCX Capacity	8 Cores 32 MB L3 Cache	8 Cores 32 MB L3 Cache
Base Clock Speed	3.7 GHz	3.8 GHz
Boost Clock Speed	4.6 GHz	4.7 GHz
Chipset	AM4	AM4
PCIe Version	4.0 x16	4.0 x16
TDP	65 W	105 W
Stock Cooler	Wraith Stealth	-Not Included-
Price	299	449
Launch Date	5th November, 2020	5th November, 2020
Availability	Amazon.com	Amazon.com

Specification Comparison

Both CPUs feature an identical interface: an AM4 chipset, PCIe 4.0 x16 compatibility, 3,200 MHz DDR4 dual channel system memory, and a TSMC 7 nm FinFET processing node. Of course, there is a clear advantage for the Ryzen 7 5800X in terms of specifications, in that it has two additional cores and four additional threads; though still sharing the same 32 MB L3 cache that the Ryzen 5 5600X’s cores can access. Other than that, the Ryzen 7 5800X’s cores also operate at a base, and boost, clock frequency that is 100 MHz faster than the equivalent Ryzen 5 5600X speeds – which is not a significant amount, but can still translate to a minor boost in performance. The main aspect in favor of the Ryzen 7 5800X’s specs, is that it has a full-capacity CCX, with a core and thread count that is equivalent to what can be found in both new-generation consoles.

Price & Availability

But when speaking of these new-generation consoles, it must be pointed out that the Ryzen 7 5800X, alone, costs almost as much as either one of them. This is also the argument in favor of the Ryzen 5 5600X. This CPU may cost 50% more than the previous generation Ryzen 5 3600X, but it still offers the best price for performance ratio (TechSpot) of all four initially launched Zen 3 processors. Not only that, but it is also the only Ryzen 5000 Series model that includes a stock cooler. Of course, the stock cooler isn’t the greatest, but for someone looking to build a new PC on a budget, and cares little about overclocking their CPU, the Wraith Stealth can provide sufficient cooling, and overall additional value to the CPU’s price. The previous generation Ryzen 7 3800X also did include a stock cooler, in the form of the Wraith Prism: A respectable cooler that perhaps could have been included in the price of the $50-more-expensive Ryzen 7 5800X.

In terms of availability, neither of these two CPUs can currently be found, as AMD’s initial stock disappeared almost instantly. An AMD executive now mentions that they shipped “tons of units”, but demand greatly exceeded their supply. Still, no matter how high the demand was, it should not take a few minutes to completely sell out of a new series of four different CPU model… but we digress. Currently, it does look like the Ryzen 5 5600X holds a much higher market share (UserBenchmark) than the Ryzen 7 5800X, and chances are it will be the more popular choice between the two. This also means that it is more likely to sell out at a faster pace, and therefore be more difficult to find in comparison to the Ryzen 7 5800X when they re-release.

Included Features

All Zen 3 CPUs are set to include AMD’s StoreMI technology, which pairs frequently used files on an HDD with an SSD cache, for quicker load times, boot times, and system responsiveness. It does so by mirroring these files to the SSD, and redirecting the operating system to use the mirrored files.

Additionally, AMD Ryzen Master Utility will be bundled, which is a software application that can be used for system monitoring and overclocking for both Ryzen CPUs and Radeon GPUs if available.

Finally, if you are planning to purchase one of AMD’s new RDNA 2 Radeon RX 6000 Series GPUs, then the Zen 3 Ryzen CPU will also utilize Smart Access Memory, which creates an expanded data channel, incorporating both CPU and GPU memory in order to remove the GPU memory ceiling via the utilization of PCIe bandwidth. Effectively, this feature increases the overall framerate output of the GPU by up to 11%, across multiple gaming titles.

Power Efficiency

Another aspect which makes the Ryzen 5 5600X, even more, cost-efficient than it already is, especially versus the Ryzen 7 5800X, is its incredibly low 65 W TD: which is 40 Watts less than the TDP of the Ryzen 7 5800X. This 38% power efficiency is especially remarkable, given the gap in actual performance between the two CPUs.

Benchmark Comparison

To get a complete picture of how the Ryzen 5 5600X fares against the Ryzen 7 5800X, we must not just compare their single core capabilities, but also their multi core performance as well.

TechSpot provides us with Cinebench R20 scores for both CPUs, and the Ryzen 7 5800X unsurprisingly outperforms the Ryzen 5 5600X, with a score of 5,982 to its 4,462. It also outperforms the equivalent 8 core 16 thread i7-10700K by 997 points. The single-core Cinebench R20 scores are a bit closer, as the Ryzen 5 5600X has a score of 600, versus the 625 score of the Ryzen 7 5800X. Minor discrepancies are also found in the gaming benchmarks, where, in the average of the 11 games that were tested, the Ryzen 7 5800X outperforms the Ryzen 5 5600X by only 6 FPS (211 FPS vs 205 FPS); while both outperform the Intel i7-10700K (200 FPS), and trail only slightly to the i9-10900K (213 FPS) by 2 and 8 FPS respectively.

Where the Ryzen 7 5800X falls significantly behind to the Ryzen 5 5600X, is its price to performance ratio. Even for multicore performance, the Ryzen 7 5800X trails by 10.7% in cost-per-frame, while for gaming performance it trails by 31.5%… But both CPUs fall behind the Ryzen 5 3600 in both categories as well. The main issue with reports that display a price to performance ratio, is the fact that the threshold of performance one seeks from a component is not taken into account. For example, if someone is shopping for a CPU that can be paired with a Radeon RX 6800 XT to consistently maintain a framerate above 120 FPS for 1080p gaming, then no matter how price efficient the Ryzen 5 3600 is, it will not suit their baseline needs.

This is also the aspect that needs to be considered for the Ryzen 5 5600X. Will it continue to process such high framerates, as the graphical capabilities of new-generation games progress? On the other hand, for the Ryzen 7 5800X, we must ask:  Is it worth its price, considering it only costs $100 less than the Ryzen 9 5900X?

Verdict

Both the Ryzen 5 5600X and the Ryzen 7 5800X do delivery an amazing level of performance for their price –but if pure value is what you seek, then nothing beats the Ryzen 5 5600X – especially when it comes solely to gaming. Not only does it perform on a high level, but it even achieves an average framerate that is within 3.75% of the what Intel’s flagship i9-10900K is capable of, while costing far less, and requiring almost half the amount of thermal power. 

If the intended purpose of your PC build is not just gaming, then the additional cores and threads of the other Ryzen 5000 Series CPUs will come into use for tasks like streaming and content creation. 

This is where the Ryzen 7 5800X should shine, but it is difficult to argue in its favor when the Ryzen 9 5900X is always an option. For $100 more, the Ryzen 9 5900X offers four additional cores, eight threads, and double the L3 cache. Given especially that the Ryzen 7 5800X does not include a CPU cooler, its value really suffers in comparison to the Ryzen 9 5900X. For streaming and gaming on the same PC, the Ryzen 9 5900X is surely the wiser choice, as is the case for running multicore dependent workstation applications, like video editing. 

The only argument that can be made against the Ryzen 5 5600X, is that it might not hold up very well in the near future, whereas the Ryzen 7 5800X may fare much better later down the line. Admittedly, this argument is fairly weak, considering that PC hardware is meant for immediate use, and should not be based upon a theory that may not even come true. For gaming and streaming, the Ryzen 9 5900X appears to provide more value for its cost than the Ryzen 7 5800X, and will surely continue to do so as time progresses. Perhaps the smartest choice would be to wait for the announcement of a Ryzen 7 5700X: A CPU that will cost less and potentially have a 65 W TDP like its Ryzen 3000 Series predecessor. Of course, it is difficult to tell if and when any such announcement may occur, so waiting might ultimately be futile. For now, and for the vast majority of users, the Ryzen 5 5600X is the way to go.

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AMD’s Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 Series CPUs have finally launched, allowing publishers to release a collective myriad of real-world benchmarks, devoid of any cherry-picking or misleading statements that marketing teams love to utilize in order to increase sales. Though these benchmarks do not show the universal dominance that many may have expected the new generation of Ryzen processors to display, these CPUs are still almost in a different league than their competition in almost every comparable aspect – including gaming applications.

The tangible accomplishments of this new generation of Ryzen processors can be attributed solely to the updated architecture of the Core Complexes (CCX) within the Core Chiplet Die (CCD), which effectively doubled in size: now able to hold 8 cores and 32 MB of L3 Cache. For Ryzen 5000 models that hold a total of eight, or less, cores, one CCX will now suffice, thanks to this Zen 3 architecture, whereas their Ryzen 3000 equivalents (above 4 cores) needed two CCXs. Communication between each core complex is carried out through, what AMD calls, the Infinity Fabric (IF). This additional medium inevitable adds a layer of latency that inhibits performance; especially for single-core dependent tasks like gaming applications or CAD.

Together with this upgraded architecture, we also have an increase in price of anywhere between 10% to 50% from Zen 2 to Zen 3, depending on the processor. Three out of four of these new Ryzen 5000 Series processors will also no longer come with a stock CPU cooler, which further drops their overall value when compared to their Ryzen 3000 Series predecessors. This drop in value is what makes us ask: Are these new generation Ryzen CPUs really worth their cost, or would a previous generation AMD CPU provide more value for its price?

A great example to make such a comparison is the new Ryzen 5 5600X, which has seen the highest price increase from its last-gen iteration: from an MSRP of $199, to an MSRP of $299. With these prices, this CPU’s monetary equivalent is now the Ryzen 7 3700X. Taking into account AMD’s stock shortage (which came to no one’s surprise), and knowing that it could be quite a while until someone can get their hands on a Ryzen 5 5600X, this comparison becomes all the more relevant – especially seeing as how scalpers are reveling in the act of profiting from the re-selling of these CPUs at a price that is multiple times their MSRP. If the nonsense that one must put up in order to purchase a Ryzen 5000 Series CPU – which is a result of their insufficient launch – is more than the benefit that they will provide, in comparison to other equivalently priced processors, then skipping them is also an option.

So, let’s compare the Ryzen 5 5600X with the Ryzen 7 3700X, in terms of specifications, price and availability, features, power efficiency, and benchmark performance, in order to proficiently assess whether or not the Ryzen 5 5600X is worth its price and hassle.

AMD 5 5600X vs AMD Ryzen 7 3700X: Specifications

	Ryzen 5 5600X	Ryzen 7 3700X
Design
Processing Node	TSMC 7 nm FinFET	TSMC 7 nm FinFET
Cores	6	8
Threads	12	16
Level 3 Cache	32 MB	32 MB
CCX Capacity	8 Cores 32 MB L3 Cache	4 Cores 16 MB L3 Cache
Base Clock Speed	3.7 GHz	3.6 GHz
Boost Clock Speed	4.6 GHz	4.4 GHz
Chipset	AM4	AM4
PCIe Version	4.0 x16	4.0 x16
TDP	65 W	65W
Stock Cooler	Wraith Stealth	Wraith Prism
Price	$299	$304.99
Launch Date	November 2020	July 2019
Availability	Amazon.com	Amazon.com

Specification Comparison

Comparing these two CPUs, in terms of specifications, is a simple task, as the main differences lie within the core/thread counts, the architecture, and the clock speeds. The Ryzen 7 3700X does have 33% more cores and threads than the Ryzen 5 5600X, but it lacks the architecture to use them to their full potential. Because its CCX can only hold half the cores, threads, and L3 cache storage, the Ryzen 7 3700X requires two CCXs that must communicate with each other through the IF; ultimately inhibiting their overall performance. The Ryzen 5 5600X has a faster base clock speed by 100 MHz, and a faster boost clock speed of 200 MHz – which is not that substantial a difference. Other than that, both CPUs make use of the same processing node, PCIe compatibility, and chipset – though the Ryzen 7 3700X is compatible with several types of motherboards, like the X470 or B450, that the Ryzen 5 5600X is still incompatible with.

Price & Availability

Given that the Ryzen 5 5600X is found at its MSRP, the price of these two processors are virtually equal, but finding any new Zen 3 processor is not an easy task. The first wave of stock depleted within minutes, and, though we are promised that a restock is coming soon, it is difficult to take these claims seriously, especially taking into account AMD’s past. Take for example, the entry-level Ryzen 3 3300X. This CPU was incredibly popular, as it was the first AMD CPU to launch with a single CCX layout, making full use of its 4 cores and 8 threads, without inter-CCX latency. With a price of only $120, this CPU sold out quickly, and, six months after its launch, it is still out of stock. On the other hand, the Ryzen 7 3700X can currently be found on several different retailers, including Amazon.

Another aspect that must be taken into account between the price of these two CPUs, is the stock cooler that is included with their purchase. Though it could be argued that both coolers should be replaced, the Wraith Prism does fare much better than the Wraith Stealth, in both performance and aesthetics (depending on whether or not one prefers RGB lighting). Benchmarks by TechSpot show a difference in temperatures, between these two coolers, that reach anywhere between 11 and 24 degrees Celsius… A substantial difference. The Wraith Prism can keep the Ryzen 7 3700X’s temperature at a respectable level (given the absence of overclocking) while the Wraith Stealth may allow the CPU to reach temperatures that can cause damage. Additionally, the Wraith Prism features both outer, and inner, ring RGB LEDs, while the Wraith Stealth has a plain, monochrome, design. 

Included Features

Where the Ryzen 5 5600X holds an advantage on any previous-generation Ryzen CPU, is this one exclusive feature that makes all the difference for a new PC build: Smart Access Memory. 

If you are one of many looking forward to purchase an RDNA 2, Navi 21, Radeon RX 6000 series GPU, then a Ryzen 5000 Series is a must. Smart Access Memory creates an expanded data channel that incorporates both CPU and GPU memory, effectively ridding the GPU of its intrinsic memory bottleneck, increasing its overall performance by a significant amount; including its effective framerate output.

Power Efficiency

Both Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 7 3700X have incredibly low 65 W TDPs, so both have an impressive thermal performance. But to find out which CPU makes better use of these 65 Watts of power that they are supplied with, we must analyze and compare their real-world benchmarks – 

Benchmark Comparison

The Ryzen 5000 Series CPUs will have much faster single core performance than their predecessors, but to what degree?

Well, TechSpot has provided benchmarks for several workstation applications, as well as for 11 different gaming titles. In these tests, the Ryzen 7 3700X outperformed the Ryzen 5 5600X in multicore dependent workloads (4884 vs 4462 scores in multicore Cinebench R20), while trailing in single-core dependent workloads (510 vs 600 scores in single core Cinebench R20). Still, because of AMD’s more efficient CCX architecture, the Ryzen 5 3600X required far less power to reach its impressive benchmark results; using only 157 Watts (overclocked in Blender), versus the 182 Watts of the Ryzen 7 3700X: a 14% difference in system power consumption. Similar results were also published by Gamer’s Nexus, though their tests show the Ryzen 5 5600X needed 21.8% lesser power than the Ryzen 7 3700X – leading all other tested CPUs.

When it comes to gaming applications, the Ryzen 5 5600X achieved an average framerate of 205 FPS across 11 tested gaming titles; whereas the Ryzen 7 3700X had an average framerate of 172 FPS: A 33 FPS difference. These metrics are a result of testing games at a 1080p resolution, as the higher the resolution that games are processed at, the more GPU-dependent the resulting framerate becomes. At a 4K resolution, depending on the title, this framerate-lead that the Ryzen 5 5600X holds will ultimately be reduced to zero. But, if it is paired a Radeon RX 6000 Series GPU, the lead will reappear due to Smart Access Memory: a feature which the Ryzen 3000 Series CPUs will most likely not be compatible with.

In terms of a price to performance ratio, the Ryzen 5 5600X is tied to the Ryzen 7 3700X in multi-core performance at $0.067 per frame, and surpasses it in gaming applications at 1080p by $0.45 per frame ($1.46 vs $1.91). However, TechSpot bases these values on a $330 Ryzen 7 3700X, instead of its current $305 cost. If we take into account this price difference, the Ryzen 7 3700X leads the Ryzen 5 5600X in multi-core performance cost per frame ($0.062 vs $0.067) – while the 11-game average cost per frame difference is reduced to $0.31 per frame ($1.77 vs $1.46). 

Verdict

Despite its lack of two cores and four threads found in the Ryzen 7 3700X, the Ryzen 5 5600X still outperforms this CPU in single-core performance, gaming, and power efficiency. The issues it has lie mainly with its availability, and, to a certain extent, the overall value it provides for its price. 

The Ryzen 7 3700X may trail slightly in terms of cost per frame, but it does include a respectable cooling solution in the form of a Wraith Prism cooler, while the Wraith Stealth included with the Ryzen 5 5600X will surely need to be replaced (despite the CPUs low operating temperature and thermal efficiency). If this setback is considered in their price differential, then the Ryzen 7 3700X provides more for its price. Of course, if you plan on overclocking your CPU regularly, then this advantage is all but null, as the Wraith Prism would also have to be replaced.

Gaming at any resolution above 1080p means that the framerate differential will diminish to a point of negligibility. To this, there is one exception: The use of a Radeon RX 6000 Series GPU. If you plan on purchasing the Radeon RX 6800 or RX 6800 XT, then putting up with the Ryzen 5 5600X’s availability issues and price increase is absolutely necessary. On the other hand, if you don’t plan on replacing your GPU, or if,  by some miracle, you were able to purchase a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3000 Series GPU, then the Ryzen 7 3700X will suit you just fine – perhaps even better than the Ryzen 5 5600X – as the additional cores and threads may become necessary later down the line. As the, recently launched, current generation of games progresses, developers will want to make full use of the specifications of the Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X – and both these consoles feature AMD Zen 2, 8-core 16-thread CPUs… Just like the Ryzen 7 3700X. Additionally, if you are in the market for a CPU to run workstation applications, or to use for streaming and gaming simultaneously, then the additional cores and threads of the Ryzen 7 3700X will prove beneficial. 

Despite its inferior single-core capabilities, the Ryzen 7 3700X is still a very powerful CPU, and, now that its price has dropped, it provides great value for most new PC builds. However, the Smart Access Memory feature, exclusive to the pairing of Ryzen 5000 Series CPUs and Radeon 6000 Series GPUs, is just too good to pass up. All in all, both CPUs are valid options, but the lack of availability and the price increase of the Ryzen 5 5600X have ultimately diminished its current value.

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