According to a report by Ancient Replays on YouTube, Romanian retailer Intend, has a new CPU listing featuring the model name Ryzen 5 3600 AF - indicating its a Ryzen 5 3600 with upgraded Zen 3 cores. Assuming this naming scheme isn't a typo, it marks the return of the "AF" nomenclature for AMD, which is great news for budget PC gamers. The listing shows the Ryzen 5 3600AF as valued at 639.77 Romanian Lei, or roughly $126 USD as of this writing.

The AF nomenclature originally started with the Ryzen 5 1600 AF, which featured upgraded Zen+ cores compared to the original Zen counterpart. This chip was a bargain at the time, featuring a lower price than the Ryzen 5 2600, but offering nearly identical performance thanks to the Zen+ architecture.

But, rather than being an actual model name, the "AF" terminology originally came from the box identification name on these upgraded 1600s. Since both the original Ryzen 5 1600 and the Zen+ powered Ryzen 5 1600 had the same model name, the only way users could tell the difference, was with the box identification number. This number featured the the letters "AF" at the very end for the Zen+ version, which was different from the "AE" model name on the original 1600. So the Ryzen 5 1600AF is actually a non-official model name, created by the community as a way to distinguish between the two parts.

If Intend's retailer listing is real, the Ryzen 5 3600 AF will follow the same recipe, by stripping out the Zen 2 cores in favor of Zen 3 cores. This will put the 3600AF in a similar - if not equal, performance tier to the Ryzen 5 5600 and 5600X, while costing less money. The retailers listing price seems to back up this up at more than 30% cheaper than the Ryzen 5 5600.

We have to take this listing with a grain of salt, since this is the first listing we've seen with the new model name, and the box identification number does not have the letters "AF" in them. AMD is probably using a different box number to identify Zen 3 3600's from Zen 2 versions, but if that is true, then why is Intend using the community made up "AF" terminology in the first place.

It will be great if this Ryzen 5 3600 AF turns out to be true, but there's still a chance it might be a typo and not come to fruition.

Art of PC has released one of the Internet's first reviews of Intel's new Alder Lake Core i3-12100 CPU, giving us a sneak peek of the gaming performance for Intel's new entry-level Core i3 product stack. The site compared the quad-core Alder Lake chip's performance against a Ryzen 5 3600 and shows very competitive results -- making it a contender in our Best CPUs for Gaming 2022 list.

Specs-wise, the Core i3-12100 is very different from its higher-tiered Core i5 and Core i7 brethren. Packing only four cores and eight threads, this CPU lacks E-cores and sports four Golden Cove performance cores. Base frequency starts at 3.3 GHz, with single-core turbo speeds maxing out at 4.3 GHz.

But, thanks to Golden Cove's significant boost in IPC performance, the Core i3 is no slouch, and according to Art of PC's coverage can go toe to toe with any of Intel or AMD's hexa-core CPUs from just a couple of years ago.

Art of PC tested gaming performances against a Ryzen 5 3600, with a testbed including 32GB of 3600 MHz DDR4, ROG Strix Z690-A D4, Dark Rock Pro 4, and GeForce RTX 3080 GPU for the Core i3 setup. The Ryzen 5 3600 testbed is identical to the Core i3 except for the motherboard, an Asus ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Hero.

The site revealed the average FPS for several games, including Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Cyberpunk 2077, Forza Horizon 5, and more.

The Core i3-12100 cumulatively outperforms the hexa-core Ryzen 5 3600 by 7.85%. A rather impressive result considering the Ryzen 5 3600 has two more cores and four more threads.

Looking at the Ryzen 5 3600's general performance against other CPUs, we suspect that the Core i3-12100 will outperform or be just as fast as other CPUs such as the Ryzen 3 3300X and Core i5-10600K from a few years ago as well. If these results are accurate, the Core i3-12100 could make a powerful entry-level CPU for gaming.

The Intel Core i5-11400 vs AMD Ryzen 5 3600 rivalry is a heated battle for budget gaming rig supremacy in the increasingly competitive desktop PC market. AMD's Ryzen 5000 processors took the lead in the desktop PC from Intel's competing Comet Lake processors last year, upsetting our Best CPU for gaming recommendations and our CPU Benchmarks hierarchy. But AMD's ascension to the top of the desktop PC market has found it focusing on high-end premium chips while it sticks with its older, Zen 2 chips for its lower-range lineup that caters to the majority of gamers (the $299 Ryzen 5 5600X is the bottom of the Zen 3 stack) . That's left Intel plenty of room to strike in the budget gaming arena with its Rocket Lake Core i5-11400.

Surprisingly, the Rocket Lake Core i5 squares off with the venerable Ryzen 5 3600, AMD's two-year-old silicon that comes armed with six cores and twelve threads powered by the last-gen Zen 2 architecture. This processor has served as the go-to recommendation for budget rigs for several years, largely on the strength of its wonderful blend of performance and pricing, but due to ongoing chip shortages, finding the Ryzen 5 3600 anywhere near its normal pricing of $199 is a rarity. It's also simply getting long in the tooth.

In contrast, Intel's Core i5-11400 comes with an ultra-competitive $157 to $182 price point and is available at most major retailers near its suggested price point. This chip comes with six cores, twelve threads, and Intel's new Cypress Cove architecture that brings about tremendous performance improvements in single-threaded and gaming performance. It even holds its own in threaded work, too.  

We put the Core i5-11400 up against the Ryzen 5 3600 in a six-round faceoff to see which chip takes the crown in our gaming and application benchmarks, along with other key criteria like power consumption and pricing. Let's see how the chips stack up. 

Features and Specifications of AMD Ryzen 5 3600 vs Intel Core i5-11400 

At its launch in 2019, the 7nm Ryzen 5 3600 set a new bar for budget processors with six Zen 2 cores and twelve threads that operate at a 3.6 GHz base and 4.2 GHz boost frequency. After overclocking, the 65W Ryzen 5 3600 trades blows with its more expensive 95W 3600X counterpart, long making it one of the best deals on the market. Additionally, the chip drops into B450 and B550 platforms, making a great pairing for a chip in the ~$200 price class.

AMD refreshed the Ryzen 3000 lineup with the XT series last year, but those chips didn't deliver enough performance uplift (typically in the two to three percent range) to justify the higher price tag. The XT series also didn't include a refreshed Ryzen 5 3600 model. Instead, AMD stopped at the $250 3600XT, leaving the 3600 stranded in the $160 to $200 price class. The short-lived XT refresh generation was ultimately designed to boost AMD's retail pricing, but the consensus was to just stick with the existing Ryzen 3000 processors for the best value.

The new Ryzen 5000 series finally, and fully, eclipsed Intel in every performance metric, but it also came with the highest pricing we've seen yet from AMD. This series bottoms out at the Ryzen 5 5600X, a truly impressive chip that unfortunately also raised the bar for entry into the Ryzen ecosystem to $299. That means the Ryzen 5 3600 still shoulders the load for AMD's budget gaming chips, and ongoing shortages have seen pricing for this sought-after chip skyrocket to $240, and often more.

That's a void that Intel is all too happy to fill with its newest Rocket Lake chips. Intel's $182 Core i5-11400 also comes with six cores and twelve threads, but Team Blue's chips come with the new Cypress Cove architecture paired with the aging 14nm process. This chip operates with a 2.6-GHz base, 4.4 GHz Turbo Boost 2.0, and 4.2 GHz all-core clock rates, and the Cypress Cove cores deliver a 19% IPC uplift over the previous-gen Comet Lake cores. 

The Core i5-11400 comes with the UHD Graphics 730 Xe engine with 24 EUs, so Intel did pare back the engine for its lower-end chips. AMD's competing Ryzen models come without integrated graphics. Additionally, if you plan to use a discrete GPU, you can opt for the $157 graphics-less Core i5-11400F to save some coin. 

The Core i5-11400 comes with a bundled cooler, but it isn't sufficient for most enthusiasts, especially if they plan on tuning the chip by lifting the power limits. In contrast, the Ryzen 5 3600 comes with a bundled Wraith Stealth cooler that can more than handle the heat, though you would be best served on stepping up to a beefier model if you plan on overclocking.

Both the Core i5-11400 and Ryzen 5 3600 support PCIe 4.0, though it is noteworthy that Intel's chipset doesn't support the speedier interface. Instead, devices connected to Intel's chipset operate at PCIe 3.0 speeds. That means you'll only have support for one PCIe 4.0 m.2 SSD port on your motherboard, whereas AMD's chipset is fully enabled for PCIe 4.0, giving you more options for a plethora of faster devices.

Both chips also support two channels of DDR4-3200 memory, but Intel's new Gear memory feature takes a bit of the shine off Intel's memory support. The 11400 supports DDR4-2933 in Gear 1 mode at stock settings, which provides the best latency and performance for most tasks, like gaming. You'll have to operate the chip in Gear 2 mode for warrantied DDR4-3200 support, but that results in performance penalties in some latency-sensitive apps, like gaming, which you can read about here.

For some users, the 11400 does have an insurmountable advantage over the Ryzen 5 3600: The chip comes with the new UHD Graphics 730 armed with 24 EUs based on the Xe graphics engine, while the Ryzen 5 3600 comes without integrated graphics. That means Intel wins by default if you don't plan on using a discrete GPU.

Winner: Intel

The Core i5-11400 and Ryzen 5 3600 battle it out with six cores and twelve threads, but the Core i5-11400 takes the win due to its higher per-core performance that comes as a byproduct of the higher clock rates combined with the new Cypress Cove architecture. 

The Core i5-11400 comes with integrated graphics, so it wins by default if you don't plan on using a discrete GPU. Conversely, you can sacrifice the graphics for a lower price point. AMD's lower-end chips with integrated graphics are currently unavailable or sell at scalper pricing, but we hope that changes by the end of the year when the Ryzen 5000 Cezanne APUs arrive. 

Gaming Performance on AMD Ryzen 5 3600 vs Core i5-11400 

As per usual, we're testing with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 to reduce GPU-imposed bottlenecks as much as possible. Differences between test subjects will shrink with lesser cards, which you'll often see with this class of chip, or higher resolutions. Below you can see the geometric mean of our gaming tests at 1080p and 1440p, with each resolution split into its own chart. PBO indicates an overclocked Ryzen configuration. You can find our test system details here.

Intel's Core i5-11400 comes with a generally unimpressive bundled cooler, so we tested with the stock cooler and with a more capable Corsair H115i 280mm water cooler to show the difference between the two types of cooling. Additionally, Rocket Lake brings memory overclocking to Intel's locked chips for the first time, so we ran tests in a quasi-overlocked configuration. Here's the decoder ring for the configurations listed in the chart:

• Core i5-11400 AIO No PL Mem OC: Tested with Corsair H115i 280mm water cooler, power limits removed, memory overclocked to DDR4-3600 in Gear 1 mode (Gear 2 results in performance regressions)
• Core i5-11400 AIO No PL: Tested with Corsair H115i 280mm water cooler, power limits removed, stock DDR4-2933 memory in Gear 1 mode (Gear 2 results in performance regressions)
• Core i5-11400 Stock Cooler: Tested with Stock cooler, power limits enforced, stock DDR4-2933 in Gear 1

The $182 Core i5-11400 delivers a blowout victory over the Ryzen 5 3600 in gaming, which isn't too surprising given that we're looking at the much newer Willow Cove architecture battling it out with AMD's last-last-gen Zen 2 chip.

We use the pricier overclocked Ryzen 5 3600X chip as the stand-in for the overclocked Ryzen 5 3600 (these two chips are very similar after overclocking). Even running the Ryzen 5 3600X in the auto-overclocked Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) configuration does little to even the score at 1080p — the Core i5-11400 in its slowest configuration with a stock cooler and power limits enforced is 8.4% faster than the overclocked Ryzen 5 3600X with a 280mm liquid cooler at 1080p, and 7% faster at 1440p.

Intel has finally enabled at least some overclocking potential with its locked chips — now you can tune the memory in addition to removing the power limits, both of which create a quasi-overclocked configuration that yields a nice performance bump. The Core i5-11400 with overclocked memory is 19.2% faster at 1080p than the overclocked Ryzen 5 3600 and 14.8% faster at 1440p.

Notably, the impact of overclocked memory on the 11400 can vary tremendously by title, with some games like Far Cry 5, Hitman 2, Project Cars 3, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider showing much better scaling than implied by the geometric mean that includes a few titles that don't respond well to memory overclocking. 

Flipping through the individual games shows that the Core i5-11400 dominates the game benchmarks against the Ryzen 5 3600, with the latter's only win coming as an overclocked test run in the Red Dead Redemption 2 benchmark.

Winner: Intel

The Core i5-11400 is the uncontested gaming performance leader in its price range by a significant margin, much of which simply stems from the fact that AMD has neglected to update its entry-level chips for two years. 

The Core i5-11400 wins by impressive deltas even with its stock cooler, but naturally, a better cooler unlocks more performance. The addition of memory overclocking is also an easy boost, especially considering that we only tuned the memory up to DDR4-3600 so we could stay in the low-latency Gear 1 mode. That means you won't have to drop an exorbitant amount of money on a higher-spec'd memory kit. 

That said, this class of chip is often paired with lesser graphics cards, and most serious gamers play at higher resolutions. In both of those situations, the deltas between the chips will shrink. However, it's rational to expect that the Core i5-11400 will leave a bit more room to grow for future GPU upgrades. 

Application Performance of Intel Core i5-11400 vs Ryzen 5 3600 

We can boil down productivity application performance into two broad categories: single- and multi-threaded. The first slide in the above album has a geometric mean of performance in several of our single-threaded tests. As with all cumulative measurements, use this as a general guide and be aware that performance will vary based on workload.

Intel's Cypress Cove architecture is a big step forward; here, we can see that the Core i5-11400 is ~13% faster than the competing Ryzen 5 3600 at stock settings and 9% faster after we overclock the Zen 2 silicon. The Core i5-11400 doesn't experience any uplift in single-threaded work from lifting the power limits, but it easily beats the comparably-priced Ryzen processors. 

This type of pronounced performance advantage can't be understated, as large deltas like this are noticeable in latency-sensitive workloads, like web browsing, application start times, and the general feel of 'snappiness' from your system. You can see how that plays out in the full gamut of benchmarks in the album.

Here we take a closer look at performance in heavily-threaded applications, which has long been the stomping grounds of AMD's core-heavy Ryzen processors.

The Ryzen 3000 processors are still competitive in threaded work, which isn't too surprising because they have the same number of cores and threads as the 11400. The Ryzen 5 3600 is 12.7% faster in our cumulative measurement if you top the Core i5-11400 with the stock cooler and force it to strictly adhere to Intel's recommended power settings. However, removing the Core i5-11400's power limits gives it a ~14% lead over the stock Ryzen 5 3600 and an ~11% lead over the overclocked 3600X. 

Winner: Intel

The Core i5-11400 vs Ryzen 5 3600 battle is incredibly lopsided in single-threaded applications — here, the 11400 pulls out an uncontested win. The 11400 trails in threaded work if you use the stock cooler, but upgrading to just about any cooler improves the situation (yeah, Intel's stock cooler is that bad). Topping the Core i5-11400 with a sufficient cooler yields leading performance in threaded applications. 

Overall, the Core i5-11400 has a better mix of performance in our test suite, and that's complicated by the fact that the Ryzen 5 3600 sells at a much higher price point, as we'll cover below. 

Overclocking Ryzen 5 3600 vs Core i5-11400

We have reached the land of diminishing returns for overclocking the highest-end chips from both AMD and Intel, largely because both companies are engaged in a heated dogfight for performance superiority. As a result, much of the overclocking frequency headroom is rolled into standard stock performance, leaving little room for tuners, making memory and fabric overclocking all the more important. However, there are still plenty of advantages to overclocking/tuning the midrange models, which impacts our Ryzen 5 3600 vs Core i5-11400 battle. Just be aware that your mileage may vary.

Intel has long restricted overclocking to its pricey K-series models, while AMD freely allows overclocking with all SKUs on almost any platform, earning plenty of cachet with enthusiasts. However, we see signs of some improvement here from Intel, as it has now enabled memory overclocking on its B560 and H570 chipsets across the board. That means that you can now overclock the memory on Intel's locked chips, like the Core i5-11400. That said, Intel's new paradigm of Gear 1 and Gear 2 modes does reduce the value of memory overclocking, which you can read more about here.

As before, you can lift Intel's recommended power limits to get a sort of quasi-overclock, but while remaining in warranty. As we've shown above, that gives performance a nice kick, especially when paired with overclocked memory. However,  this technique still falls far short of fully unlocked multipliers that allow you to boost clock rates, and it doesn't look like Intel will unlock its full lineup any time soon.   

AMD's Ryzen 5 3600 comes with innovative boost technology that largely consumes most of the available frequency headroom, so there is precious little room for bleeding-edge all-core overclocks. In fact, all-core overclocking with AMD's chips is lackluster; you're often better off using its auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive 2 (PBO2) feature that boosts multi-threaded performance. AMD also has plenty of Curve Optimization features that leverage undervolting to increase boost activity. However, as we can see in our performance results, there is still some room on the table for additional performance via automated overclocking for the Ryzen processors. 

Winner: AMD

There's still plenty of room to boost performance via overclocking in the budget end of the gaming PC spectrum, and Intel's new move to allow memory overclocking with locked chips on its latest motherboards is encouraging. However, even though you can gain quite a bit of extra performance, Intel's segmentation still prevents us from fully tweaking the processor via multiplier-based frequency overclocking.

In contrast, AMD's Ryzen 5 3600 is fully overclockable on nearly every platform (except A-series), giving it the win in this category. The company's auto-overclocking PBO feature is also another notable advantage.

Power Consumption, Efficiency, and Cooling of Intel Core i5-11400 vs AMD Ryzen 5 3600

AMD's Ryzen 5 3600 might be two years old, but the 7nm process is still more power-efficient than the 14nm found on Intel's Core i5-11400. Intel has also turned up the power dial on its Rocket Lake processors yet again to remain competitive, so you'll generally have to ignore the higher power consumption if you choose to go with an 11th-gen Intel processor. 

The Core i5-11400 does fall into a lower 65W PL1 (base frequency-TDP) and 154W PL2 (power during boost) envelope than its higher-performance counterparts, though, which takes some of the sting out of Intel's adjustments.

Power consumption and heat go hand in hand, so you'll have to accommodate that power consumption with a robust cooler. The Core i5-11400 does suffer from reduced performance with the stock cooler, but you can get away with far less than the 280mm liquid cooler we used to showcase fully unconstrained performance. 

We logged up a peak of 161W of power consumption with the 11400 during our benchmarks, but that was with the power limits fully removed and the memory overclocked. In contrast, the Ryzen 5 3600X that stands in as our overclocked 3600 measured an 82W peak. Naturally, both chips will adhere strictly to their 65W power limit if those restrictions are enforced in the BIOS.

A quick look at the renders-per-day charts reveals that AMD's Ryzen processors are in another league in terms of power efficiency — you get far more performance per watt consumed, which results in lower power consumption and heat generation. The 3600's refined power consumption comes via TSMC's 7nm process, while Intel's 14nm process has obviously reached the end of the road in terms of absolute performance and efficiency.

Winner: AMD

AMD wins this round easily with lower power consumption, higher efficiency, and less thermal output. Intel has turned the power up to the extreme to stay competitive with AMD's 7nm Ryzen 5000 chips, and as a result, the Core i5-11400 pulls more power and generates more heat than the Ryzen 5 3600. 

The Core i5-11400 comes with a bundled cooler, but you'll need to plan for a better cooler if you want to experience the best performance possible. In contrast, the Ryzen 5 3600 comes with a bundled cooler that is sufficient for full operation. 

Pricing and Value of AMD Ryzen 5 3600 vs Intel Core i5-11400

The Ryzen 5 3600 has long been the value champion, but the supply of this chip is volatile as of the time of writing, to put it lightly, leading to price gouging. This high pricing comes as a byproduct of a combination of unprecedented demand and pandemic-spurred supply chain issues. Still, it certainly destroys the value proposition of the Ryzen 5 3600, especially given that it trails in several facets of performance. (Be aware that the pricing and availability of these chips can change drastically in very short periods of time, and they go in and out of stock frequently, reducing the accuracy of many price tracking tools.)

The Ryzen 5 3600 currently retails for $245 at Amazon through a third-party seller, and that's the only outlet with the chip in stock. The Ryzen 5 3600 had a $200 MSRP at launch, but it has routinely sold for far less, even bottoming out at just $160 last year. We're sure AMD is prioritizing its higher-margin parts, like the Ryzen 5000 series, so this high pricing is actually to be expected during the shortage, but it's still discouraging.

Meanwhile, the Core i5-11400 is in stock at multiple retailers either at or near its $183 MSRP. The Core i5-11400F is the value chip right now, but it is becoming harder to find. This chip carries a $153 MSRP, but we found it at a few retailers for ~$175. This chip recently bottomed out at $165 at Newegg, but that retailer no longer has stock.

Here's the breakdown (naturally, this will vary):

Winner: Intel

Even at recommended pricing for both chips, Intel's aggressive pricing makes the Core i5-11400 a winner. However, the company also wins this stage of the battle convincingly based on an almost insurmountable advantage: You can actually find the 11400 readily available at retail for close to its suggested tray pricing. With much cheaper pricing both on a per-core and absolute basis, not to mention its performance advantages, the Core i5-11400 is the better buy.

The Core i5-11400F is plenty attractive if you don't need integrated graphics, but its current $175 price tag takes some of the shine off the loss of the iGPU. For another eight bucks, you can get the full-featured chip. However, pricing is dynamic, so we could see that come down soon.

AMD's decision to prioritize its high-margin Ryzen 5000 chips instead of releasing a new Zen 3 challenger in this price bracket has left a gaping hole in its product stack that Intel is all too happy to exploit. Given the state of the shortages, we don't expect the Ryzen 5 3600 pricing to improve any time soon. In either case, it would need to be priced significantly lower than the Core i5-11400 to make any sense. 

Bottom Line

Here's the tale of the tape: Intel wins the Core i5-11400 vs Ryzen 5 3600 battle convincingly with a five to two advantage. It is surprising to see AMD so unprepared in the face of Intel's lower-priced chips, but the company's premium pricing has nullified Zen 3's impact on the entry-level gaming market, leaving Intel an opening that it is all too happy to exploit.

As a whole, the Core i5-11400 is the uncontested budget gaming rig champion. The 11400 is plenty adept in our full gamut of application tests, particularly in single-threaded performance. It also serves up plenty of threaded horsepower, particularly if you top it with a more capable cooler. With a better cooler, the 11400 matches the Ryzen 5 3600 even with the power limits strictly enforced. Removing the power limits gives it the uncontested lead in threaded work. 

Intel even throws in memory overclocking, a first, if you use a B560 or H570 chipset (or Z-series, as usual). As you can see in our results, that boosts performance in many games and applications, but for a minimum of effort. 

Remember that the effective range of the Gear 1 mode only stretches to ~DDR4-3800, so don't waste cash on an expensive kit. Pairing tuned memory with uncorked power limits is the closest you'll get to overclocking with the 11400, as it comes with its core frequency multipliers locked. That doesn't matter too much, though, as an 11400 at stock settings outperforms an overclocked Ryzen 5 3600. 

You can currently find previous-gen Comet Lake chips, like the Core i5-10400, at really great pricing, but we think you'll enjoy the higher single-threaded performance and support for the PCIe 4.0 interface that comes with the Rocket Lake Core i5-11400. It will certainly give you more performance headroom for future upgrades, too.   

AMD simply doesn't have a suitable chip in this price range to contend with the Core i5-11400. The Ryzen 5 3600 suffers from a severe shortage, and thus higher pricing, while the Core i5-11400 is widely available. Even at its suggested $200 MSRP, or even well below that mark, the Ryzen 5 3600 isn't a real contender against the Core i5-11400 due to its now-aging Zen 2 architecture.

For now, the Core i5-11400 takes the crown for the sub-$200 gaming CPU market in largely uncontested fashion, and given the current state of the chip shortages, we don't think that will change very soon. There are rumblings of a Ryzen XT-like refresh cycle coming soon, but it doesn't appear to include a new lower-tier chip to address the Core i5-11400, meaning it will likely continue to reign uncontested for the remainder of the year. 

Intel's 12th Generation Alder Lake-S processors may be still be a far way off. But the chipmaker has already started sampling the chips to PC partners, and other engineering samples are already running in the hardware world, too. A high-end SKU (via Leakbench) with 16 cores has seemingly broken its cover in Geekbench 5.

Alder Lake-S is a hybrid desktop processor, meaning not all cores inside the chip are made equal. The sample that appeared on Geekbench 5 reportedly comes equipped with 16 cores and 24 threads and matches one of the potential configurations that we've seen. There's also a logical explanation behind the odd thread count.

To understand Alder Lake-S, you first need to know the exact recipe that Intel is employing for its hybrid parts. There are two distinct core types on Alder Lake-S that have specific responsibilities. The Golden Cove cores are the high-performance cores that cater to heavy workloads, while the Gracemont (Atom) cores are designed for lesser workloads.

Coming back to the Alder Lake-S sample, there should be eight Golden Cove cores and eight Gracemont cores present. We suspect that only the Golden Cove cores leverage Intel's Hyper-Threading technology. Therefore, we have 16 threads from the Golden Cove cores and eight threads from the Gracemont cores, which adds up to the reported total of 24 threads.

Geekbench 5 reported a 1.38 GHz base clock speed that's probably for the Gracemont cores. The reported boost clock, on the other hand, is clearly a mistake, which is common among unreleased hardware that goes through benchmarking software.

The cache configuration for the 16-core Alder Lake-S is also quite interesting. There are eight L2 slices of 1.25MB and 320KB, amounting to a total of 12.5MB of total L2 cache. For the L3 cache, we're also looking at eight slices of 3MB and 768KB that total to 30MB.

The preliminary performance from the 16-core Alder Lake-S part is far from impressive though. As with any unreleased hardware, we recommend taking the benchmark numbers with some skeptical salt. As far as today's sample goes, the Alder Lake-S processor scored 996 points in the single-core test and 6,931 points in the multi-core test. For comparison, the single-core performance is right in the same alley as the AMD's mobile Ryzen 5 4600H (994 average points), while its multi-core performance on par with the Ryzen 5 3600X (6,906 average points).

Alder Lake-S, which commands the new LGA1700 socket, will come out of Intel's 10nm Enhanced SuperFin silicon oven. The chipmaker has previously affirmed that Alder Lake-S competes in the performance segment. Today's outing doesn't look very imposing, although Intel won't likely release Alder Lake until the second half of 2021, so this may just be a teaser of what Alder Lake could offer.

Non-X Marks the Spot

10/20/2020 Update:  The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 is still an impressive CPU, but it will soon be supplanted by newer Ryzen 5000 processors. If you find the 3600 processor on sale at a steep discount during Black Friday or over the holidays, it's still worth considering. Just know that this CPU does not include AMD's latest Zen 3 architecture. So if you want the best single-core performance and other features that come with AMD's newest CPUs, you should probably spend more for a Ryzen 5 5600X when it arrives in late 2020. Those new chips have now taken over the top ranks on our CPU Benchmark Hierarchy.

AMD's value proposition has always been straightforward -- more for less. While we typically think of AMD offering more CPU cores than Intel for less money, the strategy also applies to the company's unrestrained feature sets for each processor, regardless of price. That includes in-box coolers, Hyper-Threading (AMD calls it SMT), and unlocked multipliers that enable easy overclocking, all of which are features that Intel either leaves out or disables on some of its chips in the name of segmentation.

Instead of squeezing out extra dollars from its customers, AMD gives you the same basic underlying features with the $199 six-core 12-thread Ryzen 5 3600 that it gives you with its full-fledged counterpart, the $249 Ryzen 5 3600X that we recently named the best mid-range processor on the market. That means the Ryzen 5 3600 has the same six-core 12-thread design, 32MB of L3 cache, and access to 24 lanes of PCIe 4.0, with the only tradeoff being a step back to the 65W Wraith Stealth cooler, while the 3600X comes with the more-capable 95W Wraith Spire cooler.

What does that mean to you? While the Ryzen 5 3600 is a great processor that packs a wonderful amount of performance into a 65W TDP envelope, a boon for small form factor enthusiasts, you can also overclock it and attain similar performance in many applications, like gaming, to the Ryzen 5 3600X (one of our best CPUs). But you save fifty bucks in the process while still getting class-leading features, like the PCIe 4.0 interface.

This follows the same AMD trend we’ve seen in the past, with overclockability making the non-X models a better value for enthusiasts than the pricier X-series models. But if you’re chasing the absolute highest frame rates you can get out of a six-core processor, be aware that the Ryzen 5 3600 chips might not reach the peak overclocking speeds of 3600X models. In either case, the solid blend of features and overclockability makes the Ryzen 5 3600 the clear choice for enthusiasts looking for a great value on a mid-range processor.

AMD isn't sitting still though: The company recently released its own new flagship, the 16-core 32-thread Ryzen 9 3950X, to fend off Intel's new challengers. That chip slots into a much higher tier than the 3950X, but it brings competitive gaming performance and much more threaded horsepower for those looking for the ultimate in performance. 

Ryzen 5 3600

Like the other Ryzen 3000 chips, the six-core 12-thread Ryzen 5 3600 comes with a 7nm compute die (with two disabled physical cores) paired with a 12nm I/O die. These two components come together into a single package that fits inside a 65W TDP envelope, making it physically identical to the 95W Ryzen 5 3600X.

The Ryzen 5 3600 has slightly lower clock speeds than the 3600X, with its 3.6 GHz base and 4.2 GHz Precision Boost 2 frequencies, a difference of 200 MHz in both measurements.

The 3600’s 4.2 GHz boost frequency is lower than the $192 Core i5-9500’s 4.4 GHz boost, but its 3.6 GHz base frequency equates to a 600 MHz advantage that, paired with AMD's drastic improvement to its instruction per cycle (IPC) throughput, will equate to higher performance in heavy workloads, not to mention the six additional threads of the AMD part. It’s notable that, unlike the previous-gen Ryzen models and Intel’s chips, AMD only guarantees the peak boost frequency on one core, while other cores could have lesser capabilities. Head to our Not All Ryzen 3000 Cores are Created Equal article for more information on that front.

Compared to the $182 Core i5-9400F, the 3600 has an 800 MHz base and 100 MHz boost frequency advantage. The Ryzen 5 3600 comes with a bundled 65W Wraith Stealth cooler, and while both the Core i5-9500 and -9400F come with stock coolers, they are of significantly lower quality. However, both of the Intel processors come with integrated graphics, while the Ryzen 5 3600 requires a discrete graphics card. If you’re not planning on incorporating a discrete GPU in your build, the Intel processors are the obvious choice.

The Ryzen 5 3600 comes with a healthy 32MB of total L3 cache, a neat doubling of capacity over its predecessor and more than three times the cache of the -9500 and -9400F. That does come with a few caveats, however, as cache performance and efficiency has a big impact on how much cache capacity benefits the processor in typical applications. As usual, our benchmarks will tell the tale.

The Ryzen 5 3600 drops into the AM4 CPU socket on the new X570 motherboards, which you'll need for official support for the PCIe 4.0 interface. But those new boards are more expensive than previous-gen models and aren't a good fit for value chips like the Ryzen 5 3600. Luckily, you can also use an older 400-series motherboard (B450 is a good fit) as a value alternative. But if you go that route you'll lose access to PCIe 4.0, which is one of the key selling points of the new processors.

Ryzen 3000 chips officially support dual-channel DDR4-3200, a step up from the previous-gen's support for DDR4-2966. AMD has greatly improved its memory compatibility and overclocking capabilities, but you still have to abide by rules that dictate the maximum supported frequency based on DIMM type and slot population. Ryzen 3000 also supports memory overclocking, either by hand-tuning or one-click A-XMP profiles with pricier kits, to skirt those rules.

AMD also has its Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) feature on offer, which is an automated overclocking tool that will tune your processor to its maximum achievable performance based on its cooling, motherboard, and power delivery accommodations. The quality of your cooling solution, and the vagaries of the silicon lottery, have a big impact on how well PBO can auto-tune your processor.

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Overclocking and Test Setup

AMD's Ryzen 3000 processors have drastically improved single-threaded performance, but you'll lose that benefit if you manually overclock. That's largely because the chips can't be manually overclocked on all cores to reach the same frequency as the single-core boost frequency. In fact, we often find the all-core overclock ceiling to be 200 to 300 MHz lower than the rated boost speeds, which is likely due to the AMD’s new binning strategy that finds the Ryzen 3000 chips with a mix of both faster and slower cores.

We've tested several of the Ryzen 3000 processors in manually-overclocked configurations, and the results are predictable: You gain some extra threaded performance over automatic overclocking with PBO, but lose too much performance in lightly-threaded apps to make it worthwhile. In other words, outside of a few edge cases, like systems that will only do heavily-threaded work, manual overclocking simply isn't worth your time -- or the egregious power consumption it requires for relatively small performance gains.

As we've seen, AMD’s PBO algorithms provide a speedup that improves threaded performance while preserving the single-core boost frequency. The feature also keeps the Ryzen processor in its power-to-performance sweet spot, which means that it doesn't require much additional power consumption or cooling. Unfortunately, PBO gains are slight (don't expect miracles), but it is worthwhile if you have adequate cooling. As we've found in the past, AMD's stock coolers tend to extract most of the full benefit.

AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) is an adaptive overclocking approach that allows the processor to communicate with the platform to modulate performance based on the motherboard's power delivery subsystem and thermal dissipation capabilities. The processor monitors Package Power Tracking (PPT), which is total socket power, and the Thermal Design Current (TDC) variable, which is the motherboard's maximum available sustained current. Electrical Design Current (EDC) also indicates the maximum current possible from the VRMs during peak/transient conditions.

AMD enables two options for PBO: IPM is AMD's default PBO setting, which is activated if you leave the PBO setting to 'Auto' in the Godlike's UEFI (our testing board). But you can select 'Enabled' to activate a profile that's dictated by the maximum limits of the motherboard's power delivery subsystem. These limits vary by motherboard and are defined by the vendor. We chose the latter to unlock the full potential of PBO. This setting kicks the socket's maximum power delivery up to 1000W to offer the best of increased multi-core boost clocks while retaining the high single-core boost clocks. You won't need anything near that much power delivery, but we don't want to leave any performance on the table.

AMD says you can also further tune the chip with an Auto OC (AOC) feature. AMD designed the new feature to give you some control over the maximum attainable boost clocks by allowing you to add up to an extra 200MHz to the maximum boost clock, but it isn't guaranteed that the processor will reach those speeds at all times, or under all conditions.

Unfortunately, we've found that the PBO+AOC feature often comes at the expense of performance in single-threaded workloads even though it is billed as retaining, and even heightening, single-core boost clocks. In most cases, the feature has no observable impact.

Security Mitigations

The new AMD-optimized Windows scheduler is only present in Windows 10 1903 and promises to expose gains in several types of applications. As such, we updated our test image to the latest version of Windows 10 available (18362.207). All of our test results come from the aforementioned operating system and include all publicly available security mitigations and the latest motherboard firmware revisions. Intel is currently impacted by Spectre, Spectre v4, Meltdown, Foreshadow, Spectre v3a, Lazy FPU, Spoiler, and MDS, while AMD is only impacted by Spectre and Spectre v4. AMD has added hardware-based mitigations for both variants of Spectre, which should reduce the performance impact, but the requisite patches for both companies have performance penalties, which are reflected here in our testing.

Phoronix Benchmark

We added in several new tests from Phornix's open-source benchmark suite. While this suite is heavily focused on Linux test environments, the benchmark utility does have several powerful testing options for Windows systems, along with Apple OS X, GNU Hurd, Solaris, and BSD operating systems. The test also outputs deviation metrics that help ensure accuracy in our test results.We've integrated key tests, like GIMP productivity, web browser benchmarks, SVT-AV1 encoding, NAMD, and the build-llvm compile test.

MSI MEG X570 Godlike

We're using MSI's MEG X570 Godlike as our test platform for the second- and third-gen AMD processors. The pricey Godlike board retails for around $800, but has the 14+4+1-phase power delivery subsystem to support aggressive overclocking.

The MEG X570 Godlike comes with a few nifty accessories like a 10Gb “Super LAN” Ethernet card and a PCIe Gen 4 Xpander-Z M.2 expansion card. That lets you add two more M.2 drives to complement the three M.2 PCIe Gen 4 M.2 ports on the board. You also get four PCIe 4.0 x16 slots, an RGB Mystic Light Infinity II mirror over the IO shroud, and a tiny OLED screen, alongside the two-digit LCD display for error codes.

Comparison Products

Test System and Configuration

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Power Consumption

Power consumption measurements are always a bit tricky. But as long as your 12V supply (EPS) readings, motherboard power supply sensor values, and voltage transformer losses plausibly coincide, everything is fine. Therefore, we're using pure package power to avoid possible influences from our motherboard. Results from the PWM controller are very reliable if you take them as averages over a few minutes.

We began with the non-AVX stress test in AIDA64 and found that the Ryzen 7 3600 drew 67W, beat only by the Core i5-9400F at 53W. With PBO active and the Corsair H115i cooler, the 3600 only drew 70W.

The y-cruncher benchmark computes pi using a heavy multi-threaded AVX workload and also generates a performance measurement that we can use for efficiency metrics. We also measure power with HandBrake in x264 and x265 flavors. The latter uses a heavier distribution of AVX instructions than the former, but both transcoders are great for stressing the processor with a real-world workload.

The small increases in the 3600's power consumption from overclocking equate to relatively minor performance improvements. At stock settings, AMD has tuned the processors right at the knee of the voltage/frequency curve where the chip provides the maximum frequency possible and great efficiency. This PBO configuration also retains some of those same characteristics, but that doesn't leave much headroom for explosive performance gains.

Like the Ryzen 5 3600X, the six-core Ryzen 5 3600 is basically an eight-core Ryzen 7 3700X, but with two cores disabled. However, the 3600’s lower 65W TDP envelope equates to less power consumption at stock settings although, after overclocking, the 3600 does come close to matching the 3600X. That leads to surprisingly similar power consumption measurements during our x265 and y-cruncher tests. 

We tested with both the stock cooler and the Corsair H115i to see how much extra cooling impacts the maximum performance the auto-overclocking algorithms can extract from the processor, and how that impacts power consumption. According to our measurements, the bundled Wraith Stealth cooler dissipates enough waste heat to nearly achieve the maximum amount of available performance in some applications, but it also doesn't offer much of a boost in others. A better cooler is a good investment if you're overclocking the 3600, but you won't need something as robust as our H115i (even a low-cost Hyper 212 should suffice).

Plotting power consumption over our performance measurements shows that the Ryzen 5 3600 is an incredibly efficient processor, giving a solid level of performance at impressively low power consumption. That low power consumption isn't all about your electricity bill, either; it also equates to a lower bar for your cooling solution.

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Test Notes

Test results annotated with "PBO" reflect performance with AMD's auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive feature activated. As noted in the charts, we tested the overclocked Ryzen 5 3600 with two cooling solutions, the Corsair H115i watercooler and the bundled Wraith Stealth cooler. The overclocked previous-gen Ryzen 5 2600X offers roughly the same performance as an overclocked Ryzen 5 2600, so consider this model as a stand-in for its cheaper counterpart.

VRMark, 3DMark

We aren't big fans of using synthetic benchmarks to measure performance, but 3DMark's DX11 and DX12 CPU tests provide useful insight into the amount of horsepower available to game engines.

The DX11 and DX12 CPU test results expose the full-threaded heft of the Ryzen 3000 series processors, so there are no surprises. You'll notice that, even after overclocking, the Ryzen 5 3600 just barely matches the stock 3600X's performance, and it looses by a decent margin to the overclocked 3600X. It is clear that AMD's binning makes more of a difference with the Ryzen 3000 processors. 

That said, even at stock settings, the Ryzen 5 3600 offers enough threaded horsepower to rival even the agile overclocked Core i5-9600K. The more cost-comparable 6C/6T Core i5-9400F can't contend with the 3600's twelve threads.

We compare the Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) auto-overclocking with the bundled Wraith Stealth and the beefier Corsair H115i cooler, which unlocks 2% and 1.5% more performance in the DX12 and DX11 tests, respectively.

The VRMark test benefits heavily from per-core performance, and the Ryzen 3000 processors have made great strides compared to the first- and second-gen models. The Ryzen 5 3600 beats the Core i5-9400F by ~15 FPS, while tuning with a capable cooler gives us ~5 more FPS. 

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation is a computationally intense title that scales well with thread count, but clock speeds and per-core performance play a big role. The Core i5-9400F falls behind the 3600 by 7.2 FPS and the $262 i5-9600K by 5.5 FPS. We typically expect Intel processors to take the lead after overclocking; they are much more capable in that regard than AMD's processors. But the tuned twelve-threaded Ryzen 5 3600 scores within 0.1 FPS, which is essentially a tie.

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Civilization VI AI, Stockfish Test

Stockfish, an open-source chess engine, is the perennial world leader in computer chess competitions, beating other engines like Google's Deepmind AlphaZero engine. The engine is designed to extract the utmost performance from many-core chips, so it scales well up to 512 cores. As we can see, that equates to a big win over both the Core i5-9400F and the i5-9600K as the engine unleashes the power of Ryzen 5's six extra threads.

Again, you'll notice that the overclocked Ryzen 5 3600 just manages to match the stock 3600X, but it lags behind considerably after tuning the latter.

Civilization VI's AI performance test is highly dependent on per-core performance, and AMD has made impressive steps forward compared to the stock Intel processors in the competing price ranges. However, Intel still holds the overclocking advantage, so it takes the uncontested lead after tuning.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

Intel's -9400F once again finds itself trailing the Ryzen 5 3600, but while the -9400F isn't overclockable, you can enable one-click overclocking with the 3600 and unlock higher frame rates.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III

The Warhammer 40,000 benchmark responds well to threading, so the Ryzen 5 3600 contends with the pricey -9600K, and it even closes in on the overclocked 3600X after tuning.

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Far Cry 5

The Ryzen 5 3600 lags the 3600X by 2.7 FPS at stock settings, and while tuning the 3600 improves its performance, it still lags the overclocked 3600X by the same amount.

The Core i5-9400F is faster than the 3600 at stock settings, but AMD's unlocked multiplier evens the score. 

Final Fantasy XV

We run this test with the standard quality preset to sidestep the impact of a bug that causes the game engine to render off-screen objects. This title scales well with additional cores and threads, and tuning brings the 3600 within 0.4 FPS of the overclocked 3600X, meaning they offer essentially the same performance after overclocking.

Meanwhile, the stock Ryzen 5 3600 handily beats the Core i5-9400F.

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Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V favors Intel architectures and, more generally, multi-core designs with high clock rates. Here we see that the Ryzen 5 3600 benefits more from improved cooling than its X-series counterpart, which means that investing in a better cooler is a good idea if you're interested in overclocking the chip. After overclocking, the difference between the 3600 and 3600X is negligible.

Hitman 2

Hitman 2 unleashes Intel's overclocking advantage with the Core i5-9600K, but the Core i5-9400F remains mired at the bottom of the chart due to its locked multiplier. With the right cooling, the Ryzen 5 3600 has comparable performance to the 3600X after overclocking.

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Project CARS 2

Although Project CARS 2 is purportedly optimized for threading, clock rates obviously affect this title's frame rates. Intel's per-core performance, which is a mixture of IPC and frequency, pays big dividends in this title. Here the -9400F grapples with the stock 3600 models, but tuning again proves beneficial for Ryzen.

The Division 2

Here we see the two overclocked 3600 configurations offer the same performance regardless of the cooler. We also noticed the same trend with the 3600X in this title.

World of Tanks enCore

We can add Worlds of Tanks to the list of titles that respond extremely well to overclocking Intel's chips. The Ryzen 5 3600X offers much higher performance at stock than the 3600, and after tuning, we still see a similar delta.

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Web Browser

Browsers tend to be impacted more by the recent security mitigations than other types of applications, so Intel has taken a haircut in these benchmarks of fully-patched systems.

The ARES-6 web browser benchmark focuses on the latest and greatest JavaScript features, with a heavy focus on forward neural networks used for machine learning tasks, and browser responsiveness. The 3600 profits from AMD's diligent work on improving IPC with the Zen 2 microarchitecture. Intel's faster processors exploit the company's frequency advantage, which equates to higher per-core performance, but the Core i5-9400F's lower base and boost clocks trail the Ryzen 5 3600.

We such much of the same with Speedometer 2 and Jetstream 2, with the Ryzen 5 3600 opening up a wider gap between itself and the -9400F. WebXRPT 3 puts the cap on the 3600's full sweep of the -9400F.

You'll notice that overclocking the Ryzen processors doesn't yield any improvement. That's because the processor is still limited to its maximum single-core boost speed during these lightly-threaded tasks.

Microsoft Office

The Microsoft Office suite of benchmarks runs via PCMark 10's new application test. This benchmark tests with real Microsoft Office applications, and we can see that the Ryzen 3000 series processors are very competitive in Excel, the Edge browser, and Word.

The Ryzen 5 3600 proves to be an agile performer in these common applications, even beating the speedy Core i7-9700K and i5-9600K in the overall score. We see some gains via overclocking Ryzen chips, and although the gains aren't as pronounced in these applications, the 3600 lands in a virtual tie with the Ryzen 5 3600X.

Productivity

The LLVM compiler benefits from extra threads, handing the 3600 an easy lead over the competing Intel chips, even after overclocking. The Core i5-9400F even trails the first-gen Ryzen 5 1600X, highlighting how much Intel's feature-trimming (in this case, Hyper-Threading) hamstrings its lineup against AMD's more well-rounded chips.

The application start-up metric measures load time snappiness in word processors, GIMP, and Web browsers under warm- and cold-start conditions. Other platform-level considerations affect this test as well, including the storage subsystem. The Ryzen 5 3600 actually loses a little performance when we kick on PBO with the Wraith Stealth cooler, but the result lands within the expected 3% variance of this test, implying there is no uplift from overclocking in some applications with the stock cooler. We see this trend repeat a few times throughout our test suite. In any case, the Ryzen 5 3600 is incredibly competitive given its price point, easily beating the -9400F.

Our video conferencing suite measures performance in single- and multi-user applications that utilize the Windows Media Foundation for playback and encoding. It also performs facial detection to model real-world usage. Here we see the 3600/Stealth combo beat the H115i-equipped configuration, but the deltas are small enough to chalk up to expected run-to-run deviation.

The photo editing benchmark measures performance with Futuremark's binaries using the ImageMagick library. Common photo processing workloads also tend to be parallelized, which plays well to Ryzen's multi-threaded design. Once again, we see very little uplift from overclocking with the Wraith Stealth cooler.

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Rendering

As we can see throughout this series of tests, AMD's Ryzen processors undoubtedly sit atop the multi-threaded benchmark throne. The six-core -9600K and -9400F, which both lack Hyper-Threading, are outclassed in these tasks. Meanwhile, the 12-threaded Ryzen 5 chips dominate in these types of workloads with convincing wins across the board. The Ryzen 5 3600X at stock settings is comparable, or faster, than the overclocked Ryzen 5 3600 in most of these heavily-threaded workloads, meaning it does offer some benefit for the extra $50 investment, particularly if you're not interested in overclocking.

Encoding

The SVT-AV1 encoder is an Intel- and Netflix-designed software video encoder that became available earlier this year. This new encoder is more scalable than other encoders, thus offering faster performance paired with efficient compression. While it may seem counter-intuitive to use an Intel-designed encoder for testing AMD processors, consider that most encoders are inherently reliant upon per-core performance, which is a strength of Intel, while SVT-AV1 exposes the power of threading, a strength of Ryzen. At stock settings, the Ryzen 5 3600X beats the overclocked Ryzen 5 3600 by a slim margin, but overclocking the X-series model opens a wider gap. The Ryzen 5 3600 fares better against the -9400F, which lags by a decent margin.

Our LAME and FLAC tests, like many encoders, rely heavily upon per-core performance. That means Intel's frequency advantage comes into play, allowing the -9600K to take the lead. Conversely, the lower-clocked -9400F suffers. The -9600K has the advantage at stock settings, but overclocking propels it to the top of the chart.

Intel processors traditionally leverage high frequencies to dominate the HandBrake x265 test, which relies heavily on AVX instructions, and the x264 test. But Intel's higher clock speed isn't too much of an advantage in these tests when the similarly-priced competition has twice the number of threads, so the Ryzen 5 chips carve out nice leads in both x265 and x264 encoding. We also noticed that the Wraith Stealth-cooled 3600's overclocked configuration often trails the stock settings with the same cooler, which we confirmed with repeated testing. It looks like AMD might have some tuning left to do with its PBO algorithms in thermally-limited situations.

Compression, Decompression, Encryption, AVX

Our threaded compression and decompression 7-Zip and ZLib tests work directly from system memory, removing storage throughput from the equation. The combination of Ryzen 5 3600's improved memory subsystem and generous helping of cores helps it take an easy lead over the -9600K and -9400F while the Ryzen 5 3600X does provide at least some advantage over the 3600 via overclocking, although it isn't enough to justify a $50 premium for value-seekers.

We can also see the vast improvement in Ryzen's AVX performance in the y-cruncher tests: That's a massive generational leap, particularly in single-threaded performance. You'll notice that the overclocked 3600 with the Stealth cooler again suffers during a heavily-threaded AVX workload, furthering our suspicion that the PBO algorithms aren't fully optimized. In either case, the improved gen-on-gen AVX performance is truly impressive and benefits a wide range of applications.

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Conclusion

After a simple one-click activation of the PBO automatic overclocking feature, the Ryzen 5 3600 offers much of the same performance as the Ryzen 5 3600X that retails for $50 more. AMD continues to offer the full complement of features with its lesser processors, like Hyper-Threading (SMT), overclockability, and capable stock coolers, making the Ryzen 5 3600 the value CPU to beat.

In the chart below, we plot gaming performance with both average frame rates and a geometric mean of the 99^th percentile frame times (a good indicator of smoothness). It's worth noting that AMD's previous-gen lineup is heavily discounted, so we’re departing from our standard practice of using official price lists. Instead, we’re using average pricing found online (temporary sales excluded). Volatility applies.

The Ryzen 5 3600 beats the Core i5-9400F in our gaming suite at stock settings, even coming within a mere 0.6 FPS of the $265 Core i5-9600K in the average of our 99th percentile results. The 3600 expands its lead over the Core i5-9400F after tuning, but the Core i5-9600K leverages its unlocked multiplier to take a big lead - but for $63 more. While we don't have one on hand, the $192 Core i5-9500 is a natural competitor with the 3600 as well, but 300 MHz of additional clock speed likely doesn't change the value proposition much.

It's clear the Ryzen 3000-series chips are the best bang for your gaming buck in this price segment. For gamers, the real choice boils down to the 3600 versus the 3600X. The Ryzen 5 3600X does have a bit more performance in the tank than the Ryzen 5 3600 in the overclocking department, which largely boils down to binning. It's also faster when we compare the two processors at stock settings, but the Ryzen 5 3600 slightly exceeds the stock X-model after tuning. In either case, the difference between the two chips boils down to a few FPS, which isn't worth the extra $50 unless you're chasing every last drop of performance. Also, bear in mind these deltas essentially vanish if you're gaming at higher resolutions.

The picture is a bit different when we switch over to productivity workloads. In threaded apps there really is no contest again: The Ryzen 3000 processors offer far more value than Intel's competing chips, and the lack of Hyper-Threading makes this a no contest for threaded applications. In gaming, we recorded slim differences between the overclocked Ryzen 5 3600 with the stock cooler and the Corsair H115i, but that delta widens in heavily-threaded tests. In fact, we noticed a few regressions with the stock cooler during overclocking, suggesting the all-aluminum cooler may get a bit overwhelmed when more voltage is put to the chip in heavily threaded workloads. As a result, the Corsair H115i cooler extracts more performance, especially in the AVX workloads, but the deltas are slight in most areas. Given the 3600's relatively low power draw, you could top it with a much lesser cooler, like a Hyper 212 Black, and get the same benefit. It really just boils down to how much noise you're willing to tolerate, but a beefy dual-radiator cooler is overkill.

If you need integrated graphics, the Ryzen 5 3600 and 3600X aren't for you. However, if you plan on using a discrete graphics card, the Ryzen 5 3600 is hands-down the best value on the market. The 3600X might be worth the extra coin if you aren't interested in overclocking, as it does provide more performance out of the box and comes with a better cooler. However, it's hard to justify the $50 premium over the Ryzen 5 3600. For small form factor (SFF) enthusiasts, AMD has packed in quite a bit of punch into a 65W envelope, giving it the uncontested lead for small systems.

A Ryzen 5 3600 paired with a B450 motherboard will make a great setup for mainstream gamers, and you have the option to upgrade to a PCIE 4.0-capable motherboard in the future. We aren't sure when, or if, AMD's partners will push out new B-series motherboards, but that could be a compelling upgrade path in the future.

Image Credits: Tom's Hardware

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The AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT has dropped to a new low price on Newegg. This processor normally runs for $249, but now you can get your hands on it for $234 using promo code 62GAMETBR9. If you want to see what’s leading the CPU market right now, head over to our list of Best CPUs for 2020.

This processor has 6 cores and a total of 12 threads. It has a base operating speed of 3.8GHz. When boosted, it can reach as high as 4.5GHz.

This model supports up to 128GB of DDR4 with speeds up to 3200MHz. You may want to opt for a more powerful third-party cooling option, but you will also get a stock Wraith Spire cooler with this offer.

Visit the AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT product page on Newegg to grab this deal for yourself. Note that you'll have to apply the promo code in order to receive this discount. The deal is set to expire Monday, October 12th.

Youtuber Buildzoid, on his channel Actually Hardcore Overclocking, has demonstrated how you can overclock your AMD Ryzen 3000-series (codename Matisse) processor on an A520 motherboard.

If you're familiar with AMD's A-series chipsets, you already know that they don't support CPU overclocking. As Buildzoid has proven, BCLK (base clock) overclocking appears to be working just fine on Gigabyte's A520M H motherboard. It's uncertain if other vendors support BCLK overclocking on their A520 offerings or if this workaround is all Gigabyte's doing.

The biggest challenge with BCLK overclocking is finding the settings that ensure the entire system lives in harmony. Ryzen's BCLK is connected to other interfaces, including PCIe, SATA, and USB ports. Raising the BCLK effectively overclocks everything else, which is why overclockers prefer playing with the ratio multipliers more than the BCLK if given a choice. Sadly, only the latter is possible on the A520 chipset.

For the demonstration, Buildzoid overclocked his Ryzen 5 3600 on the Gigabyte A520M H motherboard, which retails for roughly $78 overseas. He highlighted that the motherboard was on the factory F1 firmware. Since that time, Gigabyte has released the F2 firmware for the A520M H, so we're unsure if Gigabyte has patched BCLK overclocking on the newer firmware.

Buildzoid pushed the Ryzen 5 3600 to 4,389 MHz on all six cores by increasing the BCLK to 108 MHz and moving the CPU clock ratio to 40.50. For context, the Ryzen 5 3600 typically has an all-core boost clock the fluctuates around 4.1 GHz, depending on the motherboard, cooling, and the workload.

The hardware enthusiast thinks that BCLK overclocking on the A520 chipset is somewhat linked to AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) technology. Therefore, he had to raise the power limits in the XFR (Extended Frequency Range) enhancement section of the motherboard.

In theory, you can overclock more powerful Ryzen chips, such as the Ryzen 9 3950X on AMD's A520 motherboards. It's tempting, but you really shouldn't since A520 motherboards pretty much come with baseline power delivery subsystems that are only designed for running the processor at stock speeds.

In China, AMD is shipping some Ryzen 5 3600 CPUs in packaging meant for weaker chips, according to a recent Facebook post from Chinese hardware site HKEPC. 

In a Facebook post yesterday, Chinese hardware site HKEPC posted photos of a Ryzen 5 3600 they recently ordered that came in a Ryzen 3 3200G box. AMD had placed a sticker seal on the box indicating that the product inside was indeed the Ryzen 5 3600, but everything else on the packaging pointed to the weaker Ryzen 3 3200G.

A Hardware Times story from earlier today elaborates that this has affected a whole batch of Ryzen 5 3600 CPUs bound for customers in China. The story attributes the incorrect packaging to Ryzen 5 3600 sales figures breaking expectations during the recent Chinese mid-year sale in June, leading AMD’s Chinese team to use old packaging instead of waiting for additional, more accurate boxes to come in. Of course, it's also entirely possible that the situation is the result of a simple mistake during packaging.

Even though these boxes did have the processors they ordered, we have to imagine customers were pretty confused. It’s not uncommon for mix-ups to happen when ordering components online- I’ve had to return CPUs to Newegg twice in a row after they accidentally sent me the wrong parts- so this is just another reminder to always double check what’s in the box (and what your system reads as installed) before you wrap up your latest build.

Update 30/06/2020 4:56 am PT: VideoCardz confirmed our suspicions that the chip pictured by TecLab was not a real Ryzen 5 3600XT, but rather a standard 3600, making this a likely case of a fake preview. 

Original article below:

AMD officially announced the new Ryzen 3600XT, 3800XT, and 3900XT processors just two weeks ago, but the review embargo hasn't lifted yet. Now, the folks from TecLab on the Chinese video site Bilibili are back again with another embargo-breaking review, comparing performance of the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 XT against that of the new Intel Core i5-10400.

As with their previous leaks, the presenter is wearing a dog mask to hide their identity, ensuring that AMD is unable to track down who they should stop sending hardware samples to. To further cover their tracks, the QR code, XT denotation, and serial number on the chip's IHS have also been covered up with tape -- so note that this also makes it very possible that this isn't a 3600XT chip at all. 

The results speak for themselves. When the chip was tested across World War Z, CS GO, Tomb Raider, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Metro Exodus, Far Cry 5, and Borderlands, Far Cry 5 was the only title where the Ryzen 5 3600XT beat the cheaper Core i5-10400.

Nevertheless, the differences were small.

We haven't tested the Intel Core i5-10400 yet, so we are unable to say how its performance compares to that of the Ryzen 5 3600X, and thus unable to say whether TecLab's results are representative of real-world performance, or not.

As we keep waiting for new AMD CPU SKUs to hit retailers, we've been seeing some good deals on Ryzen 3000 CPUs. A couple days ago, we spotted the Ryzen 7 3700X for cheaper than ever (that deal's still going on, by the way). Today, we're looking at the Ryzen 5 3600, a slightly less powerful CPU on sale for $166.99, or $33 off.

This dual salvo of price drops is probably in anticipation of the Ryzen XT 3000-series, announced earlier this week. Even so, the XT-series probably isn’t going to give a massive boost in performance over the standard Ryzen 3000-series. With 6 CPU cores and 12 threads, the Ryzen 5 3600 is still one of the best CPUs in this price point. Slotting into the AM4 CPU socket, it sports a base clock of 3.6 GHz and a max boost clock of 4.2 GHz and supports DDR4 RAM and PCIe 4.0. 

In our AMD Ryzen 5 3600 review, we tested it across a suite of 10 games, and it averaged 118 frames per second (fps), while hitting an average of 144.6 fps in multi-threaded visual productivity benchmarks like Cinebench. That’s pretty impressive for a processor that you can get for under $170, plus it comes with the stock Wraith Stealth cooler.

Since AMD has yet to announce the desktop Ryzen 4000-series, this is still one of the best buys available right now. Not convinced? Newegg's deal is just $7 away from the chip's cheapest price ever, according to CamelCamelCamel.

Amazon Italy (via Reddit) has just spilled the beans on AMD's looming Ryzen 3000-series XT processors. According to the listings, AMD will officially announce the Zen 2 refresh chips on June 16 with a tentative release date of July 7.

Rumors suggest that AMD will unleash three Ryzen 3000-series XT parts. Thus far, Amazon Italy has revealed the Ryzen 9 3900XT and Ryzen 5 3600XT. Only the rumored Ryzen 7 3800XT is missing.

According to the Amazon Italy posting, the Ryzen 3000-series XT parts will retain the same recipe as the current Ryzen 3000-series (codename Matisse) processors. The chips will arrive with identical cores, threads, and cache as their vanilla counterparts. The most notable improvement lies in the faster clock speeds. In other words, the XT models appear to just be higher-binned chips than the non-XT SKUs, though it's possible AMD has some other surprises in store. For instance, the company moved to the 12nm node with second-gen Zen processors, yielding impressive performance gains through a combination of enhancements to the chips, like improved cache latency borne of faster speedpaths. It isn't immediately apparent if those types of changes could come to the XT models, but it wouldn't be without precedent. 

Amazon Italy didn't specify the base clocks, but we do have the boost clocks for comparison. The Ryzen 9 3900XT appears to come with a 4.7 GHz boost clock, which is 100 MHz faster than the Ryzen 9 3900X. The same improvement is present with the Ryzen 5 3600XT, as the six-core chip flaunts a 100 MHz higher boost clock than its counterpart.

Despite the higher boost clocks, the Ryzen 9 3900XT and Ryzen 5 3600XT respect the same TDP (thermal design power) as the normal Ryzen offerings. That would be 105W for Ryzen 9 3900XT and 95W for the Ryzen 5 3600XT.

While AMD included the Wraith Prism CPU cooler with the Ryzen 9 3900X, the Amazon Italy listing shows the Ryzen 9 3900XT without any cooling. The Ryzen 5 3600XT, on the other hand, still comes with the Wraith Spire.

Although Amazon Italy posted the pricing, we should still approach it with some caution as it could be a placeholder or just an inflated pre-order price. If the pricing is to be trusted, the Ryzen 9 3900XT and Ryzen 5 3600XT apparently cost €569.69 ($640) and €284.84 ($320), respectively. For reference, the Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 5 3600X go for €449.10 ($505) and €212.9 ($239) on Amazon Italy. Basically, we're looking at a 26.7% price increase for the Ryzen 9 3900XT and a 33.9% rise for the Ryzen 5 3600XT.

If we apply the same percentages to the current prices in the U.S., the Ryzen 9 3900XT could sell for up to $528, and the Ryzen 5 3600XT may surface with a price tag around $306.

Horizon Zero Dawn has been a PlayStation 4 exclusive title since 2017, but that exclusivity won't be for much longer. This summer, the PC port will be coming out -- and that's incredibly exciting because it's known to be an absolutely amazing title.

No release date is available yet, nor can you buy it on preorder (not that we ever recommend preorders). However, it looks like very soon, AMD will be bundling the game with select Ryzen 3000 processors.

The information comes from Overclockers UK, who already have the deal listed. If you purchase any Ryzen CPU between the Ryzen 5 3600 and the almighty Ryzen 9 3950X, you'll have a claim to the title.

Horizon Zero Dawn is a single-player RPG title set in a post-apocalyptic future around the year 3000, in which you play as hunter Aloy, as acted by Ashly Burch. The game has been extremely well-received by critics, landing many perfect, or near-perfect scores across the board.

Of course, the game isn't out yet on PC, so you'll have to be a little patient. However, if this is anything to go by, Horizon Zero Dawn will be landing on PC sooner, rather than later. Here's to hoping this Ryzen bundle comes to the US too. 

Intel's Comet Lake recently crashed into the market with the beastly $488 Core i9-10900K leading the charge, showing us that its aging Skylake architecture and hyper-refined 14nm++ process still has the gumption to keep the company's gaming performance crown. But the ten-core 20-thread processor brought some baggage along with it, like high power consumption that requires exotic accommodations to get the best performance possible, pricing it out of consideration for the majority of enthusiasts. 

However, Intel's clever price trimming on its Core i5 series, which comes via the addition of Hyper-Threading at no extra cost, has always looked like a possible addition to our Best CPUs for gaming list. After our testing, the $262 Core i5-10600K delivers and is just as impressive as you would expect from a six-core 12-thread Comet Lake processor clocked at a 4.1 GHz base and 4.8 GHz boost. Intel also offers the chip for $237 if you grab the graphics-less KF model. 

In either case, the 10600K comes with more threads than the previous-gen Core i7 models, so the implication is clear: You get the lion's share of the performance of last year's $370 Core i7-9700K, but for $267/$234 with the Core i5-10600K. 

Intel's pricing puts AMD's ~$245 Ryzen 5 3600X squarely in the crosshairs. While the ~$175 Ryzen 5 3600 is still tempting with its six cores and 12 threads, Intel hopes the 10600K's gaming supremacy, not to mention overclocking prowess, persuades enthusiasts to drop the cash on a new LGA1200 platform to support the chip. 

And Intel's Core i5 series could definitely use some help -- the third-gen Ryzen processors, for all of their headline-stealing high core counts in the higher-end models, did the most damage in Intel's mid-range due to their superior value and ultra-competitive gaming performance. The Core i5 and Ryzen 5 segments comprise the bulk of sales to the ever-growing cadre of gamers and enthusiasts looking for the best bang for the buck, so success here is key. 

The Core i5-10600K's combination of a higher thread count at similar pricing to the previous-gen, high stock clock frequencies, palatable power consumption, and agile overclockability cooks up a winner for the gaming and enthusiast crowds. Intel even reduced the gap in threaded workloads like productivity tasks. For gamers looking for the edge of performance and enthusiasts who like to tune their processors without hideously-priced supporting components, the Core i5-10600K slots in as the new mainstream champ. 

Intel Core i5-10600K Specifications and Pricing

Intel re-aligned its Core i5 series, which came with six cores and threads with the previous-gen chips, to six cores with 12 threads for the Comet Lake models. That comes by simply enabling Hyper-Threading, but it boosts the Core i5-10600K's thread count beyond that of the previous-gen eight-core/thread i7-9700K, setting the stage for impressive performance improvements. 

And the new chip didn't disappoint. Our testing found that the 10600K still trails the 9700K in application performance, but it's close enough in gaming to call it a wash. That's a huge step forward on the value front. Pricing is competitive, too, especially with the $25 discount for picking the graphics-less 10600KF model. If you're not interested in buying a discrete graphics card, the 10600K's UHD Graphics 630 engine remains the same compared to the prior gen, right down to the clock rates. That gives Intel a leg up over AMD, which doesn't offer integrated graphics in this price range. Just don't expect to do any meaningful gaming on the Intel chip without a dedicated graphics card.

The six-core, twelve thread Core i5-10600K ticks at a 4.1 GHz and 4.8 GHz boost, and unlike the Core i9 models, Intel doesn't include it's complicated matrix of TurboBoost 3.0 Max and Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB) clock rates, making this a simple case of what you see is what you get. 

As you can see in the table above, Intel has steadily bumped up its multi-core clock rates with each new generation of chips, with the 10600K marking yet another jump over the previous-gen Core i5 chips. The 10600K still trails the Core i7-9700K's single- and all-core boosts, but offsets it with a much higher 4.1 GHz base (and accompanying TDP rating). That means the 10600K won't entirely match the previous-gen i7 in all applications, but our testing shows it comes close. 

The 10600K comes with a 125W TDP rating, a new high for Intel's Core i5 series as the company turned up the power dial on its base clock rates from 3.7 GHz with the previous-gen Core i5-9600K to 4.1 GHz. Still, it's important to remember the TDP rating doesn't have a one-to-one relation to power consumption, and it only applies to stock settings at the base frequency (PL1). Intel recommends a maximum of 220W at PL2 (peak power consumption during boost), but as always, motherboard vendors are free to ignore those recommendations, so board selection is important. 

The 10600K comes with 12MB of L3 cache, an increase of 3MB over the Core i5-9600K. Intel increased memory support up to DDR4-2933, which lags AMD's DDR4-3200 memory transfer rates. Like the chip's other ratio multipliers, Intel fully enables memory overclocking on Z-series motherboards, but you'll lose that functionality on the B- and H-series. Be sure to price in a Z-series board and a cooling solution, preferably liquid, if you're off to the overclocking races. Meanwhile, AMD allows overclocking on all but its A-Series motherboards. 

All of Intel's Comet Lake K-Series models come with a thicker copper integrated heat spreader (IHS), a thinner die, and solder TIM (sTIM) to improve cooling and overclockability, which we covered here. The 10600K doesn't come with a boxed cooler, but mid-range air coolers should be sufficient for stock operation, and even some overclocking. Serious overclockers should plan on a 240mm or greater all-in-one cooler, but the overclocking results we'll outline on the following pages are pretty impressive. 

Intel Core i5-10600K Overclocking Settings

Intel has simplified the overclocking process over the years, and motherboard vendors have done a great job with adaptive Load Line Calibration (LLC) features. We dialed in a 5.0 GHz overclock with a 1.34V vCore and left the motherboard to its own devices for LLC control (auto), giving us a steady 1.368V under heavy load. We did have to settle for a -1 AVX offset though, meaning our chip operated at 4.9 GHz during ultra-taxing AVX workloads. 

As we did with the Core i9-10900K, we dialed the ring bus multiplier to 48 to improve stability and performance, but that's an optional tweak. We also ran our overclocked configuration with memory at DDR4-3600 with 18-18-18-36 timings. 

Our overclock challenged the Corsair H115i during a Prime95 stress test, topping out at 93C, but that stress test isn't indicative of what we see during the real-world AVX workloads we recorded above. As you can see above, thermals were good with the Corsair H115i, albeit with the fans cranking at full speed, during a string of real-world stress tests that includes multiple instances of the Corona ray-tracing benchmark, x265 HandBrake rendering tests, POV-Ray multi-threaded benchmarks, Cinebench R20 runs, and finally five iterations of the AVX-intensive threaded y-cruncher. 

This real-world stress test yielded peak temps of 88C, but those peaks were brief. Power consumption weighed in at a peak of 208W, which, while a new high in recent memory for Core i5, isn't excessively hard to cool with off-the-shelf cooling solutions. 

Intel did a good job here of reducing thermal output by using a thicker IHS and thinner die. The Core i5-10600K, despite its comparatively high power consumption relative to the Ryzen 3000 series processors, is surprisingly easy to cool. Our Corsair H115i yielded solid overclocking results, but you could get away with a capable high-end air cooler, like the Noctua NH-D15, as long as you set your all-core overclock sights a bit lower (in the 4.8 GHz range). 

Overall, the Core i5-10600K is an easy overclocker, and we have little doubt that a bit more tuning could unlock more performance. In fact, we kept our overclock in check to match what you could reasonably sustain with an AIO, but we think we could get to 5.1 GHz with a 5.0 GHz AVX offset and higher voltages with a better cooler. 

Intel Core i5-10600K Turbo Boost and Thermals

Switching over to the stock settings on the Gigabyte Aorus Z490 Master motherboard, we ran the same series of stress tests to measure the chip's power consumption, thermals, and boost capabilities. As per normal for any of our testing of stock settings, we disabled the MCE (Multi-Core Enhancement) feature that amounts to automatic overclocking (Enhanced Multi-Core Performance in Gigabyte's parlance). 

During our multi-core frequency test (first and second slides) with our stress test script, we see that the chip boosts to 4.8 GHz during pauses in the workloads, but maintains a flat 4.5 GHz all-core frequency for most of the test. The chip peaks at 65C and 130W of power consumption during the latter stages of this test. A quick run with Prime95 measured a peak of 146W. 

Slides three and four detail performance during our standard frequency test for lightly-threaded workloads (methodology here). Here we see much more frequent boost activity to 4.8 GHz, and power consumption and thermals weren't really an issue during the test. 

The Corsair H115i handles the Core i5-10600K with little effort during our stress tests, Prime95 included, signaling that this is an easy-to-cool chip, and air cooling is certainly an option. 

Intel Core i5-10600K Power Consumption and Efficiency

We logged 107W of power consumption for the Core i5-10600K at stock settings during the AVX-intensive multi-threaded y-cruncher workload, landing well above the previous-gen 9600K, but surprisingly 47W shy of the Core i7-9700K. However, kicking up the 10600K's clocks to 5.0 GHz yielded a 175W reading, which outstrips the 9700K at 5.1 GHz. As always, take power readings during overclocking with a grain of salt, as fine-tuning and motherboard firmwares have a huge impact here. The Core i7-9700K also benefits from a much more mature platform, so keep that in mind.

As expected, the Core i5-10600K consumes much more power than the competing Ryzen 3000 chips, but that isn't surprising given AMD's fast transition to a denser and more power-efficient 7nm node. That advantage really shines through when we take a look at power consumption during our HandBrake x264 and x265 workloads. Still, basic power consumption measurements never tell the full story – the Ryzen processors also dominate the renders-per-day efficiency metrics.

Here we take a slightly different look at power consumption by calculating the cumulative amount of energy required to perform an x264 and x265 HandBrake workload, respectively. We plot this 'task energy' value in Kilojoules on the left side of the chart.

These workloads are comprised of a fixed amount of work, so we can plot the task energy against the time required to finish the job (bottom axis), thus generating a really useful power chart. Bear in mind that faster compute times, and lower task energy requirements, are ideal. That means processors that fall the closest to the bottom left corner of the chart are best.

The Ryzen processors are pretty hard to beat at this metric. Still, the Core i5-9400F, with its fixed clock rate that is pretty low on the voltage/frequency curve (i.e., closer to the efficiency range), is surprisingly competitive with the Ryzen 3 3300X. That highlights that Intel tunes the Comet Lake chips more for performance than efficiency, but the Core i5-10600K does take a solid step forward over the Core i5-9600K. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 7 3700X is impressive with the best spot on the chart, and the Ryzen 5 3600(X) models put up a good show, too. 

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All test results marked with "PBO" reflect configurations tested with AMD's auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive feature. For overclocking, we tuned our memory to DDR4-3600 for both Intel and AMD platforms.

We have a few interesting comparisons to keep an eye on as we work our way through the tests. Intel's previous-gen Core i7-9700K retails for $370, but comes with eight cores and threads while the Core i5-10600K lands at $262 with six cores and twelve threads, setting the stage for great gaming performance at a low price point. AMD's Ryzen 7 3700X retails for $290, representing the upper level of AMD performance in this general price range, while the $240 Ryzen 5 3600X and $175 3600 are in the mix with the Core i5-10600K. AMD's Ryzen 3 3300X slots in at a mere $120, but sets a high bar in gaming for the lower end of the market.

This set of tests focuses narrowly on this price band, but we have comparisons to the Core i9-10900K in gaming and application work on the final page of the review. 

VRMark and 3DMark on Intel Core i5-10600K

Synthetic gaming benchmarks often aren't generally indicative of real-world performance, but the 3DMark DX11 and DX12 tests are interesting because they measure the amount of raw computational horsepower exposed to the game engine. For now, most of today's game engines don't scale as linearly with additional compute resources, but these tests help us gauge how games could exploit processing resources as the engines become more sophisticated.

In the synthetic world of the Fire Strike benchmark, the Ryzen 7 3700X dominates due to its eight cores and 16 threads, while the Ryzen 5 3600X also carves out a lead over the stock Core i5-10600K. The stock Ryzen 5 3600 also nearly matches the 10600K, which is impressive given its $175 price tag. Overclocking propels the 10600K into the lead over its similarly priced competitors.

Flipping over to Time Spy finds the Core i5-10600K nearly matching the previous-gen Core i5-9700K at both stock and overclocked settings.

VRMark's test values per-core performance (a mixture of frequency and IPC), and it obviously prefers physical cores and lots of L3 cache. The Coffee Lake Refresh Core i5-9600K benefits from its lack of hyperthreading in this title, but it takes a healthy overclock to boost it over the 10600K. 

Civilization VI AI and Stockfish on Intel Core i5-10600K

Civilization VI's AI engine values per-core performance, which benefits Intel's higher clock rates. Here we can see the Intel chips without threading once again benefiting from the program executing on physical cores, but the stock Core i5-9600K lags due to its lower base and boost frequencies. 

Stockfish, an open-source chess engine, is designed to extract the utmost performance from many-core chips by scaling well up to 512 cores. The Ryzen 5 3600X's six cores and twelve threads prove powerful in this test, but the overclocked Core i5-10600K profits from its higher clock rates. The Ryzen 5 3600 also puts up a strong showing at stock settings, edging out the 10600K. 

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation on Intel Core i5-10600K

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation loves cores and threads, but clock rates also play a role. The stock Core i5-10600K vies with the Ryzen 5 3600X at stock settings, but its higher overclocking headroom grants it the overall win as it edges out the higher-clocked Core i7-9700K. It's noteworthy that the stock 10600K edges past the heavily-overclocked 9600K. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 3 3300X slips past the Core i7-9700K at stock settings, reminding us that AMD's Ryzen 3 has completely upset the value tier. We can't wait to see how Intel's Core i3 lineup stacks up. 

Civilization VI Graphics Test on Intel Core i5-10600K

Most gaming software is still optimized for low thread counts and high clock rates, and some game engines even prefer single-threaded cores. That doesn't stop the threaded 10600K from exerting itself in these tests, though, as it leads all but the overclocked Core i7-9700K.

Dawn of War III on Intel Core i5-10600K

The Warhammer 40,000 benchmark responds well to threading, but it's clear that clock speed and IPC also matter. The stock Ryzen processors fall down the charts in this title, though the Ryzen 3 3300X is particularly impressive due to its use of a single CCX – it even beats out its own more-expensive brethren and the stock 10600K. After overclocking, the Core i5-10600K takes the lead, albeit by the slimmest of margins over the Core i5-9700K. 

Far Cry 5 on Intel Core i5-10600K

Far Cry 5 tends to run well on Intel architectures, and the overclocked Core i3-9350KF reminds us that Intel's overclockability can be a powerful asset. Unfortunately, this chip represents the last overclockable Core i3 model in Intel's stable; Intel inexplicably neglected to release an overclockable Comet Lake i3 model. 

Regardless, the top of the chart belongs to Intel, and the 10600K once again delivers nearly the same performance as the previous-gen Core i7-9700K at stock settings and superior performance after overclocking. 

Final Fantasy XV on Intel Core i5-10600K

We run this test with the standard quality preset to sidestep the impact of a bug that causes the game engine to render off-screen objects with the higher-resolution setting. The stock Core i5-10600K grapples with the mid-range Ryzen processors, and even the Ryzen 3 3300X, at stock settings, but overclocking propels it into second place. 

The Core i5-9400F, Intel's previous-gen locked i5 that was known for its solid performance, doesn't look nearly as impressive when stacked up against the latest models.  

Grand Theft Auto V on Intel Core i5-10600K

Here we see a familiar trend of the Core i5-10600K basically offering the same level of performance as the previous-gen unlocked Core i7 model, highlighting that industry competition has benefitted the consumer with big gen-on-gen value improvements. 

Hitman 2 on Intel Core i5-10600K

The Core i7-9700K carves out a substantial lead at both stock and overclocked settings compared to the 10600K here, but the latter clings to a comfortable lead over price-comparable Ryzen processors.

Project Cars 2 on Intel Core i5-10600K

Although Project CARS 2 is purportedly optimized for threading, clock rates obviously affect this title's frame rates. Intel's overclocked Core i3-9350KF pops up near the top of the chart, showing that clock rates are also important in this title. It even tops the stock Core i5-10600K, but overclocking propels the 10600K into a comfortable lead. 

World of Tanks enCore on Intel Core i5-10600K

The World of Tanks benchmark closes out our game testing with the same general trend we've seen throughout this series of tests: On the strength of its high single- and multi-core clock rates paired with 12 threads, the Core i5-10600K is a potent gaming chip, even at stock settings. Overclocking also yields significant gains that place the chip far ahead of its AMD competitors. 

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Rendering on Intel Core i5-10600K

Ryzen processors are apex predators in the realm of threaded workloads, but the Core i5-10600K marks a massive improvement for Intel's Core i5 series in these types of heavy applications. The 10600K scores big gains with its twelve threads relative to the 9600K's six threads, often beating the overclocked 9600K by substantial margins, even at stock settings. 

The Ryzen 5 3600X and 3600 still maintain their lead over the stock 10600K in threaded productivity applications, but the margins are far slimmer than we witnessed in the past. This time around, the Intel chip takes the lead after overclocking, marking a shift in the productivity landscape in this price range. The Core i5-10600K largely lags the Core i7-9700K, but again, by a slim margin. 

Moving on to the single-core rendering workloads, the Intel processors maintain a solid lead, particularly after overclocking. 

Encoding on Intel Core i5-10600K

The single-threaded LAME and FLAC encoding tests respond well to per-core performance, giving Intel convincing wins in these tests. 

The threaded HandBrake x264 and x265 tests really speak to the AVX performance improvements AMD made to the Zen 2 architecture. The stock Core i5-10600K lags the price-comparable Ryzen processors, but Intel has significantly reduced the deltas. Overclocking swings the HandBrake tests in Intel's favor. 

Web Browsing on Intel Core i5-10600K

Browsers tend to be impacted more by the recent security mitigations than other types of applications, so Intel has generally taken a haircut (pre-COVID lockdown) in these benchmarks on fully-patched systems.

Single-threaded performance still reigns supreme in these tests, making it hard to beat the overclocked Core i5-10600K. The chip is equally adept at stock settings, often beating its predecessor by solid margins. AMD's Ryzen processors are competitive, too, particularly in the Edge browser test that relies more on threading.

Office and Productivity on Intel Core i5-10600K

Clock rates benefit the majority of our GIMP image processing tests, but the Ryzen 3 3300X posts surprisingly strong performance borne of its design that leverages a single CCX. As expected, the Intel processors lead in the majority of the PCMark 10 tests, but the chips pick up a few wins at stock settings in the threaded rendering and visualization and video processing tasks. 

Compression and AVX on Intel Core i5-10600K

The 7zip and Zlib compression/decompression benchmarks also rely heavily upon threading and work directly from system memory, thus avoiding the traditional storage bottleneck in these types of tasks. At stock settings, the price-comparable Ryzen processors sweep the 10600K on the 7zip compression side of these tests, but overclocking improves Intel's standing considerably. 

The heavily-threaded y-cruncher benchmark, which computes pi using the taxing AVX instruction set, highlights the performance of the overclocked Core i5-10600K with its AVX offset clock rate of 4.9 GHz. The 10600K's extra helping of threads help boost performance significantly over the previous-gen 9600K in the threaded portion of the test. 

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AMD's Ryzen 3000 series processors upset the established pecking order in the high-volume mid-range, beating Intel's competing chips by huge margins in productivity-focused work while delivering similar, or slightly better, gaming performance at the most important price points. 

Intel's Comet Lake response helps reduce that imbalance with a heavier slathering of threads that improve its standing in productivity work and multi-tasking, accompanied by higher clock rates that carve out a perceptible lead in gaming workloads. In fact, dropping $262 on the Core i5-10600K gives you comparable performance to Intel's $370 Core i7-9700K that debuted last year. 

In the chart below, we plot gaming performance using average frame rates and a geometric mean of the 99th percentile frame times (a good indicator of smoothness), which we then convert into a frames-per-second measurement. Bear in mind that we tested with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti at 1920x1080 to alleviate graphics-imposed bottlenecks. Differences between our test subjects shrink at higher resolutions. We've included the Core i9-10900K in these charts to highlight its position relative to the Core i5-10600K.

At stock settings, the Core i5-10600K runs neck-and-neck with the Core i7-9700K throughout our gaming test suite, and overclocking grants it the slimmest of leads despite its 100 MHz deficit. Meanwhile, AMD's Ryzen 7 3700X puts up a good show with comparable performance at stock settings, but at a higher price point. Focusing on the price-comparable Ryzen 5 3600X and 3600, the Core i5-10600K enjoys a comfortable lead in both average fps and smoothness metrics, and overclocking opens up a tremendous gap. Remember, you can also opt for the graphics-less KF model for $237 and get identical performance. 

Overall, the Core i5-10600K convincingly offers up the best gaming performance in this price range. We expect gamers to pair a chip of this class with less-expensive GPUs, but that extra bit of performance will be useful if you plan on upgrading to next-gen GPUs like AMD's Big Navi and Nvidia's Ampere.

Flipping over to the geometric mean of our application testing suite, we see that Intel has made great strides in eliminating the massive disparity between its Core i5 series and AMD's Ryzen 5 in multi-threaded applications. The overclocked Core i5-9600K falls far behind the stock 10600K, and overclocking pushes the 10600K far ahead of the 9600K and AMD Ryzen 5 chips alike. A quick look at the stock 9600K's standing against Ryzen 5, not to mention the 10600K, highlights just how much improvement Intel made by enabling Hyper-Threading and increasing clock rates. 

As expected, the Intel Core i5-10600K maintains Intel's performance lead across the broad spate of our single-threaded tests, which will manifest as snappy performance in a wide variety of tasks. 

Intel's Core i9-10900K is an impressive piece of silicon, cementing the company's overall lead in gaming performance. But its high power consumption requires expensive accommodations, particularly on the cooling side. And the chip doesn't leave much overclocking headroom for enthusiasts with conventional cooling setups. 

In contrast, the Core i5-10600K consumes an acceptable amount of power given its performance and 14nm++ process, and you can top it with affordable off-the-shelf coolers and receive the full performance. That's due in part to Intel's thicker copper IHS and thinner die, which also helps unlock more frequency headroom from the Core i5-10600K. That equates to strong gains in gaming, meaning overclocking is still alive and well in this price range. Our overclocking efforts were a breeze, and you could carve out respectable overclocks with a brawny air cooler, or shoot for the edge with 240mm or greater AIOs.

AMD's competing chips come with bundled coolers and a lower price of entry and are attractive for productivity-focused users, helped by overclocking support with all but the A-series motherboards, and you can opt for a previous-gen motherboard that doesn't support PCIe 4.0. Support for the faster PCIe 4.0 interface remains one of AMD's advantages over competing Intel processors, so you do lose part of the value proposition if you take that route. 

Many of the high-end Intel's Z490 motherboards are pricey, largely due to in-built support for PCIe 4.0 that you won't be able to use until the next generation of chips, and the LGA1200 platform looks to be short-lived. You can opt for lesser boards at the cost of sacrificing overclockability. 

Overall, Intel's Core i5-10600K offers better gaming performance than the Ryzen 5 processors and minimizes disparities in multi-threaded workloads, earning our Editor's Choice award.

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AMD’s Ryzen 5 3600 processor, along with the stock Wraith Stealth cooler, is now selling for $167 on Amazon. That’s $32 cheaper than its typical $199 price tag and only $4 over its lowest price ever, according to PCPartPicker.

As we noted in our AMD Ryzen 5 3600 review, this 6-core, 12-thread CPU is a fantastic 65W chip, and it'll especially appeal to those working with a small form factor system, due to the power you get for its small thermal envelope. With a clock speed and boost of 3.6 GHz and 4.2 GHz, respectively, we also praised the chip's ability to compete with more expensive counterparts, thanks to its simple one-click overclocking.

If you’re an AMD fan who can’t wait for the desktop Ryzen 4000 series or are building on a budget, this is about the best CPU deals around right now. 

Competition is always great for consumers, so we should be grateful that AMD and Intel have been duking it out on the CPU front for decades. If only one chip maker existed without the other, we wouldn't have the quality of processors that we have today. For example, Intel's Core i5  desktop lineup was stuck on four cores for nearly a decade while AMD struggled to release a competitive product. But Ryzen changed things quickly, forcing Intel to respond with more cores and lower per-core pricing. Now enthusiasts and casual users alike can find great values at nearly every price point, but particularly in the mid-range market, as you can see in our CPU Benchmarks Hierarchy. 

Intel's Core i5 and AMD's Ryzen 5 families are the biggest volume-movers in the mainstream desktop segment, and honestly, that's the most chip most gamers need. But then the eternal question arises: Who reigns supreme in the mid-range, AMD or Intel?

On one side, we have the Ryzen 5 3600X that  from AMD's Matisse family. The Ryzen 5 3600X comes equipped with six cores and 12 threads. On the other side, we have the Core i5-9600K, which represents Intel's Coffee Lake lineup. The Core i5-9600K has six cores, but unlike its AMD rival, it's limited to six threads.

To help you pick one, we put the hexa-core processors from both chipmakers through a seven-round face-off, based on their features, overclockability, coolers, motherboards, performance, and value. 

Looking for something in a different price/performance range? Head over to our best CPU page. And check out our CPU Benchmarks Hierarchy to see where these processors land in comparison to higher- and lower-end parts. 

Features

The Ryzen 5 3600X is part of the Ryzen 3000-series lineup, so it inherits all of Ryzen's important attributes, like the Zen 2 microarchitecture and the 7nm FinFET process node from TSMC. The Ryzen 5 3600X combines its six-core, 12-thread configuration with a whopping 32MB L3 cache.

AMD assigns the Ryzen 5 3600X a 3.8 GHz base clock and 4.4 GHz single-core boost clock. The Ryzen 5 3600X boasts a dual-channel memory controller that supports DDR4-3200 memory modules natively, and it also exposes 16 PCIe 4.0 lanes to the user. Like other Zen 2 chips, the Ryzen 5 3600X doesn't come with integrated graphics, so you'll need to use a dedicated graphics card of some form.

The Core i5-9600K, which is based on the Coffee Lake microarchitecture, hails from Intel's 14nm manufacturing process. While it does have six cores, the Core i5-9600K doesn't come with Hyper-Threading, which limits the chip to six threads. The processor also has 9MB of L3 cache.

The Core i5-9600K checks in with a 3.7 GHz base clock and a 4.6 GHz single-core boost clock. Intel has implemented the UHD Graphics 630 iGPU inside the Core i5-9600K as well as a dual-channel memory controller with DDR4-2933 support.

Winner: AMD. The Ryzen 5 3600X comes a much more generous featureset. The hexa-core processor offers more threads, L3 cache and support for the PCIe 4.0 interface and DDR4-3200 memory sticks. It's only weak point is the absence of an iGPU, so the conversation stops there if you aren't planning on using a discrete graphics card. 

Motherboard Options

The Ryzen 5 3600X has great backward compatibility with prior AM4 motherboards. With the adequate firmware, the Ryzen 5 3600X will work on AMD 300-and 400-series motherboards. However, building a system around a pre-X570 motherboard means you lose out on PCIe 4.0 functionality. X570 motherboards, which start at $145, are the only PCIe 4.0 option at the moment until motherboard manufacturers start rolling out the budget 500-series motherboards.

The Core i5-9600K drops into the LGA1151 socket. Unlike the Ryzen 5 3600, the Core i5-9600K won't work on motherboards that aren't built around the Intel 300-series chipset. Intel offers multiple chipsets for different needs, but assuming you want to pair the Core i5-9600K with a capable enthusiast board, the starting price for Z370 and Z390 motherboards begins around $115.

If you're interested in future-proofing, investing in a LGA1151 motherboard isn't a wise decision right now. Reports point to Intel introducing the a new LGA1200 socket for upcoming Comet Lake desktop chips, so the LGA1151 socket already has one foot inside the retirement home. AMD, on the other hand, says it will support the AM4 socket until 2020, meaning we could see one more wave of processors on the socket before the chipmaker transitions to a new one.

Winner: AMD. X570 motherboards cost a little bit more than Z370 and Z390 motherboards due to support for new features, like PCIe 4.0. This won't change until more budget-friendly AMD 500-series chipsets come to market. With Intel on the brink of abandoning the LGA1151 socket, it surely isn't worth it to buy an Intel 300-series motherboard if you're interested in future-proofing.

Overclocking Potential

The Ryzen 5 3600X has a 4.4 GHz single-core boost clock and the all-core frequency is around 200 MHz to 300 MHz lower the single-core value. Based on our experiences with the Ryzen 5 3600X, you're better off letting AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) feature do its job. Overclocking all cores to a static frequency increases performance in multi-threaded workloads, but you sacrifice lightly-threaded performance.

Intel advertises the Core i5-9600K with a 4.6 GHz single-core clock. However, the hexa-core processor comes equipped with a 4.3 GHz all-core boost clock. We managed to overclock our sample to 5 GHz on all six cores with a 1.36V Vcore and auto Load-Line Calibration (LLC) settings. The overclock bumps the chip's power consumption up to 179W under heavy load.

Winner: Intel. Intel's overclocking superiority is hard to beat. If you plan to do a fair bit of overclocking, you'll have a lot of fun with the Core i5-9600K.

Cooling Solutions

The Ryzen 5 3600X and Core i5-9600K feature a 95W TDP (thermal design power). Intel measures the TDP at the base clock, so the Core i5-9600K's power draw is slightly higher. Our tests show that a stock Core i5-9600K can pull up to 119W with extreme workloads.

It shouldn't be hard to find an air or liquid CPU cooler to keep the Ryzen 5 3600X or Core i5-9600K's operating temperatures under control. If you're not overclocking, even budget CPU coolers are more than adequate. In the Ryzen 5 3600X's case, AMD includes the Wraith Spire so you don't have to spend a dime on an aftermarket CPU cooler.

Winner: AMD. The Ryzen 5 3600X has slightly lower power consumption. As a result, it's easier and cheaper to find a CPU cooler that can cool the processor. Nevertheless, the added value lies in the inclusion of the Wraith Spire CPU cooler, meaning you save a few bucks to put towards other components in your system.

Gaming Performance

We include information about our test systems at the bottom of the page.

It was a very close fight between the Ryzen 5 3600X and the Core i5-9600K in our gaming test suite. The Ryzen 5 3600X delivered more performance than the Core i5-9600K in six of the 10 games that we tested, but some of the margins were slim. That's important because we test at the FHD resolution with a leading graphics card, while most systems in this price band will come with lesser cards. Also, bumping up the resolution would push the bottleneck back to the GPU, making CPU performance less of a factor. All of this is to say that these results would be nearly identical if a graphics bottleneck comes into play.

Winner: AMD. Normally, Intel chips are better at gaming. On this occasion, the Ryzen 5 3600X turned the table on the Core i5-9600K. AMD's hexa-core chip is a surprisingly nimble gaming processor.

Productivity Performance

It wasn't a complete blowout for the Ryzen 5 3600X in the productivity tests. The Core i5-9600K managed to edge out the Ryzen chip in a few benchmarks, particularly in lightly-threaded applications. However, for the most part, the Ryzen 5 3600X beats the Core i5-9600K as a result of having twice the threads and a considerable amount of L3 cache.

The Core i5-9600K often catches the Ryzen 5 3600X when it is overclocked to 5 GHz on all its cores. On other occasions, even a 5 GHz overclock can't push the Core i5-9600K into striking range of the Ryzen 5 3600X.

Winner: AMD. If it wasn't obvious before, the Ryzen 5 3600X clearly packs more firepower than the Core i5-9600K when it comes to multi-threaded workloads. Intel does cling to its single-threaded advantage, but that isn't enough to offset the 3600X's better balance of performance in all workloads. 

Value Proposition

You can find AMD's Ryzen 3000-series processors at ridiculously good pricing. The Ryzen 5 3600X is available for as low as $200, working out to ~$33 per core. Intel has recently slashed the prices on its processors to compete with AMD, but even after those cuts, the Core i5-9600K is still more expensive. The processor starts at $219.99, which comes out to ~$37 per core.

An X570 motherboard will set you back $145 at a minimum, while a Z370 or Z390 motherboard begins at $115. Of course, you'll have to factor in the cost of a CPU cooler with the Core i5-9600K, while the Ryzen 5 3600X comes with a capable Wraith Spire cooler that even grants some overclocking headroom. 

Winner: AMD. The starting investment for both platforms is roughly the same. However, the Ryzen 5 3600X has more upside because you get access to the PCIe 4.0 feature to exploit the latest SSDs and graphics cards.

The Bottom Line

The Ryzen 5 3600X claims a one-two punch victory over the Core i5-9600K today. Obviously, it's not typical to see an AMD processor excel in both the gaming and productivity departments, but the Ryzen 5 3600X is the leader on both sides of the ball. 

The Ryzen 5 3600X's six-core, 12-thread configuration is a success for AMD. The chip not only ushers in the PCIe 4.0 standard for consumers, it's also a better gaming and productivity chip than the Core i5-9600K. The only way for the Core i5-9600K to get into the conversation is if you need integrated graphics or you're interested in the highest overclocking potential. But getting a really good sample that can overclock beyond 5 GHz requires winning the silicon lottery.

The Ryzen 5 3600X is the only chip that's worth your consideration at the $200 price point, and the bundled cooler is a nice addition. Now all we need is for motherboard vendors to bring the more wallet-friendly 500-series motherboards to market. Once that happens, the price-to-performance ratio for the Ryzen 5 3600X will get even better.

Currently the only real competition for the 3600X comes from AMD's own stable. As you can see throughout our tests, after overclocking, the Ryzen 5 3600 offers slightly more performance than the stock 3600X, but trails when overclocking. Pricing for Ryzen chips fluctuates wildly, but currently both chips retail for the same price. However, opting for a 3600 often equates to a savings if you aren't interested in that last bit of overclocking performance with the Ryzen 5 3600X, so keep that in mind at checkout. 

Overall Winner: AMD

Rounds

Test System and Configuration

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Six cores. 12 threads. And all the CPU you'll ever need. That's the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and it's available for its lowest ever price on Amazon at just $174.99. That's one hell of a deal.

Specifically, it's $24 off the 3600's normal pricing of $199. For that you get the aforementioned six cores running at a healthy baseclock of 3.6GHz and turboing up to 4.2GHz. For most computing tasks, most of the time, including a lot of games, you could chuck any amount of additional CPU power into a PC and not notice the difference, subjectively. This six-core chip with AMD's Zen 2 architecture has you covered.

Other details include a healthy 32MB of L3 cache and, of course, support for PCI Express 4.0. The latter is a feature that isn't available on any Intel CPU, at any price, and enables the highest possible speed and performance with peripherals and add-in components such as SSDs.

Specifications

What do you get?

It's also worth noting that this is the full retail proposition too, not an OEM product. So it comes boxed and complete with AMD's Wraith Stealth cooler. It's arguably not the most effective CPU cooler in the history of humanity. But it's plenty good enough for running at stock clock speeds and will help keep costs in check if you're embarking upon a full build.

Given that AMD's Ryzen processors aren't renown for their overclocking prowess, even with high end coolers, it's debatable whether you need anything better in the heat sink and fan department, in any case.

In the unlikely even that this deal doesn't do it for you, check out the rest of our CPU and PC component deals and good luck!

If you're shopping for an affordable, mid-range CPU, the AMD Ryzen 5 3600X is a great choice. This 6-core, 12-thread processor uses AMD's 7nm Zen 2 architecture and promises a boost speed of 4.4 GHz.

As part of the holiday tech deals season, the Ryzen 5 3600X has dropped down $199 again on Amazon. In our Ryzen 5 3600X review, we gave it an Editor's Choice award, but at its lowest price, the CPU's more tempting than ever. 

The Ryzen 5 3600X comes packed has a base clock speed of 3.8 GHz, but can boost up to 4.4 GHz for single-threaded workloads. There's 3MB of L2 cache and 32MB of L3 cache.

The chip is built on the 7nm fabrication process and comes with support for PCIe 4.0, which is the latest PCIe standard that even Intel’s latest HEDT chips don’t support yet.

For cooling, AMD includes a Wraith Spire cooler, albeit without RGB lighting. This is adequate for cooling the chip’s 95W TDP, but if you want to keep the unit in boost for longer you might want to invest in a beefier CPU cooler.

Intel's Core i3-9350KF marks yet another iterative update to the company's Core series, but it isn't enough. AMD has stolen the overall performance leadership crown from Intel with its Zen 2 architecture, paired with the 7nm process in its Ryzen 9 and Threadripper 3000 series, but the damage also spans down to Intel's high-volume budget offerings. In fact, Intel is often far less competitive in these mainstream segments. 

To shore up its defenses in the high-volume budget arena, Intel infused the Core i3-9350KF with its Turbo Boost 2.0 feature, marking the first time the company has offered the feature on the range of processors. But that's it. 

Intel is besieged by the strength of the Ryzen processors in price brackets that land either slightly below or above the 9350KF. AMD's competing chips offer more cores and threads and come with plenty of other advantages, like overclocking on lower-end motherboards, PCIe 4.0 on third-gen Ryzen models, and capable stock coolers that afford some overclocking headroom.

It doesn't help that Intel's ongoing 14nm production shortage, which finds low-end chips priced above their recommended levels or not available at all, have hindered the availability of the company's full-featured models that come with graphics engines. That leads us to our review of the Core i3-9350KF. This processor, as denoted by the "F" suffix, doesn't come with integrated graphics, which you sacrifice for a $25 price reduction from the full-featured model. However, we found that those savings aren't enough to offset the tremendous value of AMD's competing offerings in nearly any application. Particularly if you don't plan on bleeding-edge overclocking, frequently use threaded applications, or are on the hunt for capable integrated graphics. 

Core i3-9350KF Specifications and Pricing

The Core i5-9350KF is the graphics-less version of the Core i5-9350K that is a ghost at retail. Intel offers a $25 discount for this model, which typically is the only choice at checkout due to Intel's shortages. Intel also increased the pricing by $5 over the previous-gen Core i3-8350K. 

The quad-core 9350K/F processors come without Hyper-Threading, meaning the four threads execute on physical cores, and the "non-F" models come with the UHD Graphics 630 engine. This engine isn't very useful for most types of gaming, a situation Intel hopes to fix with its next-gen processors, but it does come in handy for troubleshooting. Most people shopping for an unlocked processor likely don't plan on using integrated graphics and instead will opt to pair the chip with a lower-end Radeon or GeForce graphics card. 

The chips feature the Coffee Lake architecture, which is yet another Skylake derivative, and yet another highly-refined version of the 14nm process (Intel hasn't divulged the "+" revision).

Intel enabled Turbo Boost 2.0 on the 9350K/F to firm up its top-end Core i3 model, but it is notable that other Coffee Lake Core i3's, like the 9100, don't come with the feature. As we can see in the table above, Intel added an extra 600 MHz to the single-core frequency, and also boosted the multi-core turbo ratios. That leads to more performance in both lightly- and multi-threaded workloads compared to the previous-gen Core i3-8350K. 

The chip also comes with 8MB of L3 cache and adheres to an Intel-defined 91W TDP. This chip is overclockable, which is the big attraction over the Core i5-9400, but you'll need a pricey Z-series motherboard to unlock the feature. You're also on the hook to provide your own cooler for the 9350K/F models, while AMD's competing chips come with capable coolers.

Unlike the Coffee Lake i9, i7, and i5 models, the Core i3 chips do not feature solder TIM that improves thermal transfer from the die to the heat spreader. Instead, these chips use polymer TIM (grease), but that isn't too much of a concern given the small die size: We didn't encounter any significant thermal limitations in our overclocking efforts. Intel also restricts official memory support to DDR4-2400, while higher-tier Coffee Lake processors support DDR4-2933. You can rectify that with the chip's unlocked multipliers, though. 

Intel also faces competition from within its own product stack. Interestingly, Intel's own Core i5-9400, which is also available as a graphics-less F-series model, is a few dollars cheaper despite its two extra cores, but you lose the ability to overclock. 

The Ryzen 5 3400G, which features AMD's 12nm process paired with the first-gen Zen architecture and eleven capable Radeon RX Vega graphics cores, not to mention four host processing cores and eight threads, lands at a cheaper price point than either 9350K/F model. The Vega graphics cores, as we'll show today, are far more capable than the UHD Graphics 630 present on the Core series models, so gaming on integrated graphics is an option with the 3400G at low resolutions and quality settings. 

Pressure from up the stack lands in the form of AMD's Ryzen 9 3600. This processor is the value chip to beat in the mainstream market, but it doesn't come with an integrated graphics engine. In either case, this chip offers more cores and threads for a $15 premium over the 9350K, and a $40 premium over the 9350KF model. You should also consider that the 3600 comes with a cooler and supports overclocking on value-conscious B-Series motherboards, which results in a very competitive overall price point. 

That means AMD has competing products for builders that plan to use a discrete graphics card, and for value-conscious builders that plan to go with integrated graphics.

Core i3-9350KF Overclocking

Overclocking was a rather straightforward affair with the 3950KF: We set CPU core voltage to 1.34V and dialed in a 5.1 GHz overclock, which is a 100MHz improvement over the previous-gen 8350K. More notably, we were also able to operate the chip at these voltages without an AVX offset. That improvement is likely borne of the more mature 14nm process. For instance, we had to dial the AVX clock rate back to 4.8 GHz for the 8350K, so it's clear our 9350KF sample, which we purchased at retail, has higher-quality silicon. You're still at the whims of the silicon lottery, though, so your mileage will vary. 

We used our Corsair H115i cooler for testing and temperatures peaked at 74C during extended AVX stress tests. Cooling performance varies, especially with the lesser-quality coolers that we anticipate most enthusiasts will use for this class of processor. 

Test Setup

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Test Notes

We list the test system particulars at the bottom of the page. All third-gen Ryzen entries with "PBO" indicate an auto-overclocked configuration with DDR4-3600 memory, while the Ryzen 5 3400G has an 4.2 GHz all-core overclock paired with DDR4-3466 memory. Intel's overclocked configurations also use DDR4-3600. 

Integrated GPU Testing

Intel didn't sample us the Core i3-9350KF, so we had to turn to retail to find a chip. And it wasn't easy. We couldn't find a GPU-infused Core i3-9350K at retail, much like we couldn't find a Core i5-9400 for sale, leading us to purchase the graphics-less models instead. 

That leaves us with a problem, though: We need to test Intel's largely nonexistent low-end processors that come with integrated graphics against the capable Ryzen 5 3400G (AMD's flagship APU) that serves as an alternative to the 9350K/F. 

The 9600K represents our lowest-end Coffee Lake processor with the UHD Graphics 630 engine, so we're subbing it in for these tests. We used the latest graphics drivers available for both processors as of the publication date. Be aware that the 9600K has access to more processing grunt power in the CPU cores than the 9350KF, which comes with a hefty price increase. That means this technically isn't a fair fight, but it doesn't really matter.  

If you're planning on a build that leverages integrated graphics for low-end gaming, the Ryzen 5 3400G is obviously the best solution. However, you'll have to accept the lower performance in applications (outlined on the following page). 

Intel's processors are a bit more adept at less demanding eSports games, but the same applies to the Ryzen 5 3400G. Also note that we aren't including overclocked results with the 3400G for this brief glimpse, but stay tuned for our full review. 

VRMark and 3DMark

Synthetic gaming benchmarks often aren't indicative of real-world performance, but the 3DMark DX11 and DX12 tests measure the amount of raw computational horsepower exposed to the game engine. For now, most of today's game engines don't scale as linearly with additional compute resources, but these tests help us gauge how games could exploit processing resources as the engines become more sophisticated.

The Ryzen 3600-series models exploit their heftier allotment of threads to take easy wins in the DX11 and DX12 tests, even outstripping Intel's Core i5-9600K with its six threads backed by physical cores. It's no surprise, then, to see the 9350KF suffer at the hands of its quad-core quad-thread design as the less-expensive Ryzen 5 3400G matches it at stock settings in the DX12 tests and beats it handily at both stock and overclocked settings in the DX11 test.  Meanwhile, the Core i5-9400F, Intel's similarly-priced chip that comes with two additional cores, also beats the 9350K convincingly in these heavily-threaded tests. 

The 9350KF redeems itself in the VRMark test, which prizes per-core performance (a mixture of frequency and IPC). We see that the 9350KF outpaces its predecessor, the 8350K, at stock settings by a large margin due to the addition of its 4.6 GHz boost clock. 

Civilization VI AI and Stockfish

Civilization VI prizes per-core performance, so it isn't surprising to see the Intel chips take the lead in this test of AI engine performance in a turn-based strategy game. The stock Ryzen 5 3600X is very competitive, however, with the Core i3-9350KF. 

Stockfish, an open-source chess engine, is designed to extract the utmost performance from many-core chips by scaling well up to 512 cores. That scalability plays well to AMD's threaded heft as the 7nm Ryzen 5 3600X and 3600 take a massive lead over the Core processors. The 12nm Ryzen 5 3400G also proves competitive with its four cores and eight threads. 

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation loves cores and threads, but clock rates obviously play a role. The 9350KF is surprisingly agile after tuning, nearly matching the six-core -9600K. We also see a notable gain over the previous-gen 8350K, and the stock 9350KF leads the Ryzen 5 3400G. However, overclocking pushes the Ryzen 5 3400G to a tie with the 9350KF. 

Civilization VI Graphics Test

Civilization VI is known for its preference for high clock rates, and here we can see the overclocked 9350KF profit with a commanding lead over the rest of the test pool, but its notable that the 9600K would pull ahead after similar tuning efforts. The Ryzen 5 3600 beats the 9350KF at stock settings, and tuning brings it within competitive range. The small delta between the tuned chips won't be noticeable to most gamers at the FHD resolution. 

We do see another big gen-on-gen performance bump for the 9350KF, and the Ryzen 5 3400G, which uses the first-gen Zen architecture and the 14nm process, lags the rest of the pool. 

Dawn of War III

The Warhammer 40,000 benchmark responds well to threading, but it's clear that Intel's clock speed advantage has an impact. The 9350KF's Turbo Boost feature pays off in this title as the chip registers another big generational performance gain, even beating the six-core 9400F at stock settings. Tuning gives it the lead in these tests, but the Ryzen 5 3600 is again impressive after tuning. 

Far Cry 5 

The now-familiar pattern emerges of the 9350KF taking the overall lead after tuning. You'll notice the black spikes in the frame time over benchmark run, which come as a result of some variability from the 9400F during the test. These scattered periods of variability don't impact our 99th percentile measurements in the bar chart, but manifest as lower performance in 99.99th percentile of frames (the final chart of the series). This manifested as visible stutters during game play. 

Final Fantasy XV

We run this test with the standard quality preset to sidestep the impact of a bug that causes the game engine to render off-screen objects with the higher-resolution setting. The second-gen Ryzen 5 processors don't take the absolute lead in this test, but the real-world differences are slight. 

Hitman 2

The Ryzen processors are more competitive during the Hitman 2 benchmark as the Ryzen 5 3600 and 3600X unseat the Core i3-9350KF to take the top of the chart. Both chips easily outpace the 9350KF in stock trim, too. 

Project Cars 2

Although Project CARS 2 is purportedly optimized for threading, clock rates obviously affect this title's frame rates. Intel's per-core performance advantage in this title pays big dividends, particularly after tuning. 

World of Tanks enCore

The World of Tanks benchmark doesn't hold any surprises, with performance trending within our expectations. 

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Rendering

Heavily-threaded rendering applications remain Ryzen's stomping ground due to the hefty allotment of threads and cores that easily outstrip Intel's Core i3-9350KF. AMD's first-gen Zen architecture (3400G) often leads the 9350KF in threaded tests, while the third-gen Ryzen 5 3600X and 3600 models take convincing wins. That picture changes when we switch to single-threaded rendering tests, with the Core i3-9350KF taking the lead by virtue of its higher clock rates. 

Encoding

The Intel/Netflix-designed SVT-AV1 video encoder leverages Ryzen's threaded horsepower to great effect, giving the third-gen Ryzen processors a commanding lead, but the Ryzen 5 3400G doesn't fare as well in this series of tests. Flipping through to the single-threaded LAME encoder results reveal that Intel still holds the advantage with encoders that prize per-core performance. Given the emergence of threaded encoders, that victory is a bit shallow. 

AMD has made tremendous progress with its AVX processing performance in threaded workloads, which is evident in the HandBrake tests in both x264 and x265 flavors. The x265 test uses a heavier distribution of AVX instructions, and we can see the massive difference between the Zen 2 Ryzen 5 3600/X and the Ryzen 5 3400G that comes with the first-gen Zen architecture. 

Web Browser

Browsers tend to be impacted more by the recent security mitigations than other types of applications, so Intel has generally taken a haircut in these benchmarks of fully-patched systems, though that handicap doesn't stop Intel from sweeping the competition. 

The ARES-6 web browser benchmark focuses on forward neural networks used for machine learning tasks, along with overall browser responsiveness. The Ryzen 5 3400G suffers during this test as it falls to the bottom of the char, but the Ryzen 5 3600/X models grapple with Intel's stock Core i3-9350K. Tuning the Intel processor affords it the pole position as it barely edges its previous-gen counterpart our for the lead.

Office and Productivity

Microsoft's office suite runs via PCMark 10's new application test. This benchmark tests with real Microsoft Office applications. The Ryzen 3000 series processors are competitive, but the Core i5-9350KF takes the overall win after tuning. Much of that strength stems from its higher clock rate, but the third-gen Ryzen models nearly match the 9350KF at stock settings. 

The application start-up metric measures load time snappiness in word processors, GIMP, and Web browsers. Other platform-level considerations affect this test as well, including the storage subsystem. The Core processors trail at stock settings, but take a big lead after overclocking. Adding a PCIe 4.0 SSD to our Ryzen test system would swing this benchmark in favor of the Ryzen 3000-series processors. 

Flipping over to the heavily-threaded Timed LLVM compilation test finds the Ryzen processors back in a workload that can leverage their threaded heft, granting them a large win over the Intel competitors. The Ryzen 5 3400G isn't nearly as agile as its counterparts in this test, but it still challenges the stock Core i3-9350KF. 

Compression, Decompression, Encryption, AVX

The 7zip and Zlib compression/decompression benchmarks rely heavily upon threading and work directly from system memory, thus avoiding the traditional storage bottleneck in these types of tasks. Ryzen dominates these tests without storage throughput restrictions, but you also have access to the PCIe 4.0 interface with AMD's X570 platform. That extra throughput means these tremendous gains will largely transfer over to real-world application performance when you pair the Ryzen chips with a speedy PCIe 4.0 SSD.  

The heavily-threaded y-cruncher benchmark, which computes pi using the taxing AVX instruction set, finds the third-gen Ryzen processors offering a massive performance improvement over the Core i3-9350KF, partly due to their extra threads and AMD's AVX improvements. 

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Intel's textbook incrementalism with its 14nm process and Skylake architecture, which involves slowly adding features with each generation as opposed to radical new improvements that stem from new process technology or architectures, has served as the company's only respite to fight off AMD's Ryzen assault.

That approach helped slow AMD's advance with the first- and second-gen Ryzen models, but Intel's addition of Turbo Boost 2.0 to the Core i3-9350KF doesn't offer enough tangible gains to offset the advantages of third-gen Ryzen's access to the PCIe 4.0 interface, overclocking on B-series motherboards, and bundled coolers. The Core i3-9350K also simply can't compete with the Ryzen 5 3400G's integrated Radeon Vega graphics engine, though it is noteworthy that the 3400G's first-gen Zen architecture isn't as competitive in most of our application benchmark suite.  

The picture is a bit different when we test with a discrete graphics card, however. In the chart below, we plot gaming performance using average frame rates and a geometric mean of the 99th percentile frame times (a good indicator of smoothness), which we then convert into a frame-per-second measurement. Bear in mind that we tested with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 2080 Ti at 1920x1080 to alleviate graphics-imposed bottlenecks. Differences between our test subjects would shrink at higher resolutions.

The Core i3-9350KF is undoubtedly the fastest processor in this range when paired with a high-end graphics card, but we fully expect enthusiasts to use low- and mid-range video cards that will result in smaller deltas than we've recorded. 

The stock Core i3-9350KF is much faster than its previous-gen counterpart at stock settings, which Intel likely uses to justify the $5 price increase, and it offers a slightly higher overclock ceiling that results in a tangible performance boost in games. However, in average frame rates, the Ryzen 5 3600 is 4% faster at stock settings and only trails by ~3% after tuning. As expected, those deltas shrink to the imperceptible range in our 99th percentile frame measurements. Given AMD's support for overclocking on B-series motherboards, the 3600's bundled cooler, and access to the PCIe 4.0 interface if you step up to X570 platform, the 3600's relatively small $15 premium is well worth the extra cash. Even the KF models' $25 discount, which you definitely won't find in full at retail, isn't enough to justify choosing the 9350KF over the Ryzen 5 3600. 

The Ryzen 5 3400G isn't as competitive when paired with a discrete graphics card, but its leading integrated graphics performance is undisputed. If you're looking to game on integrated graphics at lowered resolutions and quality settings at a very friendly price point, the Ryzen 5 3400G is effectively the only realistic option in this price range. It's noteworthy that we only tested that processor at stock settings for today's review, but we're pushing the graphics engine and execution cores to their fullest for our upcoming review. Stay tuned. 

Ryzen's dominance means the Intel Core i3-9350K/F only appeals to a small slice of the available user base. If we've said it once, we've said it a million times: Intel needs to open up overclocking, even if only in limited fashion, on B-series motherboards to maintain at least a modicum of platform price competitiveness. 

The Core i3-9350KF does excel at single-threaded work, largely due to Intel's new addition of the Turbo Boost 2.0 feature, but those gains aren't large enough to ignore Ryzen's overwhelming advantage in basically everything else, like productivity applications or in multi-tasking environments. The difference there is well worth every penny. 

Overall, the Core i3-9350KF just doesn't offer enough of an advantage, even in gaming, to garner our recommendation at its price point. Not to mention that these processors have been subject to price gouging due to persistent shortages. You're better served by spending slightly more on a Ryzen 5 3600 and enjoying a lower overall platform cost and more performance in the majority of workloads, or stepping down a tier to the Ryzen 5 3400G if you're looking for a competent budget build. Intel's own Core i5-9400 is better suited for most users than the 9350KF, but it also falls before the Ryzen 5 3600, leaving the low-end and mainstream segments firmly in AMD's control. 

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Stealing The Crown

AMD's new Ryzen 3000 series processors set a new pricing and performance bar for halo parts, but most enthusiasts and gamers buy processors in the $200 to $300 price range. Intel dominated this segment for years, but AMD's Ryzen processors have made inroads with the company's typical advantage of more cores and threads for less money. Pair that with less-expensive motherboards, bundled coolers, and unrestricted overclocking for all Ryzen 5 models, and AMD offers a compelling alternative with its previous-gen parts. 

But what if AMD wasn't the value alternative, instead being the performance leader? The third-gen Ryzen 5 processors certainly have the right mix of features to accomplish that goal. These processors come with the same six cores and twelve threads as their predecessors, but AMD boosts performance with a new 7nm process and the Zen 2 microarchitecture that brings big speedups to all types of applications that span from gaming to productivity work. Not to mention the new PCIe 4.0 interface that offers twice the I/O throughput of the PCIe 3.0 standard that Intel uses for its chips.

The new level of performance now comes with a more expensive overall price tag, though. The previous-gen Ryzen 5 2600X undercut the competing Core i5-8600K by ~$30, while the new 3600X lands $13 beneath its new competitor, the Core i5-9600K. New X570 motherboards, which you'll need for official support for the PCIe 4.0 interface, are also more expensive than previous-gen models, so AMD's overall platform costs have also risen. Luckily, you can opt for an older X470 motherboard as a value alternative, but you'll lose access to PCIe 4.0, which is one of the key selling points of the new processors.

But while AMD is coming closer to charging premium pricing for its parts, it's logical to expect to pay more for faster chips. AMD undoubtedly holds the crown for performance in multi-threaded workloads, like productivity applications, as a side benefit of supporting multi-threading in this price range while Intel disables the feature. But the Ryzen chips have historically lagged Intel in gaming. That changes with the Ryzen 5 3600X, which upset the Core i5-9600K in our testing. Pair that performance advantage with leading performance in threaded applications, and the 3600X is one of the best gaming CPUs you can buy, a new leading chip for the mainstream.

Ryzen 5 3600X

Like the other Ryzen 3000 chips, the six-core 12-thread Ryzen 5 3600X comes with a 7nm compute die (with two disabled physical cores) paired with a 12nm I/O die. These two components come together into a single package that adheres to a 95W TDP ceiling, while the lesser Ryzen 5 3600, which has the same complement of features (but lower clocks), comes with a 65W rating. As we've seen with AMD's non-X models in the past, the X-branded models come with premiums that often aren't in line with the small performance difference between the two models. That means the Ryzen 5 3600 may be more attractive for value seekers, at $199.

The Ryzen 5 3600X does have higher clock speeds with its 3.8 GHz base and 4.4 GHz Precision Boost 2 frequencies, an advantage of 200 MHz in both measurements over the previous-gen 2600X and the Ryzen 5 3600 model. Those frequencies lag Intel's Core i5-9600K, which weighs in with a 3.7 GHz base and 4.6 GHz boost. But AMD's drastic improvement to its instruction per cycle (IPC) throughput evens the score in many types of applications. Not to mention the six additional threads.

Intel's Core i5-9500 weighs in at a lower price point, but it's drastically pared back clock frequencies and price make it a more natural competitor with AMD's Ryzen 5 3600.

The Ryzen 5 3600X comes with a healthy 32MB of total L3 cache, a neat doubling of capacity over its predecessor and more than three times the cache of the -9600K. That does come with a few caveats, however, as cache performance and efficiency has a big impact on how much cache capacity benefits the processor in typical applications. As usual, our benchmarks will tell the tale.

Ryzen 3000 chips officially support dual-channel DDR4-3200, a step up from the previous-gen's support for DDR4-2966. AMD has greatly improved its memory compatibility and overclocking capabilities, but you still have to abide by rules that dictate the maximum supported frequency based on DIMM type and slot population.

You can overclock your memory, either by hand-tuning or one-click A-XMP profiles with pricier kits, to skirt those rules. The Zen microarchitecture responds well to improved memory performance, so higher-priced kits are a good investment that pays off.

AMD also has its Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) feature on offer, which is an automated overclocking tool that will tune your processor to its maximum achievable performance based on its cooling, motherboard, and power delivery accommodations. The quality of your cooling solution has a big impact on how well PBO can auto-tune your processor, and the Ryzen 5 3600X comes with a bundled the Wraith Spire cooler. While beefier coolers can help improve the amount of extra kick you get from tuning, the Wraith Spire should provide plenty of headroom, as we'll show throughout our entire test suite.

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Overclocking and Test Setup

AMD's Ryzen 3000 processors have drastically improved single-threaded performance, but you'll lose that benefit if you choose to overclock the Ryzen 3000-series processors manually. This unfortunate side effect comes because the chips can't be manually overclocked on all cores to reach the same frequency as the single-core boost frequency. In fact, we often find the all-core overclock ceiling to be 200 to 300 MHz lower than the rated boost speeds (which we did see activate frequently on our Ryzen 5 3600X sample).

We've tested several of the Ryzen 7 processors and the Ryzen 9 3900X in manually-overclocked configurations throughout our entire suite of benchmarks, and the results are predictable: You gain some extra threaded performance over automatic overclocking with PBO, but lose too much performance in lightly-threaded apps to make it worthwhile. In other words, outside of a few edge cases, like systems that will only do heavily-threaded work, manual overclocking simply isn't worth your time -- or the egregious power consumption it requires for relatively small performance gains.

So we're sticking with AMD's PBO feature for this round of testing. As we've seen, these algorithms provide a speedup that improves threaded performance while also leaving the single-core boost frequency intact. The feature also keeps the Ryzen processor in its power-to-performance sweet spot, which means that it doesn't require too much additional power consumption or cooling. Unfortunately, the gains via PBO are slight, so you definitely shouldn't expect miracles, but they are worthwhile if you have sufficient cooling. However, given the relatively small performance boosts, we think you could get most of the PBO feature with the stock cooler, which we'll put to the test today.

AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) is an adaptive overclocking approach that allows the processor to communicate with the platform to modulate performance based on the motherboard's power delivery subsystem and thermal dissipation capabilities. The processor monitors Package Power Tracking (PPT), which is total socket power, and the Thermal Design Current (TDC) variable, which is the motherboard's maximum available sustained current. Electrical Design Current (EDC) also indicates the maximum current possible from the VRMs during peak/transient conditions.

AMD enables two options for PBO: IPM is AMD's default PBO setting, which is activated if you leave the PBO setting to 'Auto' in the Godlike's UEFI. But you can select 'Enabled' to activate a profile that's dictated by the maximum limits of the motherboard's power delivery subsystem. These limits vary by motherboard and are defined by the vendor. We chose the latter to unlock the full potential of PBO. This setting kicks the socket's maximum power delivery up to 1000W to offer the best of increased multi-core boost clocks while retaining the high single-core boost clocks.

You can also further tune the power delivery options with an Auto OC (AOC) feature. This new feature grants you some control over the maximum attainable boost clocks by allowing you to add up to an extra 200MHz to the maximum boost clock, but it isn't guaranteed that the processor will reach those speeds at all times, or under all conditions. Instead, the processor will still respect the limits imposed by the motherboard maker.

Unfortunately, we've found that the PBO+AOC feature often comes at the expense of performance in single-threaded workloads even though it is billed as retaining, and even heightening, single-core boost clocks. From a performance and power consumption standpoint, it is more comparable to an all-core overclock. We chose to go with the limits of the motherboard, noted on the charts as PBO.

Security Mitigations

The new AMD-optimized Windows scheduler is only present in Windows 10 1903 and promises to expose gains in several types of applications. As such, we updated our test image to the latest version of Windows 10 available (18362.207). All of our test results come from the aforementioned operating system and include all publicly available security mitigations and the latest motherboard firmware revisions. Intel is currently impacted by Spectre, Spectre v4, Meltdown, Foreshadow, Spectre v3a, Lazy FPU, Spoiler, and MDS, while AMD is only impacted by Spectre and Spectre v4. AMD has added hardware-based mitigations for both variants of Spectre, which should reduce the performance impact, but the requisite patches for both companies have performance penalties, which are reflected here in our testing.

A Note on Multi-Core Enhancement (MCE)

Intel's motherboard partners have infused their boards with predefined all-core boost profiles that go by many names, such as Multi-Core Enhancement (MCE) with ASUS motherboards and Enhanced Turbo with our MSI motherboard. These features are largely referred to as MCE, but the functionality remains the same: These settings essentially apply an all-core overclock to the processor that is defined by the maximum Turbo Boost bin supported by the processor. This setting modifies the CPU's clock rate and voltage to deliver higher performance, which is basically factory-sanctioned overclocking.

MSI turns this on by default in its BIOS, similar to most of its competition. Performance, power consumption, and heat are all affected, naturally. We manually disable this feature for our stock CPU testing to best reflect Intel's specifications. 

Phoronix Benchmark

We added in several new tests from Phornix's open-source benchmark suite. While this suite is heavily focused on Linux test environments, the benchmark utility does have several powerful testing options for Windows systems, along with Apple OS X, GNU Hurd, Solaris, and BSD operating systems. The test also outputs deviation metrics that help ensure accuracy in our test results.

We're integrating key tests, like GIMP productivity, web browser benchmarks, SVT-AV1 encoding, NAMD, and a build-llvm compile-time test.

MSI MEG X570 Godlike

We're using MSI's MEG X570 Godlike as our test platform for the second- and third-gen AMD processors. Due to the compatibility matrix for the AM4 socket, we stepped back to the MSI X470 Gaming M7 AC for the Ryzen 7 1800X.

The pricey Godlike board retails for around $800, but has the 14+4+1-phase power delivery subsystem to support aggressive overclocking.

The MEG X570 Godlike sits at the top of MSI's X570 motherboard hierarchy. It also comes with a few nifty accessories like a 10Gb “Super LAN” Ethernet card and a PCIe Gen 4 Xpander-Z M.2 expansion card. That lets you add two more M.2 drives to complement the three M.2 PCIe Gen 4 M.2 ports on the board. You also get four PCIe 4.0 x16 slots, an RGB Mystic Light Infinity II mirror over the IO shroud, and a tiny OLED screen, alongside the two-digit LCD display for error codes.

Comparison Products

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Power Consumption

Power consumption measurements are always a bit tricky. But as long as your 12V supply (EPS) readings, motherboard power supply sensor values, and voltage transformer losses plausibly coincide, everything is fine. Therefore, we're using pure package power to avoid possible influences from our motherboard. Results from the PWM controller are very reliable if you take them as averages over a few minutes.

We began with the non-AVX stress test in AIDA64 and found that the Ryzen 7 3600X draws the least power in its class -- and that even applies after overclocking. With PBO active and the Corsair H115i cooler, the chip only drew 76W.

The y-cruncher benchmark computes pi using a heavy multi-threaded AVX workload and also generates a performance measurement that we can use for efficiency metrics. We're also adding in HandBrake in x264 and x265 flavors. The latter uses a heavier distribution of AVX instructions than the former, but both transcoders are great for stressing the processor with a real-world workload.

The small increases in the 3600X's power consumption from overclocking equate to relatively minor performance improvements. It appears that, for stock operation, AMD has tuned the processors right at the knee of the voltage/frequency curve where the chip provides the maximum frequency possible and great efficiency. This PBO configuration also seems to retain some of those same characteristics, but that doesn't leave much headroom for explosive performance gains.

The six-core Ryzen 5 3600X is basically an eight-core Ryzen 7 3700X, but with two cores disabled. That leads to surprisingly similar power consumption measurements during our x265 and y-cruncher tests. 

We tested with both the stock cooler and the Corsair H115i to see how much extra cooling impacts the maximum performance the auto-overclocking algorithms can extract from the processor, and how that impacts power consumption. According to our measurements, the bundled Wraith Spire cooler dissipates enough thermal load to achieve the maximum amount of available performance in these applications. We did see some deltas sprinkled throughout the rest of our tests, but there is little doubt that beefier cooling solutions don't do much to unlock more performance from the Ryzen 5 3600X. 

Plotting power consumption over our performance measurements shows that the Ryzen 5 3600X is an incredibly efficient processor, giving a solid level of performance at impressively low power consumption. That low power consumption isn't all about your electricity bill, either; it also equates to a lower bar for your cooling solution. In this case, the bundled cooler is enough to get great performance while maintaining impressive power efficiency.

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Test Notes

Test results annotated with "PBO" reflect performance with AMD's auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive feature activated. As noted in the charts, we tested the overclocked Ryzen 5 3600X with two cooling solutions, the Corsair H115i watercooler and the bundled Wraith Spire cooler. We did not include overclocked results for the Ryzen 7 3700X, as those are largely identical to the overclocked 3800X.

VRMark, 3DMark

We aren't big fans of using synthetic benchmarks to measure performance, but 3DMark's DX11 and DX12 CPU tests provide useful insight into the amount of horsepower available to game engines.

The DX11 and DX12 CPU test results expose the full threaded heft of the Ryzen 3000 series processors, so there are few surprises here. The Ryzen 5 3600X offers enough compute power in threaded workloads to unseat even the impressive overclocked Core i5-9600K. If games were coded to lean more on the threaded horsepower of the processor, it would equate to more performance in gaming. Unfortunately, that isn't always the case.

Adding a beefier cooler, in this case, the Corsair H115i, allows the auto-overclocking algorithms to expose an additional 1.47% and 0.5% of performance in the DX12 and DX11 tests, respectively. For most enthusiasts, that likely isn't worth the additional $140.

The VRMark test benefits heavily from per-core performance, and the Ryzen 3000 processors have made great strides compared to the first- and second-gen models. The Ryzen 5 3600X offers 50% more performance than the first-gen Ryzen 5 1600X, and ~29% more performance than the second-gen Ryzen 5 2600X. The beefier Corsair cooler extracts less than a single percentage point of extra performance. 

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation is a computationally intense title that scales well with thread count, but clock speeds and per-core performance play a big role. The 3600X lags the overclocked Core i5-9600K by a mere 1.3 FPS, but kicking in the automated overclocking feature allows it to take the lead.

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Civilization VI AI, Stockfish Test

The Ryzen 5 3600X shows impressive gains over the previous-gen models in Civilization VI's AI performance test. This test is highly dependent on per-core performance, and AMD has made impressive steps forward compared to the stock Intel processors in the competing price ranges. However, Intel still holds the overclocking advantage, so it takes the uncontested lead after tuning.

We've added Stockfish, an open-source chess engine, to our test suite. This chess engine is the perennial world leader in computer chess competitions, beating other engines like Goggle's Deepmind AlphaZero engine. The engine is designed to extract the utmost performance from many-core chips, so it scales well up to 512 cores. As we can see, that equates to a big win over the Core i5-9600K as the engine unleashes the power of Ryzen 5's six extra threads. 

Civilization VI Graphics Test

Here we see what will become a familiar trend in many game titles: The 3600X either matches or beats the Core i5-9600K at stock settings, but tuning hands the Core processors the lead. Precision Boost Overdrive gives us an extra 3.2 FPS when paired with the Wraith Spire cooler, but stepping up to a beefier cooler doesn't provide much more uplift.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III

The Warhammer 40,000 benchmark responds well to threading, so the Ryzen 5 3600X takes the lead at stock settings.

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Far Cry 5

The Ryzen 5 3600X lags the Intel processors in this title, but overclocking shrinks the gap with the -9600K tremendously. That said, overclocking the -9600K propels it to 142.9 FPS.

You'll notice that the PBO configuration with the Wraith Spire cooler takes a slim lead over the Corsair-equipped setup, but the 0.3 FPS margin lands within expected variance for this title.

Final Fantasy XV

We run this test with the standard quality preset to sidestep the impact of a bug that causes the game engine to render off-screen objects. This title scales well with additional cores and threads, but tuning grants minimal uplift for the Ryzen 5 3600X.

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Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V favors Intel architectures and, more generally, multi-core designs with high clock rates. Ryzen 5 3600X lags the -9600K by a few FPS at stock settings, and again we see that improved cooling does little to improve performance – both setups land within the expected variance for this benchmark.

Hitman 2

Hitman 2 finds the 3600X again beating the stock -9600K, but Intel's overclocking advantage opens up a big lead. The 3600X gains 3.3 frames with the Wraith Spire cooler and overclocking, while the Corsair cooler extracts another 1.1 FPS. 

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Project CARS 2

Although Project CARS 2 is purportedly optimized for threading, clock rates obviously affect this title's frame rates. Intel's per-core performance, which is a mixture of IPC and frequency, pays big dividends in this title.

The Division 2

The two overclocked Ryzen 5 3600X configurations offer nearly the same amount of performance, again highlighting that additional cooling might not be worth the additional investment.

World of Tanks enCore

We can add Worlds of Tanks to the list of titles that respond extremely well to overclocking Intel's chips. We also see gains with the overclocked 3600X, but they aren't nearly as explosive.

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Web Browser

Browsers tend to be impacted more by the recent security mitigations than other types of applications, so Intel has taken a haircut in these benchmarks of fully-patched systems.

The ARES-6 web browser benchmark makes its debut in our lineup due to its focus on the latest and greatest JavaScript features, with a heavy focus on forward neural networks used for machine learning tasks, and browser responsiveness. The 3600X offers an amazing performance boost over both the first- and second-gen Ryzen models, highlighting AMD's diligent work on improving IPC. Intel's processors continue to wield the company's frequency advantage, which equates to higher per-core performance, to great effect as they lead by substantial margins.

Speedometer 2 and Jetstream 2 tell a similar story. While AMD's processors are fast enough to deliver a great user experience, the Intel processors still hold the lead. However, the Ryzen 5 3600X is competitive with the stock -9600K in several of the tests, and carves out a slight lead in WebXPRT 3.

You'll notice that overclocking the Ryzen processors doesn't yield any improvement. That's because the processor is still limited to its 4.4 GHz maximum boost speed during these lightly-threaded tasks.

Microsoft Office

The Microsoft Office suite of benchmarks runs via PCMark 10's new application test. This benchmark tests with real Microsoft Office applications, and we can see that the Ryzen 3000 series processors are very competitive in Excel, the Edge browser, and Word.

We see some gains via overclocking the Ryzen 5 3600X, but they aren't as pronounced in the Office suite. Again, the beefier cooler offers little additional performance uplift.

Productivity

The LLVM compiler benefits from extra threads, handing the 3600X an easy lead over the -9600K, even after we overclock the Intel silicon. The 3600X even grapples with the 12-threaded -9700K in this test. The flagship Ryzen 9 3900X offers the best performance by far, easily beating the rest of the test pool, even at stock settings.

The application start-up metric measures load time snappiness in word processors, GIMP, and Web browsers under warm- and cold-start conditions. Other platform-level considerations affect this test as well, including the storage subsystem. The Core i5-9600K takes a relatively slim lead over the 3600X, but adding a PCIe 4.0 SSD to our Ryzen test system swings this benchmark in favor of the Ryzen 3000-series processors.

Our video conferencing suite measures performance in single- and multi-user applications that utilize the Windows Media Foundation for playback and encoding. It also performs facial detection to model real-world usage.

The photo editing benchmark measures performance with Futuremark's binaries using the ImageMagick library. Common photo processing workloads also tend to be parallelized, which plays well to Ryzen's multi-threaded heft. It isn't surprising, then, to find the 3600X taking the lead over the stock -9600K.

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Rendering

As we can see throughout this series of tests, AMD's Ryzen processors undoubtedly sit atop the multi-threaded benchmark throne. The six-core -9600K, which lacks Hyper-Threading, is out of its element in these tasks. Meanwhile, the 12-threaded Ryzen 5 3600X dominates in these types of workloads with convincing wins across the board. Intel's overclocking advantage is a boon for gamers, but it isn't enough to level the playing field in threaded rendering tests: Cranking away at 5.0 GHz, the Core i5-9600K lags the stock 3600X in nearly every multi-threaded test. 

Encoding

The SVT-AV1 encoder is an Intel- and Netflix-designed software video encoder that became available earlier this year. This new encoder is more scalable than other encoders, thus offering faster encoding times paired with efficient compression. While it may seem counter-intuitive to use an Intel-designed encoder for testing AMD processors, consider that most encoders are inherently reliant upon per-core performance, which is a strength of Intel, while SVT-AV1 exposes the power of threading, a strength of Ryzen. Here we can see AMD's Ryzen 5 3600X going toe-to-toe with the stock -9600K.

Our LAME and FLAC tests, like many encoders, rely heavily upon per-core performance. That means Intel's frequency advantage comes into play, allowing the -9600K to take the lead. The -9600K's advantage at stock settings is slight, but overclocking propels the -9600K into the upper echelons of the chart.

Intel processors traditionally leverage high frequencies to dominate the HandBrake x265 test, which relies heavily on AVX instructions, and the H.264 test. But Intel's higher clock speed isn't too much of an advantage in these tests when the similarly-priced competition has twice the number of threads, so the Ryzen 5 3600X carves out nice leads in both x265 and x264 encoding.

Compression, Decompression, Encryption, AVX

Our threaded compression and decompression 7-Zip and ZLib tests work directly from system memory, removing storage throughput from the equation. The combination of Ryzen 5 3600X's improved memory subsystem and generous helping of cores helps it take an easy lead over the -9600K.

We can also see the vast improvement in Ryzen's AVX performance in the y-cruncher tests: We would never have imagined such a massive generational leap, particularly in single-threaded performance. The work AMD has done here, along with the substantially larger caches that can feed the demanding AVX instructions, is truly impressive and benefits a wide range of applications.

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Conclusion

Out of the box, the Ryzen 5 3600X is the best processor in its price range for gaming and productivity, marking a massive shift in the mid-range. At stock settings, the Ryzen 5 3600X regularly beat the more expensive Core i5-9600K in both categories, albeit by slim margins in gaming, reversing the long-held trend of Ryzen being best for productivity while Intel ruled the gaming roost. If you're into overclocking, the Intel processors are going to deliver more performance, but the majority of enthusiasts looking for a set-it-and-forget-it processor will find incredible value in the Ryzen 5 3600X.

In the chart below, we plot gaming performance with both average frame rates and a geometric mean of the 99^th percentile frame times (a good indicator of smoothness). It's worth noting that AMD's previous-gen line-up is heavily discounted, so we’re departing from our standard practice of using official price lists. Instead, we’re using average pricing found online (temporary sales excluded). Volatility applies.

After a few years of staring at gaming value charts that always show Intel in the leadership position, it jumps right off the page that the stock Ryzen 5 3600X topples the Intel Core i5-9600K. The difference is slight in average framerates, a mere 1.1 FPS, but widens to 2.5 FPS in 99th percentile metrics, indicating the 3600X also offers a smoother gaming experience. While these deltas are small and likely imperceptible to casual users, especially when these chips are paired with mid-range graphics cards or higher-resolutions, there's no understating the impact. Intel does take the uncontested lead after overclocking, so overclocking enthusiasts will still flock to those processors for the ultimate gaming performance, but the Ryzen 5 3600X is the new king of the mid-range for the majority of gamers.

The -9600K can't compete with the 3600X in many threaded applications, like rendering, even after overclocking. Pairing the 3600X's slightly better gaming performance with its overwhelming advantage in threaded productivity apps seals the deal.

But there are two elephants in the room. Firstly, not all Ryzen models are hitting their rated boost clock rates. This boils down to several factors, including motherboard firmwares that will hopefully improve, and how enthusiasts measure clock rates. We measured clock rates at a 100ms granularity and found that, unlike what we've seen with the Ryzen 9 3900X, the Ryzen 5 3600X does achieve its rated clock speeds. There are a few caveats associated with that, which we'll dive into deeper in a follow-up piece. 

Overclocking performance is also another concern for enthusiasts. The previous-gen Ryzen models were never known for their overclocking prowess, but more often than not, you could eke out some decent performance gains via manual tuning. Outside of a few edge use-cases, those days are over. Now it's best to stick with AMD's automated PBO overclocking feature, and you shouldn't expect massive gains. It seems that AMD is extracting the best performance it can from the 7nm process at stock clocks, so there is precious little overhead left to exploit. Intel does offer higher overclocking capability, and that will continue to be attractive to enthusiasts chasing that last frame per second in their favorite titles.

AMD's PBO does give some slight performance gains, and the company says that better cooling can extract better performance. We found that to be true, but the bundled (i.e., 'free') Wraith Spire cooler offers the lion's share of the benefits of PBO, and with no additional investments. As you can see in the gaming performance charts above, a beefy $140 liquid cooler with dual 140mm fans cranking away at full speed extracted an additional 0.8 FPS in average gaming performance and 0.2 FPS in 99th percentile measurements. The beefier cooler did give us slightly larger gains in some heavily-threaded applications, but the basic rule still holds: The Wraith Spire will give you 90-95% of the performance of PBO with no additional investment. There are other reasons to go with a better cooler, such as aesthetics or acoustics. However, if your sole objective is to extract more performance, that money is best spent on other additives, like a better GPU or a new PCIe 4.0 SSD.

The ability to even use a PCIe 4.0 device at its full performance is an advantage that Intel simply can't match. Unfortunately, the faster interface does result in higher-priced X570 motherboards, but AMD's continued support for the X470 motherboard ecosystem could help blunt the blow. Motherboard partners continue to offer X470 motherboards, and they are cheap and plentiful. You'll lose access to the PCIe 4.0 interface in exchange for lower pricing, at least officially, but you'll also have a compelling upgrade path in the future.

Our only hesitation with recommending the 3600X comes from competition within AMD's own stable. After overclocking, AMD's non-X models, like the Ryzen 5 3600, often offer the same level of performance as their more-expensive counterparts. That means the 3600 looks like a great chip (from afar) that will offer similar performance at a $50 savings. We'll have that part in for testing soon.

With all of Ryzen 5 3600X's advantages, aside from higher overclocking ceilings or integrated graphics, there are very few reasons to buy a competing Intel processor in this price range. The Ryzen 5 3600X has stolen the mid-range crown from Intel.

Image Credits: Tom's Hardware

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Are you ready to upgrade your old gaming rig? Newegg has this awesome Ryzen 5 3600X and Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 bundle for $559.89, which saves you up to $40 as opposed to buying each part individually.

• Get the Ryzen 5 3600X and Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 bundle for $559.89.

The Ryzen 5 3600X is part of AMD's Zen 2 army that recently invaded the processor market. The processor has formidable attributes that include six cores, 12 threads and up to 32MB of L3 cache. The chip runs with a 3.8 GHz base clock and 4.4 GHz boost clock. The Ryzen 5 3600X supports DDR4-3200 memory modules and the new PCIe 4.0 inferface out of the box. The Wraith Spire CPU cooler is included with the Ryzen 5 3600X so you don't have to spend extra for a cooling solution.

The Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 is a Navi-powered graphics card that's based on AMD's pristine RDNA (Radeon DNA) architecture. It comes with 2,304 Stream Processors that operate with a 1,465 MHz base clock, 1,625 MHz game clock and a boost clock that tops out at 1,725 MHz. The graphics card also has 8GB of GDDR6 memory running at 14 Gbps across a 256-bit memory bus for a maximum memory bandwidth of 448 GB/s.

The Radeon RX 5700 has a TBP (Typical Board Power) off 180W and draws power from one eight-pin PCIe connector and one six-pin PCIe connector. It's recommended that your system has at least a 600W power supply.

Should You Buy This Bundle?

As usual, we highly recommend you check out our in-depth Radeon RX 5700 review before opening your wallet. For more help picking the best graphics card for you, there's our graphics card buying guide, the AMD and Nvidia GPU hierarchy and our breakdown of the best graphics cards we've tested.

You can also review our CPU buying guide for help. To see where the Ryzen 5 3600X ranks among others currently available, including from rival Intel, check out our CPU hierarchy page. And for other CPUs we love, see our favorite gaming CPUs and favorite CPUs for productivity performance. 

The benchmark and result database Passmark (also known as cpubenchmark.net) recently added the six-core, 12-thread Ryzen 5 3600 to its ranks and, if these results are accurate, the performance is nothing short of incredible. The Ryzen 5 3600 seemingly matches the performance of the Core i9-9900K (which has two more cores) in multi-threaded testing and actually beats the -9900K in single threaded tests (beating the 2700X by 36%), making the Ryzen 5 3600 the fastest single-threaded CPU, according to Passmark.

However, it does have to be said; this sounds just a little too good to be true. The $200 CPU has lower clock speeds and fewer cores, making the test results dubious. Matching the -9900K, let alone beating it, seems too good to be true. Luckily, Passmark lets you look at the five most recent benchmarks for any given CPU, and at the time of writing, there are three we can examine (seemingly from the same test system).

The system reportedly uses a B450 Aorus M board, not an X570 board. According to the reported clock speed, the CPU doesn't seem to be overclocked either; all three tests show the same turbo of 4.21 GHz, and one result shows a "measured speed" of 3.37 GHz, and the other two 3.61 GHz. It doesn't seem like there was some sort of trick making this 3600 so fast, at least not something we can glean from Passmark's reported information.

Interestingly, the third benchmark for the 3600 uses a 16GB kit of 3200 MHz CL14 G Skill RAM, unlike the first two benchmarks which used a single stick of Crucial RAM at 2666 MHz CL16. The third benchmark reports a score of 7% faster than the two previous scores, which implies that Zen 2 and/or Passmark benefits heavily from having high-speed low-latency dual-channel RAM, something which previous iterations of Zen also benefit from.

Overall, this result seems legitimate, but AMD's lowest-end Zen 2 CPU beating the -9900K overall seems unrealistic at best, especially when AMD positions the beefier Ryzen 7 3800X against the Core i9-9900K. This benchmark does, however, prove that Zen 2 does some things far better than Coffee Lake, which bodes well for Zen 2's overall performance. July 7th is just eight days away now, so it won't be long before we know what the Ryzen 5 3600 can really do.