The rumoured new Ryzen 5 3600XT vs Ryzen 7 3700x

[Ciss0]

 

Hey guys,

 

So, actually this latest news and rumours on team red is making my life choices real hard... I'm intending to upgrade my Ryzen 5 2600 in June-July to something more "spicy" (for gaming porpuses mainly, some games like Anno 1800, Cities Skylines, AC: Odyssey are having serious CPU bottlenecks to my RX5700 XT...) and I was thinking about Ryzen 7 3700x in my B450 machine.

 

Now if the rumours are to be believed the Ryzen 5 3600xt will boast a higher base clock (4.0ghz) and boost-clock (4.7ghz) than the 3700x (with a lower core/thread count than the 3700 obviously).

For gaming purposes and considering future proofing since next gen consoles will have 8 cores processors, and as we know consoles unfortunatly influences PC games development which would be the wiser choice?

What would be the best option for me for gaming while guaranteeing some future proofness? (Pricewise, I'd reckon that the 3700x price will probably drop and the 3600xt will then be "similar", but my budget is in this range i.e. 3800x or 3800XT will probably be overbudget).

 

- AMD Ryzen 5 3600 XT (6c|12T) - 4.0ghz base clock - 4.7ghz boost clock (rumoured values, not confirmed as far as I know)

or

- AMD Ryzen 7 3700 X (8c|16T) - 3.6 ghz base clock - 4.4ghz boost clock

 

I should add that I do not intend to overclock the CPUs, I live in a very warm country during the summer and I cannot install Air conditioning, so during the day and even in nights my room temperature can reach over 25-35 degrees during summer/spring/autumm.... Maybe in the winter I can think about some OCs, or if I change to a house that allows AC installation, but that's just hypothesis not my current real-world scenario...

 

Apparently AMD chose not to refresh the 3700x which is weird, I dunno if that means that eventually the 3750x will surface or not, but I would like to make the upgrade in the coming months as some games are currently almost unplayable due to CPU bottleneck (including those I wish really to play smoothly)...

 

Current Specs:

 

Ryzen 5 2600 stock

MSI Gaming Plus B450M (with AMD ComboPI1.0.0.4 Patch B SMU v46.54)

16Gb DDR4 3466mhz Kingston HyperX CL16

MSI Radeon RX5700 XT Mech OC

Kingston A2600 Nvme (500gb for system + preffered games) + 1 TB HDD + 250gb Sata SSD

Corsair TX750M 

1080p 24'' Samsung 144hz Quantum Dot Display

 

Nevertheless, I'll probably wait until July so probably a more clear picture of the market will be visble helping me forming a better choice. I think a Ryzen 4000 would pushint too much my luck as I do not think that a compatible BIOS will arrive anytime soon...

 

Best Regards and Cheers folks

[Deli]

3700X

[Fasauceome]

11 minutes ago, Ciss0 said:

For gaming purposes and considering future proofing since next gen consoles will have 8 cores processors

Consoles have had 8 cores since the Xbox 360. Don't worry about that. Future proofing is also impossible, unless you can see the future. "Moar cores" doesn't always make for a sound investment.

 

If the 3600XT does exist (I have my doubts) and it has a crazy clock speed, and your main use for the PC is gaming, then it is the better buy.

[.Apex.]

10 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

Consoles have had 8 cores since the Xbox 360. Don't worry about that. Future proofing is also impossible, unless you can see the future. "Moar cores" doesn't always make for a sound investment.

 

If the 3600XT does exist (I have my doubts) and it has a crazy clock speed, and your main use for the PC is gaming, then it is the better buy.

It's about the performance of those cores though, and the current gen consoles are nowhere close to the performance of next gen even though they're both 8 cores, there's a massive 7X performance difference at minimum

 

28 minutes ago, Ciss0 said:

So, actually this latest news and rumours on team red is making my life choices real hard... I'm intending to upgrade my Ryzen 5 2600 in June-July to something more "spicy" (for gaming porpuses mainly, some games like Anno 1800, Cities Skylines, AC: Odyssey are having serious CPU bottlenecks to my RX5700 XT...) and I was thinking about Ryzen 7 3700x in my B450 machine.

Why not wait for Ryzen 4000 when it comes out later this year? the R5 2600 is adequate for you to hold off on an upgrade

[Fasauceome]

8 minutes ago, Syn. said:

It's about the performance of those cores though, and the current gen consoles are nowhere close to the performance of next gen even though they're both 8 cores

That's really not a factor though, poorly optimized games will run poorly regardless of the amount of cores you throw at them. The CPU cores of a console are not addressed the same way as a computer CPU, with dynamic memory allocation and a completely different OS, the fact that it's a Zen 2 8 core doesn't mean a Zen 2 8 core will give you the optimal performance on PC. It has to be coded to leverage resources well.

 

If matching the CPU config of the console was best for performance on PC ports of console games, the FX 8350 would have been the ideal CPU for PC gamers playing ports, as it shares quite a lot with the Jaguar CPUs of classic mainstream consoles 

Edited May 26, 2020 by Fasauceome

[.Apex.]

2 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

That's really not a factor though, poorly optimized games will run poorly regardless of the amount of cores you throw at them. The CPU cores of a console are not addressed the same way as a computer CPU, with dynamic memory allocation and a completely different OS, the fact that it's a Zen 2 8 core doesn't mean a Zen 2 8 core will give you the optimal performance on PC. It has to be coded to leverage resources well.

I'm aware it doesn't translate 1:1 as they're completely different OSes, that's why 4 cores have been preeminent for the longest time even though the consoles were 8 cores, but I was more talking about the future proofing part because as developers have a lot more freedom to develop games for a console with this much CPU performance then eventually they will be able to take advantage of all those cores, maybe not now or maybe not in a year, I don't know what they can deliver at launch but you know they'll keep pushing the bar since they have the ability to do so and since in a lot of cases the PC ports are less optimized because of the variety in hardware that means games would require even more than an equivalent Zen 2 CPU.

[Ciss0]

46 minutes ago, Syn. said:

Why not wait for Ryzen 4000 when it comes out later this year? the R5 2600 is adequate for you to hold off on an upgrade

My question about waiting for the 4000 series is just that I have a B450 board, and from what I heard the beta bios will arrive way after the CPU release, and I'm not sure how much compatible and problems free that beta bios will be, so for the 4000 series I would feel that a board updgrade would also be required for a "safer" upgrade, therefore I would probably have to dish out more cash :/... 

 

Moreover, while the R5 2600 is more than adequate for most games (including the very demanding RDR2), some games like Assassins Creed Odyssey, Cities Skylines or Anno 1800 (which I play quite a lot) are CPU intensive, and it's starting to stutter like crazy (AC is almost an unplayable stutter mess in bigger cities, even if i lower settings, and in Cities Skylines and Anno as soon as i reach bigger cities sizes stutters and low fps begin also :/....). I'd reckon that the R5 2600 is very good, I love it most of the time, however due to poor optimization in some games (and also AMD drivers), I feel that the only solution for smooth gaming in those cases is literally "brute force" (as in more clock speed)... In the last months I replaced the GPU (RX590 to the RX 5700XT), the power supply (NOX 600W to a Corsair TX750M), the SSD to an NVME and even the ram (from 16 gb 2933mhz cl16 to 16 gb 3466mhz cl16) and the heavy stutter in those games still continues... so it is either the board (which I do not believe) or the CPU that's also why the "urgency" in upgrading, because I've been trying for the last couple of months solving this stuttering mess, and I admit I'm getting quite frustated...

 

But now I'm like stuck in this decision of the 'moar-clocks' vs 'moar-cores' for the issues that we are now discussing here, and don't really know what to do... In reality I just want smooth gaming in Ultra 1080p in every game for at least 2 years if possible....

[Ciss0]

51 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

f the 3600XT does exist (I have my doubts) and it has a crazy clock speed, and your main use for the PC is gaming, then it is the better buy.

It might be true, some benchmarks are already being leaked - https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Ryzen-9-3900XT-and-Ryzen-5-3600XT-benchmarks-leak-Comet-Lake-S-Core-i9-10900K-and-Core-i7-10700K-take-a-single-core-beating-despite-500-MHz-higher-clockspeed.466823.0.html

 

But as always we have to take this with a (big) grain of salt....

[.Apex.]

6 minutes ago, Ciss0 said:

My question about waiting for the 4000 series is just that I have a B450 board, and from what I heard the beta bios will arrive way after the CPU release, and I'm not sure how much compatible and problems free that beta bios will be, so for the 4000 series I would feel that a board updgrade would also be required for a "safer" upgrade, therefore I would probably have to dish out more cash :/... 

In that case it's hard to recommend 4000 series because I suspect the B450 boards would be a mess in terms of their BIOS

7 minutes ago, Ciss0 said:

Moreover, while the R5 2600 is more than adequate for most games (including the very demanding RDR2), some games like Assassins Creed Odyssey, Cities Skylines or Anno 1800 (which I play quite a lot) are CPU intensive, and it's starting to stutter like crazy (AC is almost an unplayable stutter mess in bigger cities, even if i lower settings, and in Cities Skylines and Anno as soon as i reach bigger cities sizes stutters and low fps begin also :/....)

Cities Skylines and Anno 1800 are largely single threaded so they tend to max out a single core and cause a bottleneck so I doubt an upgrade would help that much because the single core performance isn't that much of a leap, and I don't know why AC Odyssey is stuttering, maybe there are other things at play?

 

As you can see from this benchmark here there's not much scaling above 4 cores 4 threads

13 minutes ago, Ciss0 said:

even the ram (from 16 gb 2933mhz cl16 to 16 gb 3466mhz cl16)

Is that a single 16GB stick or 2x8GB?

[Ciss0]

2 minutes ago, Syn. said:

Cities Skylines and Anno 1800 are largely single threaded so they tend to max out a single core and cause a bottleneck so I doubt an upgrade would help that much because the single core performance isn't that much of a leap, and I don't know why AC Odyssey is stuttering, maybe there are other things at play?

Thank you for the informative benchmark info, in that case maybe wouldn't the 3600xT offer a reasonable boost for those single threaded games?  Cause the R5 2600 has a base clock of 3.4ghz and 3.9 boost (on 2 cores), the R5 3600 XT (again if rumours are true) would have a base clock of 4.0 ghz (so 600 mhz increase) and a 4.7 boost (probably on 2 cores as well and a 800 mhz increase from the R5 2600), so the single threaded perfomance would also offer a signifcant boost.

 

As for AC: Odyssey, I'm not entirely sure...  I read this comment on a Ubisoft forum which seems the one that makes more sense:

Quote

"The problem is the way the game swaps out assets WAYYYYY more than it needs to on a PC because a PC isn't a low powered, memory shared and limited, 30 FPS, embedded system like a game console ...... The GPU can only display the number of frames the CPU gives it and if the CPU is busy swapping assets in and out of memory it can only display so many a second ..... That's why lowering the graphics settings does nothing since it's still only able to render the frames the CPU is giving it ...... It's similar to a CPU bottleneck except you don't have 100% core usage because the bottleneck isn't the processing power but all the unnecessary asset swapping which wastes CPU cycles that could be used to render frames to send to the GPU"

In this case I still think that the "brute force" of adding 600mhz to the base clock and 800mhz to the boost clock would help, but yeah I'm not sure at all... It could also be the poor AMD drivers... But since the GPU ingame is like always at 60-70% I think it's the CPU...

 

11 minutes ago, Syn. said:

Is that a single 16GB stick or 2x8GB?

I have 2x8Gb in dual channel, upgraded recently from a 2x8gb G.Skill Aegis 2933mhz (the FPS in AC Odyssey actually went up by 6 fps, but the stutter still continues...)

[.Apex.]

22 minutes ago, Ciss0 said:

Thank you for the informative benchmark info, in that case maybe wouldn't the 3600xT offer a reasonable boost for those single threaded games?  Cause the R5 2600 has a base clock of 3.4ghz and 3.9 boost (on 2 cores), the R5 3600 XT (again if rumours are true) would have a base clock of 4.0 ghz (so 600 mhz increase) and a 4.7 boost (probably on 2 cores as well and a 800 mhz increase from the R5 2600), so the single threaded perfomance would also offer a signifcant boost.

I assume the 3600XT wouldn't be able to go above 4.2Ghz All Core since that's the limit most of the time with the current architecture and I doubt they changed anything, it's most likely a simple OC to counter Intel's new CPUs, and the All Core frequency is what you're going to get while gaming, even though the game mostly loads a single core but all the other cores are loaded as well but not at the same level so that's why you won't see the single core boosts, and you can also easily overclock the 2600 to 4Ghz+, the power consumption wouldn't be that high.

 

With both CPUs at the same clockspeed there is still a 15% performance difference because of IPC but it's unclear how much that would help you, all the games you're mentioning are unoptimized as hell and you're not the only one having these issues, it's difficult to recommend an upgrade when it might not help at all.

 

Have you checked if your CPU isn't thermal throttling or that the CPU clock speeds are consistent during gameplay? fluctuation in clockspeed can cause stutters, you can check them with HWiNFO (sensors-only) to see the clockspeed for each core

[Ciss0]

32 minutes ago, Syn. said:

and you can also easily overclock the 2600 to 4Ghz+, the power consumption wouldn't be that high.

 

With both CPUs at the same clockspeed there is still a 15% performance difference because of IPC but it's unclear how much that would help you, all the games you're mentioning are unoptimized as hell and you're not the only one having these issues, it's difficult to recommend an upgrade when it might not help at all.

I'm quite afraid of OCing (even if I would by a new cooler) because my room temperature is quite high, but I can maybe I can try before buying a new CPU just buying a new cooler and try to OC the processor. I understand what you mean... Paying around 200-300€ for a 15% boost that might not even reflect in games and might not be worth it...

But it's just so frustating that a guy has a shiny new hardware and stuff does not work because of poor optimization in the games that are the ones I want to play....... 

32 minutes ago, Syn. said:

Have you checked if your CPU isn't thermal throttling or that the CPU clock speeds are consistent during gameplay? fluctuation in clockspeed can cause stutters, you can check them with HWiNFO (sensors-only) to see the clockspeed for each core

This is the histrogram from my ryzen master during the time I was doing the AC benchmark ingame. Temperatures peaked 64º (room temperature 26º), core speed was between 3650 and 3700 across all cores. GPU is not heating much because its running at 50-70% due to the "bottleneck".

 

[Nena Trinity]

2 hours ago, Fasauceome said:

Consoles have had 8 cores since the Xbox 360. Don't worry about that. Future proofing is also impossible, unless you can see the future. "Moar cores" doesn't always make for a sound investment.

 

If the 3600XT does exist (I have my doubts) and it has a crazy clock speed, and your main use for the PC is gaming, then it is the better buy.

360 had a POWER PC tri-core... OwO 

[.Apex.]

10 hours ago, Ciss0 said:

This is the histrogram from my ryzen master during the time I was doing the AC benchmark ingame. Temperatures peaked 64º (room temperature 26º), core speed was between 3650 and 3700 across all cores. GPU is not heating much because its running at 50-70% due to the "bottleneck".

Temperatures are great and the clockspeed is consistent, if you're not having issues with other games and your CPU performance is up to par in benchmarks then it's safe to fault it at the game for being unoptimized, I understand your frustration

 

Have you made sure that you've enabled XMP/DOCP in BIOS and that your RAM is running at 3466mhz? because it's rare for 2nd Gen Ryzen to handle that speed, that's why I'm having doubts, though in some cases it does

 

Can you post a screenshot of the Memory tab in CPU-Z?

10 hours ago, Ciss0 said:

but I can maybe I can try before buying a new CPU just buying a new cooler and try to OC the processor.

Buying a cooler is a good decision since it'd be useful anyway when upgrading to 3rd Gen, just make sure not to overspend on a cooler, for example the Arctic Freezer 34 eSports (Single fan) is 33$ and the Duo version which has Dual fans is 40$, it's overpriced right now on Amazon but you might find it in your local stores, though make sure to investigate the issue extensively before deciding to spend money, it might be something simple that you're overlooking