Ryzen 3 > Ryzen 5

[genexis_x]

I agree that Ryzen 3 has a better value compared to Ryzen 5 in gaming (most games) , however they only have 4c4t which isn't that future proof (still you can upgrade to R7 in future).

IMO the only buyable Ryzen CPUs are R3 1200, R5 1600 and R7 1700. The R5 1400 has a bad value (either go for 1200 or 1600) as well as the 'X' models since you can OC a non-X CPU to almost the same speed with the 'X' models

[ARikozuM]

Just now, Ezilkannan said:

So for most titles, an R3 would perform similar to a R7? Is this the case for intel too (i5 and i7 are just i3s with more cores and threads)

No, the R3 is by itself in gaming while the R5 and R7 score about the same (I still think that it's the inter-CCX latency causing issues). 

[Prox1ma]

Just now, ZM Fong said:

however they only have 4c4t which isn't that future proof (still you can upgrade to R7 in future).

I don't get how 4c4t will not last for gaming. I don't see game devs optimizing for multiple cores anytime soon. By the time we actually get to see such titles wherein having more than 4 cores gives more performance than less and to the point where 4c 4t is no longer set as recommended, it would already be time for an upgrade anyway. 4c4t are here to stay for a long long time before it becomes obsolete/limits performance for gaming. Right now and for the foreseeable future gaming performance is all about IPC and will stay that away.

[Prox1ma]

7 minutes ago, ZM Fong said:

The R5 1400 has a bad value (either go for 1200 or 1600) as well as the 'X' models since you can OC a non-X CPU to almost the same speed with the 'X' models

Predominantly X skus tend to be more stable than non X for OC. But yes, the performance difference is negligible anyway.

[Skanky Sylveon]

7 minutes ago, Ezilkannan said:

So for most titles, an R3 would perform similar to a R7? Is this the case for intel too (i5 and i7 are just i3s with more cores and threads)

In most cases, yes.  But there are some games that love cache.  For those, the higher core Ryzen CPUs may give an FPS bonus, however it will probably be fairly small.

[ARikozuM]

2 minutes ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

In most cases, yes.  But there are some games that love cache.  For those, the higher core Ryzen CPUs may give an FPS bonus, however it will probably be fairly small.

RIP 1800X by the $100 CPU...

[NewHopeTech]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

RIP 1800X by the $100 CPU...

It is still 122 FPS thats 87% of the FPS that the i7 6850k got.

[Prox1ma]

3 minutes ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

In most cases, yes.  But there are some games that love cache.  For those, the higher core Ryzen CPUs may give an FPS bonus, however it will probably be fairly small.

From this, its safe to say that, unless you have workloads other than gaming that needs more than 4 cores, getting a R5 or R7 or i7 is a waste of money. For pure gaming for now and for the distant future, 4c4t is all you'll ever need. Maybe if R3 is too low on cache, perhaps the absolute maximum you would need would be an R5.

[NewHopeTech]

1 minute ago, Ezilkannan said:

From this, its safe to say that, unless you have workloads other than gaming that needs more than 4 cores, getting a R5 or R7 or i7 is a waste of money. For pure gaming for now and for the distant future, 4c4t is all you'll ever need. Maybe if R3 is too low on cache, perhaps the absolute maximum you would need would be an R5.

While I agree with your conclusion, it is never safe to say anything based of a single study.

[Skanky Sylveon]

Just now, Ezilkannan said:

From this, its safe to say that, unless you have workloads other than gaming that needs more than 4 cores, getting a R5 or R7 or i7 is a waste of money. For pure gaming for now and for the distant future, 4c4t is all you'll ever need. Maybe if R3 is too low on cache, perhaps the absolute maximum you would need would be an R5.

In a word, yes.

Also remember, Coffee lake i3s are 4 core CPUs now.

There will be exceptions to this rule, however.  Some games scale very well with multiple cores.

[Prox1ma]

Just now, Cinnabar Sonar said:

In a word, yes.

Also remember, Coffee lake i3s are 4 core CPUs now.

There will be exceptions to this rule, however.  Some games scale very well with multiple cores.

Yes there would be exceptions, but do those exceptions perform so poorly in 4c4t that having two more cores or threads gives a massive boost?

Just now, NewHopeTech said:

While I agree with your conclusion, it is never safe to say anything based of a single study.

which is why I'm looking for answers. Predominantly I see minor difference between them.

[JoostinOnline]

16 minutes ago, Ezilkannan said:

So for most titles, an R3 would perform similar to a R7? Is this the case for intel too (i5 and i7 are just i3s with more cores and threads)

The frequency is also different.

 

All Ryzen chips have 8 cores.  After they are created, AMD tests for bad cores and the highest clock speed it can handle.  If one/two of the cores are bad, only six cores are enabled they and put them in a Ryzen 1600/1600x category.  If three/four cores are bad, only four cores are enabled and it's put in a 1200/1300x/1400 category.  They then test what frequency it can handle, deciding the final model number on that.  The process is known as "binning".

[Skanky Sylveon]

1 minute ago, Ezilkannan said:

Yes there would be exceptions, but do those exceptions perform so poorly in 4c4t that having two more cores or threads gives a massive boost?

Most likely, no.

The biggest advantage with more cores, at the moment, is that you can do some heavy work in the background while playing games, with minimal to no impact on performance.

 

Also, I don't think that we will see any games that will require more than 4 cores any time soon.

[Prox1ma]

Just now, Cinnabar Sonar said:

Most likely, no.

The biggest advantage with more cores, at the moment, is that you can do some heavy work in the background while playing games, with minimal to no impact on performance.

 

Also, I don't think that we will see any games that will require more than 4 cores any time soon.

Exactly! Until we are at a point where 4c4t skus are not capable of pushing 60 or atleast 80-90 fps and only a cpu with a higher core and thread can push a title past that frame, they will stay relevant for gaming. For pure gaming these would remain so for a long long time. For additional workloads, not so much, would have to get the new i7 or the R7s for that.

[Prox1ma]

3 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

The frequency is also different.

 

All Ryzen chips have 8 cores.  After they are created, AMD tests for bad cores and the highest clock speed it can handle.  If one/two of the cores are bad, only six cores are enabled they and put them in a Ryzen 1600/1600x category.  If three/four cores are bad, only four cores are enabled and it's put in a 1200/1300x/1400 category.  They then test what frequency it can handle, deciding the final model number on that.  The process is known as "binning".

I thought so. And I guess this is the same for Intel as well.

[JoostinOnline]

Just now, Ezilkannan said:

I thought so. And I guess this is the same for Intel as well.

Yes, although it's unlikely that any i5 (and now i3) couldn't also support Hyper-threading if Intel didn't physically disable it.  AMD does that on Ryzen 3 too.  It's a shitty practice, but the make more money that way.

[Skanky Sylveon]

11 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

The frequency is also different.

I forgot to mention that.  

@Ezilkannan In many cases, clock speed is actually more important for gaming than the number of cores.  I believe that's why the 1600x was so popular when it was released.

 

[Prox1ma]

1 minute ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

I forgot to mention that.  

@Ezilkannan In many cases, clock speed is actually more important for gaming than the number of cores.  I believe that's why the 1600x was so popular when it was released.

 

Yes that 1600X was/is a lot more practical than a 1700.

[Skanky Sylveon]

2 minutes ago, Ezilkannan said:

Yes that 1600X was/is a lot more practical than a 1700.

It's a great CPU for gaming and light content creation.

Also streaming.

[genexis_x]

38 minutes ago, Ezilkannan said:

I don't get how 4c4t will not last for gaming. I don't see game devs optimizing for multiple cores anytime soon. By the time we actually get to see such titles wherein having more than 4 cores gives more performance than less and to the point where 4c 4t is no longer set as recommended, it would already be time for an upgrade anyway. 4c4t are here to stay for a long long time before it becomes obsolete/limits performance for gaming. Right now and for the foreseeable future gaming performance is all about IPC and will stay that away.

What I'm trying to say is, you can not just only gaming with the CPU but also do other things like heavy multi tasking, streaming and video editing. Take the Kaby Lake i5 and R5 1600 for instance. The i5 has 4c4t while R5 1600 has 6c12t for about the same price. Which would you buy? (8th gen i5s are very capable, don't get me wrong)

 

Also, in general more cores and threads contribute to stabler framerates. Ryzen for example, although their IPC is lower than Intel, the stabler FPS manage to provide a smooth experience in games. Nevertheless, IPC is still important in games.

 

Not to mention that some games already optimising to more than 4 cores.

[Skanky Sylveon]

9 minutes ago, ZM Fong said:

What I'm trying to say is, you can not just only gaming with the CPU but also do other things like heavy multi tasking, streaming and video editing. Take the Kaby Lake i5 and R5 1600 for instance. The i5 has 4c4t while R5 1600 has 6c12t for about the same price. Which would you buy? (8th gen i5s are very capable, don't get me wrong)

That's probably why Ryzen was a huge success.  It's always better to go overkill than underkill.

Do I need a 12c/24t CPU?  No.  Will I benefit from said CPU?  Clearly, yes.  I have been able to do some heavy CPU work and still be able to game while recording with little to no performance drop.  (the radiator fans get pretty loud though.  )

 

Also, you never know what you will end up doing.

 

While not overspending on a build is important to many, OP just came off as very preachy to me.

[Prox1ma]

58 minutes ago, ZM Fong said:

What I'm trying to say is, you can not just only gaming with the CPU but also do other things like heavy multi tasking, streaming and video editing. Take the Kaby Lake i5 and R5 1600 for instance. The i5 has 4c4t while R5 1600 has 6c12t for about the same price. Which would you buy? (8th gen i5s are very capable, don't get me wrong)

 

Also, in general more cores and threads contribute to stabler framerates. Ryzen for example, although their IPC is lower than Intel, the stabler FPS manage to provide a smooth experience in games. Nevertheless, IPC is still important in games.

 

Not to mention that some games already optimising to more than 4 cores.

I did mention that for the use case of pure gaming 4c4t is sufficient and there are plenty of users who do that. People who would never do any workloads that require multiple cores, for them this is sufficient. I have already said that if you are going to do other workloads that need more cores, you have to look at the new i7 or R7. R5 1600X is a good product that sits right in between. Most users won't need more than that in my opinion. I'm yet to see titles that have so much optimization that a 4c 4t performs drastically poor compared to a higher core. I haven't seen a single title that does this. Some do perform marginally better yes, but not to the point where the experience you would get out of a 4c cpu would be vastly inferior that you must have a 6c cpu to get any good performance at all.

[Prox1ma]

39 minutes ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

That's probably why Ryzen was a huge success.  It's always better to go overkill than underkill.

Do I need a 12c/24t CPU?  No.  Will I benefit from said CPU?  Clearly, yes.  I have been able to do some heavy CPU work and still be able to game while recording with little to no performance drop.  (the radiator fans get pretty loud though.  )

 

Also, you never know what you will end up doing.

 

While not overspending on a build is important to many, OP just came off as very preachy to me.

Going overkill is fine as long as you are sure that you will eventually(in the near future) get to do the workloads that they are capable of. Buying it simply because we can, even though you are 100% sure you are never going to make any use of it, is just waste of money Enthusiasts tend to do that often(but that's okay) and mainstream users usually get components that they would never fully utilize, money which could have been used better on another components that would make a bigger difference like the GPU or that could have been of more use spent elsewhere.
P.S: I myself got an overkill 1080Ti

[Skanky Sylveon]

3 minutes ago, Ezilkannan said:

Going overkill is fine as long as you are sure that you will eventually(in the near future) get to do the workloads that they are capable of. Buying it simply because we can, even though you are 100% sure you are never going to make any use of it, is just waste of money Enthusiasts tend to do that often(but that's okay) and mainstream users usually get components that they would never fully utilize, money which could have been used better on another components that would make a bigger difference like the GPU or that could have been of more use spent elsewhere.
P.S: I myself got an overkill 1080Ti

Agreed, although if someone really wants to splurge, it's not the end of the world.  That is, as long as said person is still able to pay the bills, etc.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, minervx said:

Sorry for the clickbaity title.  In sheer dollar to performance, Ryzen 3 is better (for most people).

 

Yes, if you're utilizing all the cores and threads such as in professional 4K video editing or if you're gaming at over 120 frames per second, you probably will want a Ryzen 5 1600.  

 

But really, Ryzen 3 is more than enough for most people's gaming and content creation needs.  A lot of people tell themselves they're going to be professional editors and 3D renderers just to justify getting a beast processor, but most of them are just going to play Overwatch and browse the internet anyway.

 

The consumerism and hobbyist talk hyping up R5 and R7 have made the Ryzen 3 seem much weaker than it actually is.

 

Meh i disagree not only do you have 2 cores per CCX(latency issues) you also have most games now a days using 6-8 threads which helps Ryzen 1600+ in modern titles. 

 

The 1300X at 4.0ghz will be at 95-100% in modern titles and even a 1060 will see GPU usage drop below 90%. 

 

Ryzen 3 is really suited for people with a 1050Ti or less.