Ah, the tech world. She moves fast. So fast that this video started out
pretty straightforward, and then out of nowhere became… a lot more complicated.
See, I’ve been getting more and more into Intel’s 12th-gen universe lately, and their main
characters, especially in the more value-oriented roles have really shaken things up. Enough so
that this review of AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600X could’ve potentially taken a sharp turn into the negative.
Buuuuuut then AMD decided to slash and leave a large, gaping wound in the pricing for the
bulk of their 5000-series chips, and in doing so is taking the fight right back to Intel in a way
that will leave us as the people actually buying these things in a very, very favorable position.
So, more than a year later, with legitimate competition from Intel lined up, price cuts
abound, and apparently, another couple of chip releases around the corner, is AMD’s Ryzen 5
5600X still the cream of the crop gaming CPU that it was when it first landed? Well, Let’s find out.
But not before we take a look at today’s video sponsor MSI,
and their essentially best in class but hard to pronounce Optix MAG274QRF gaming monitor.
I’ve always preached that 27 inch, 1440p, 165Hz monitors are the sweet spot for gamers,
and this monitor is about as sweet as it gets. It hits all
three of those points while also providing fantastic color accuracy
and ridiculous 1ms response times thanks to what MSI is calling Rapid IPS technology.
It’s also G-sync compatible, HDR-ready, and features an intuitive and powerful on-screen
display along with almost endless adjustability options to configure it to your needs perfectly.
Also included is a USB hub that should help with cable clutter, a Type-C connector,
one DisplayPort 1.2, and two HDMI 2.0 ports, and it even includes a dedicated console mode
for PS5 owners so you can actually run your games at 1440p. And if you snag it or any of
the other eligible MSI parts fast enough, you can also get your hands on a free copy of Assassin’s
Creed Valhalla along with the Dawn of Ragnarok expansion, just follow the link down below.
So, if you want to take your esports game to the next level on PC or console,
or just want a gaming monitor that can also double as a creative work monitor,
then you should check out MSI’s Optix MAG274QRF.
And if you’re in South Africa, head on over to Takealot also linked down below to get yours.
Now, as I already mentioned, the Ryzen 5 5600X has been kicking around for a while now,
I mean, it originally launched back in November of 2020,
and it’s still a go-to choice for gamers everywhere, and for good reason.
Coming in with six of AMD’s efficient and powerful 7nm Zen 3 Cores,
making for twelve threads in total, and sporting base and boost clock speeds of 3.7 GHz and 4.6GHz
respectively, the 5600X is still everything you’d want in a gaming CPU and more.
It also has a relatively low TDP (by today’s standards) of 65W, 32MB of L3 cache, supports
PCIe 4.0, features native support for memory up to 3200 MHz (and much higher via even the
simplest overclock), and even ships with decently capable and sexy Wraith Stealth cooler as a bonus.
All of that, along with some key architectural improvements made it the best all-around gaming
CPU you could get back in the day, especially at its launch price of $300, which, at the time,
was kind of a steal. And since then we’ve seen AMD steadily lower that price more and more,
making it an even better deal at every step along the way.
And then a couple of months ago, Intel bust through the door yelling “here’s 12th Gen”,
and shockingly their new chips were legitimately innovative and impressive,
as you’ll know if you’ve watched my review of the Core i5-12400.
Now, I’m not saying that this is in response to said 12th Gen launch or anything like that
(although it almost definitely played a big role in it, so that’s definitely what I’m saying),
but AMD seemingly decided to drop the price of
their 5000-series chips recently to the lowest I’ve seen them yet.
Right now, at almost every retailer I checked, the 5600X can be found selling for just $230
or even as low as $210. Even here in South Africa, it can be found for around R4,800,
down by a grand or two from where it was just a couple of days ago.
In a worst-case scenario, that puts the 5600X at just a hair more expensive than the Core i5-12400,
and in the same ballpark as the 12500. The battle between AMD and Intel’s mid
to budget-range chips hasn’t been this intense since… I can’t even remember when.
And it’s a battle that could potentially get some new combatants sometime soon too, as recent leaks
point to AMD launching the mythical 5800X3D with its fancy new 3D V-cache technology, along with
the 5700X, 5500, and a non-X version of our 5600X right here maybe even as early as next month.
If the supposed launch date for those chips is accurate,
it would also go a long way to explaining the recent price drops.
But look, regardless of the reasoning, we now have one of the best gaming chips ever,
landing at its cheapest price ever,
and that makes me more excited than ever to run it through the benchmark gauntlet.
So, while I don’t usually blow our collective loads with benchmarks this early into a video,
I think the numbers will be interesting enough to warrant a little premature benchmarkulation.
So, let’s jump right into it since there’s almost definitely going to be a lot to talk about after.
The AMD test bench we’re working with includes MSI’s X570 Gaming Pro Carbon,
32GB of Curcial’s Ballistix RGB running at 3600MHz CL16,
MSI’s Coreliquid 360R keeping the chip cool, Antec’s 750W EAG Pro providing power,
MSI’s RTX 3070 Gaming X Trio, and then we have Crucial’s P5 Plus as our main drive.
Unfortunately, the review kit I used for benchmarking the 12400 didn’t allow for DDR4,
so that was tested with a 32GB kit of DDR5 running at 5200MHz CL40,
which makes an apples-to-apples comparison impossible, but even so,
I think the data will be mighty interesting regardless. So let’s get rolling.
And as always, let’s kick things off with some productivity benchmarks, starting with
trusty old Cinebench R23. When it comes to the multithreaded test, it comes as no surprise that
scores for the six-core parts fell well short of the scores put up by their octa-core competition.
What is a little surprising is that even though they both still put up a good fight, the 12400 put
up a heck of a tougher fight than the 5600X. Even more so when it comes to the single-threaded test,
where the 12400 easily managed to best all of the other chips,
while the 5600X landed in the third spot.
In the Blender benchmark, the situation doesn’t improve much for the 5600X, in fact it gets a
whole lot worse, with the chip posting the slowest render times out of the bunch. Which, again,
makes sense when we’re looking at the 8-core parts, but not so much when looking at the 12400.
Things do start to look up for the 5600X in the Pugetbench Photoshop and Premiere Pro benchmarks,
where it came close to matching the 12400 in the
former and managed an imposing lead over it in the latter.
Now, while these productivity benchmarks don’t exactly paint the 5600X in the best light,
especially since I didn’t have any older-gen parts to compare it to,
its scores are still totally in line with what you should be expecting from a modern six-core part.
Unless you use your system for work applications as often (or
more often) than you use it for gaming, it’s still more than enough to get you by.
And speaking of gaming, it’s about that time. This is one of the most popular gaming chips after all,
so let’s see what it’s got under the hood.
And first up, we’ve got Unigine’s Superposition and 3DMark’s Time Spy Benchmarks,
both of which show the 5600X fall disappointingly short, posting the lowest scores of the bunch,
although at least in Superposition it was only by a handful of points.
Moving on to non-synthetic benchmarks, also known as games we can actually play,
the 5600X finally comes to life.
In the majority of the games tested, it happily cruised almost alongside its
better-equipped and pricier big brother, the 5800X, and even managed to beat it
in three of them. That’s no small feat considering what a beast the 5800X is.
It also managed to stay ahead of the two last-gen parts,
posting higher frame rates than them in more than half of the titles tested, which, again,
is impressive in its own right. Sure, it does still lose out to one or the other on occasion,
but even then it’s rarely by more than a couple of frames.
Aaaand now we have to address the gigantic blue elephant in the room.
That damn 12400 sure packs one hell of a punch. Out of all of the 11 games I benchmarked,
the 12400 came out victorious over the 5600X in all of them. Yip. All of them.
In fact, with all of the average FPS scores tallied up, the 12400 actually managed to
beat every other chip on the board, with the 5800 and 5600X following in second and third
place respectively. Although, to be fair, adding up the average FPS scores like this
isn’t exactly the best way to measure performance since certain games are far
better optimized for either AMD or Intel, but even so this is some impressive shiz.
And to be even fairer, in games that don’t seem to favor one team over the other (meaning most
of them except for Far Cry and Forza) the FPS difference between the 5600X and 12400 ranged
between just 0 and 4%. So basically if you’re playing either of those games I just mentioned,
then this is a landslide victory for the 12400, but if you’re playing anything else,
then the difference will be so small you’d never notice it in-game.
Something you’ll probably also overlook is how much power the chip needs to keep chugging along,
with it maxing out at 76W during heavy workloads, making the 12400 and its max of 107W
look greedy. Interestingly, the lower power draw didn’t translate into lower temperatures,
with the 5600X settling in at 71 degrees C, and the 12400 at 69 degrees.
Even though it’s a bit higher than I personally expected,
71 degrees is still more than manageable, and seemingly left enough room for the
chip to properly stretch its legs with the 5600X hitting a max core clock of 4.65GHz.
What all of these numbers tell us is that the 5600X is as much of a phenomenal choice
for gamers, and even creators on a budget or a mix between the two now as it was a year ago.
But there’s no point in ignoring the facts here. The 12400 is simply the better chip overall.
It performs better in most of the productivity workloads I tested and came out on top
when it comes to gaming too. It also runs cooler (though with a higher power draw),
includes more than a few fancy new features like PCIe 5.0, has an iGPU, and let’s not forget,
it’s also significantly cheaper than the 5600X even after AMD’s hefty price cuts.
For anyone looking to build a new system from scratch, the 12400 is kind of the no-brainer pick.
And with the release of the more affordable B660 motherboards,
and having the choice of sticking with cheaper DDR4 instead of the pricier DDR5,
makes it a very value-oriented package that I’d have no trouble recommending.
All of that being said, it’s not like the 5600X is now bad all of a sudden,
there’s still definitely a case to be made for it right now. For one, the 5600X is unlocked
for overclocking, and with some fine-tuning, I don’t doubt it would much closer match or even
beat the i5 in more than a few of the benchmarks I ran. In fact, it did just that when I tried,
but due to some inconsistencies, the numbers weren’t valid so I won’t be sharing those.
It’s also still an amazing upgrade for anyone who’s already invested in the Ryzen platform.
If you’re rocking a third, second, or even first-gen Ryzen chip along with any
of the motherboards to go along with them, then you’re probably already primed for a seamless,
drop-in upgrade. Just make sure your BIOS supports it, and switch the chips out with no added costs
other than the chip itself, which again, is at its lowest price point ever.
With all of that said and done, what you should take away from this review
isn’t that the 5600X is either a good or a bad choice (there are arguments to be made
either way) but that we as consumers now have much more compelling options.
We have chips and platforms from both teams that offer very similar
levels of performance at similar price points,
with the value proposition only primed to get even better with future releases and more competition.
Now, if only the same could be said for the GPU situation,
we’d be all set. But that about wraps it up for this video.
Just a quick reminder for everyone who made it this far into the video
that if you’re in the market for a do-it-all gaming monitor,
then do yourself a favor and check out MSI’s Optix MAG274QRF at the link in the description,
and be sure to pick it up at Takealot also linked down below if you’re in South Africa.
Thanks for dropping by, be sure to hit all of the buttons on your way out,
and I’ll see you all in the next one.