All three of these Ryzen 5 processors are 6 core 12 thread chips, but the newer the
CPU, the higher the base and boost clock speeds.
The 3600 and 5600X have the same amounts of L2 and L3 cache, but the newer 7600X has double
the L2 cache, and we’ll see how this affects games and applications soon.
AMD’s newer Zen 4 processors are now 5nm and use DDR5 memory, and they’ve also got
integrated graphics now too, something the older parts didn’t have.
I’m using the 5600X rather than the cheaper 5600 because the 5600X came out almost a year
and a half earlier, so more people actually have it.
The 3600 and 3600X came out at the same time, but as the performance gap was very small,
most people ended up getting the cheaper 3600, so that’s why we’re using it.
At the time of recording in October 2022, the 7600X is available on Newegg at the MSRP
launch price of $300 USD, but the older 5600X is $200 or less now, and the older 3600 can
be picked up for less than $150, but you can check current prices and sales with the links
in the description.
So with a $100 higher price tag compared to last gen, it begs the question, is the 7600X
worth paying more for compared to AMD’s older and cheaper 6 core CPUs?
To find out, I’ve compared all three processors in this system.
I’ve tested with MSI’s Core Liquid S360 AIO and Noctua NT-H2 thermal paste so we can
fairly compare thermals, but the motherboard and RAM have been changed for the 7600X, as
this uses the new AM5 socket and requires DDR5 memory.
Just before we get into the games, let’s start out with Cinebench R23, as it’s an
easy way to get a general idea of where single and multi threaded performance are at.
I’ve got the oldest 3600 down the bottom, 5600X in the middle, and 7600X at the top
with two results.
We’ve got the stock result, and the result with Eco mode enabled, which is set through
the Ryzen Master software.
We can clearly see that the new Zen 4 based 7600X is offering a relatively big performance
boost compared to the last two generations, and enabling Eco mode barely lowered performance.
When compared to the older 3600, the 7600X was scoring 65% higher in single core and
59% higher in multi core, and then when compared with the 5600X we’re looking at a 27% boost
to single core and 36% boost to multi core.
Not bad for a single generation jump!
We can see why the increase is greater with the 7600X when checking out the clock speeds
being reached during this test.
Before the 7600X, our 6 core Ryzen chips were running between 4.1 and 4.3GHz in this workload.
The 7600X on the other hand was consistently running at 5.2GHz, and only slightly behind
in Eco mode, but it’s using more power compared to the other two processors in order to maintain
these speeds.
The 7600X is scoring 36% better in multi core compared to the 5600X, but it’s also using
46% more power to achieve this.
The 7600X is using less power in Eco mode though, we’re talking about a 34% lead compared
to the 5600X in terms of Cinebench multicore performance now, so not much lower, but here
the 7600x is using 23% more power.
It’s still more total power when compared to the last gen 5600X, but from an efficiency
perspective, the 7600X with Eco mode ends up being the best result.
This is because it’s using less power compared to itself without Eco mode while not losing
much performance.
Without Eco mode and just running the 7600X at default though, the older 5600X was more
efficient.
More power generally equals more heat, and the 7600X was definitely running warmer, but
as I’m sure you’ve heard by now, AMD have said these new CPUs have no risk of damage
or deterioration running at the 95 degree Celcius limit 24/7.
Regardless, Eco mode was able to lower the temperature by around 15 degrees, a decent
improvement for such a simple change.
So Eco mode on the 7600X was running cooler, more efficiently, and still performing well.
So it’s definitely looking like a smart option to use.
That said, the rest of this testing has been done with Eco mode off, because I wanted to
run the 7600X at its default and see what it’s capable of.
But as we’ve seen, I wouldn’t really expect the differences to be that much lower with
Eco mode enabled anyway.
Alright just before we get into the games, let’s finish off the rest of the productivity
workloads.
Blender was tested with the Open Data benchmark, and I’ve included all three different workloads
that it tests.
This test relies on multi core performance, and like Cinebench, there are some nice gains
with the 7600X, which was scoring 39% higher than the 5600X before it in the Classroom
test, and 55% ahead of the older 3600.
The V-Ray benchmark is another heavy multi-threaded rendering workload, and the 7600X has one
of its biggest leads over the 5600X here, scoring 39% higher.
The 7600X comes out 65% ahead of the older 3600, so a nice performance improvement, but
don’t forget about the extra power needed to pull this off.
We've got eco mode for that though.
The Corona benchmark also uses the processor to render out a scene, but lower times are
better now, and the differences weren’t as large compared to the previous rendering
tests.
Linux kernel compilation was tested in Linux with Ubuntu 22.04, whereas the rest of the
tests were all done with Windows 11.
There’s not much difference between the 5600X and 3600, which I suspect is due to
them having the same amounts of L2 and L3 cache.
Cache affects compilation performance, and the 7600X with its double L2 cache is 43%
faster than the 5600X before it.
LLVM compilation is the only other test I’ve done in Linux, and again the 5600X and 3600
were much the same here too, with the 7600X having a clear improvement thanks to its additional
cache.
Handbrake was used to convert my 4K 60FPS review video of the Legion 7i gaming laptop
to 1080p h.265.
Lower times are better here too, and like many of the other workloads, the 7600X had
a bigger lead compared to the smaller gap between the older 5600X and 3600.
Adobe Premiere was tested with the Puget Systems benchmark tool, and this tests video editing
tasks like exporting, playback and more.
The 5600X was scoring 10% ahead of the 3600, while the 7600X was scoring 18% better than
the 5600X, and 30% better than the 3600.
Although the 7600X adds integrated graphics, it doesn’t seem like this software is yet
taking advantage of it, so this gap might increase in future with updates.
DaVinci Resolve is another video editing program, and the 7600X was scoring 18% better compared
to the 5600X, one of the smallest differences between these two processors, but the 7600X
was scoring 69% better compared to the 3600, nice.
Adobe Photoshop does better with more single threaded performance, and as we saw in Cinebench
earlier, the 7600X certainly has some nice gains there.
It’s scoring 30% ahead of the 5600X, and 61% ahead of the older 3600.
The 7600X didn’t have that big of a lead compared to the older 5600X in Microsoft Word,
but it was much further ahead when it came to Microsoft Excel, so I guess consider Zen
4 over the others if you’ve got some epic spreadsheets.
7-Zip was used to test compression and decompression.
Ryzen generally does much better compared to Intel in these tests, and I really can’t
wait to compare AMD’s 7000 series against Intel’s 13th gen, so make sure you’re
subscribed for that!
The 7600X was 59% faster than the 3600 in terms of compression and 43% faster for decompression,
but when compared to the 5600X decompression was just 19% faster with the 7600X, and 29%
faster for decompression.
Geekbench tests a bunch of various workloads, some of which benefit from AVX512 instructions,
which is something that the 7600X has hardware support for and helps explain the above average
gains.
The 7600X is scoring 54% higher compared to the 3600 in the multicore test, and 75% higher
in the single core test - the biggest difference out of all workloads tested.
On average out of all applications tested, the newer 7600X is around 54% faster when
compared to the older 3600, though as we can see there are significant differences between
the various applications.
For example, as mentioned Geekbench single core had the biggest gain on the 7600X, though
more practical workloads like DaVinci Resolve video editing weren’t far behind.
Adobe Premiere on the other hand saw the smallest difference between these two processors, with
a 30% lead from the newer 7600X.
If we instead compare the 7600X against the 5600X, then we’re looking at a 29% improvement
with the newer 7600X in these same specific application tests.
Again it really depends on the specific workload, Linux kernel compilation likely had above
average gains due to the doubling of L2 cache, while both video editing apps now had some
of the smallest gains with Zen 4.
Alright now let’s compare some games!
I’ve compared all 3 processors in 11 games at 1080p, 1440p and 4k resolutions to see
what the differences are.
Let’s start out with Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered.
I’ve got the 1080p results down the bottom, 1440p in the middle, and 4K up the top, with
the older CPUs below the newer ones within each resolution, just like before.
The differences in FPS weren’t that different between 1080p and 1440p resolutions, while
4K saw no difference between the 5600X and 7600X as we’re entirely GPU bound, and both
had a 13% lead over the older 3600.
The 7600X was 53% faster than the 3600 at 1080p, and 26% ahead of the 5600X.
Microsoft Flight Simulator was tested in the Sydney landing challenge, and it was sort
of similar in that all 3 CPUs performed similarly at both 1080p and 1440p resolutions, and then
the 5600X and 7600X were very close together at 4K.
The 3600 was performing about the same at all 3 resolutions, indicating a CPU bottleneck.
The 7600X was 53% faster than the 3600 here, just like the last game, and 14% ahead compared
to the 5600X.
I always get requests to test Warhammer 3 for a CPU intensive game, but all three processors
were limited by our RTX 3090 Ti graphics card at 1440p.
Fortunately I’ll be comparing that against the RTX 4090 soon, so make sure you’re subscribed
for that.
At 1080p, the 7600X was 25% ahead of the 3600, but only 4% ahead compared to the 5600X, so
you can get most of the FPS gains with the cheaper 5600X.
Halo Infinite also saw no change between all three CPUs at 4K as we’re GPU limited there,
but there’s a bigger difference here at 1440p this time.
The 7600X was 14% ahead of the 5600X, and 40% ahead of the 3600.
The margins get larger at the lower 1080p resolution, presumably as we’re more CPU
bound, with the 7600X now 32% ahead of the 5600X, and 64% faster compared to the older
3600.
Things start looking a little weird in Call of Duty Warzone.
CPU choice doesn’t seem to matter at 1440p and 4K resolutions, but at 1080p the 5600X
was a little ahead in terms of average FPS.
This appears to just be a small difference within the margin of error range, but I saw
similar differences in my 7950X vs 5950X comparison, so perhaps some part of this game just works
a little better with last gen Zen 3, or maybe it's my DDR4 memory.
Ultimately it doesn’t really matter, it’s a 5 FPS difference, and the dips in performance
as measured by the 1% lows were still higher on the 7600X, so a more stable experience,
but not by much.
The differences in Apex Legends were quite small too, regardless of resolution, so it
doesn’t really matter a whole lot which CPU you pick.
There might be bigger gaps at lower settings, but even if you remove the frame cap this
game maxes out at 300 FPS, which is why I chose to test with max settings.
For some reason the 1% lows were a little better in Fortnite on the 5600X at all three
resolutions, despite the average frame rates being higher with the newer 7600X.
Again like some of the other games, if I didn’t also see a similar thing happen in other CPU
comparisons between Zen 2, 3 and 4 I’d think there’s something wrong with my testing,
but this was a clear trend over multiple processors throughout these same generations.
Again like some other games, the gaps between the 5600X and 7600X weren’t that big, so
if you’ve already got a 3600 simply doing a drop-in replacement upgrade to the 5600X
without changing hardware is probably the move, as it gets you most of the way there
for less money.
While we’re on the subject of eSports games, CS:GO was seeing some of the biggest boosts
with newer CPUs out of all 11 games tested.
The 7600X was reaching a 101% higher average FPS compared to the 3600 at 1080p, that’s
right, more than double the frame rate.
This game also had the biggest improvements with newer processors at 4K, as it just doesn’t
seem to get GPU limited.
Basically it just cares about CPU power more compared to most other games.
Cyberpunk 2077 on the other hand goes the other way, with no difference between all
three processors at 4K, while the differences at 1440p were still very small too.
CPU selection only seems to matter at the lower 1080p resolution in this game, with
the 7600X being 33% faster than the 3600, but just 6% faster compared to the 5600X,
so another example of where 3600 owners might be able to just save money by going to the
5600X.
Again, it’s just offering most of the gains with a $100 cheaper processor and no requirements
of upgrading to an AM5 motherboard with DDR5 memory.
I’ve tested The Riftbreaker using the CPU benchmark option, and there was a bit more
of a difference between the three processors at 4K now, at least compared to most other
games tested, granted the gaps at 1440p and 1080p are bigger for reasons we’ve discussed.
Last game before we get into the fun comparison graphs.
Watch Dogs Legion was tested with the game’s benchmark, and like most others, there weren’t
many differences at 4K.
The 7600X was 20% faster than the 5600X at 1080p, and 50% ahead compared to the older
3600.
On average over all 11 games tested, at 1080p the new 7600X was performing 50% better than
the older 3600.
As we can see here, the differences really depend on the specific game.
CS:GO at the top for example is 101% faster, as the 7600X was doubling the 3600’s frame
rate, while games like Apex Legends on the other hand hardly saw any difference.
If we step up to the higher 1440p resolution the 7600X was now 38% faster than the 3600
on average in these 11 games, but now 4 games only had small gains with the 7600X.
Some of the CPU heavier titles still had big gains with the 7600X though.
This changes a bit at 4K, with the 7600X now 16% faster than the 3600 on average.
Higher resolutions need more GPU power to run, so the CPU difference really starts mattering
less outside of titles like CS:GO and the others that still have more than a 10% gain
with the 7600X.
If we instead compare the 7600X against the 5600X, we’re looking at a 16% boost to frame
rates in the same 11 game selection at 1080p.
The gap lowers at the higher 1440p resolution with the 7600X now 12% ahead of the 5600X,
and then at 4K the gap is very small, with the 7600X just 4% faster on average.
We’re only still seeing decent gains in the eSports titles, and realistically most
people are probably playing those at lower resolutions to maximize frame rates anyway.
Here’s what we’re looking at when we take the average frame rates from all 11 games
tested to try and spot some overall trends.
This makes it a bit easier to see that on average, the gaps between the 3600 and 5600X
were bigger compared to the gaps between the 5600X and 7600X, regardless of resolution.
Despite the 7600X offering the best raw gaming performance, it’s not the best value option
for gaming due to its higher cost.
AMD are launching it for $300 USD, so it’s going to be hard for it to compete against
the 5600X when you can pick that up for $100 less, and this is only accounting for CPU
cost, not motherboards or DDR5 memory, though to be fair DDR5 prices have come down quite
a bit over the last year.
The prices I’ve got for the older CPUs are the lowest at Newegg when I’m making this
video in early October 2022, but again use the links below the video to check current
prices and sales.
It’s not just gaming where the 7600X is worse value either, we see the same thing
in Cinebench R23.
Of course no one is out here buying a new CPU to run Cinebench, but this shows that
it’s offering worse value if you need multicore performance for say rendering workloads for
example.
Don’t get me wrong, the 7600X is certainly a very capable processor, it just seems a
bit too expensive compared to AMD’s older and cheaper 6 core 12 thread options.
If you want that extra performance, then you’ve got to pay for it.
And let’s not forget that if you do have a machine with a 3600, you can take that CPU
out and do a drop-in replacement to the 5600X without changing any hardware.
So if you’ve already got a 3600 setup, this would be a much cheaper upgrade compared to
going for the 7600X.
As this would require a new motherboard and DDR5 memory.
Even if you are buying AM4 today and going for the 5600X, technically you can still upgrade
this right up to the 16 core 5950X, and while that will perform significantly better in
multithreaded workloads, you’re probably not going to see that much of a boost when
it comes to gaming.
For good gaming and single threaded performance boosts, you probably would want to look at
AM5.
Again, if you can afford it!
Check out how AMD’s new Ryzen 7 7700X compares against their older 8 core options in this
video next.
Intel’s 13th gen processors will be here very soon too, so make sure you’re subscribed
for my upcoming comparisons with those.
I can’t wait to see how the 7600X compares against the 13600K!