Civilization VI & Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Civilization VI AI Test
Civilization VI's demanding AI test measures CPU performance during a turn-based strategy game. It isolates host processor performance, and historically responds better to high clock rates and IPC throughput than more cores.
The Ryzen 5 1500X beats AMD's eight-core Ryzen 7 1700, but lags the other contenders. A bit of overclocking improves performance enough to put the 1500X between Intel's Core i5-7500 and -7400.
An overclocked six-core Ryzen 5 1600X provides little benefit over the 1500X during this test.
Civilization VI Graphics Test
The Ryzen 7 1700 stumbles under the most severe frame time outliers in Civilization VI's graphics benchmark, while the Ryzen 5 and Core i5 processors offer consistent frame delivery and smooth gameplay. A stock 1500X beats the Core i5-7500 and i5-7400, and responds well to overclocking, too. At 3.9 GHz, it jumps beyond the locked Intel processors and even beats the stock Core i5-7600K.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a bright spot for AMD's newest architecture, which definitively bests the Kaby Lake-based models we test.
There's very little difference between Ryzen CPUs; it only matters that you pick one of these chips rather than a Core i5. Intel appears to encounter some sort of bottleneck that's not apparent elsewhere in our testing.
The Core i5-7600K and Ryzen 5 1600X encounter most of the frame time issues, based on our measurements. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 1500X and locked Intel processors provide smoother performance.
MORE: Best CPUs
MORE: Intel & AMD Processor Hierarchy
MORE: All CPU Content
