[SOLVED] 3600 vs 2700x

heavymetal2000

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Basically atm the 3600 is 259.99$ and the 2700x is 274.99$ so only 15$ separating them.

My rig use is 85% Gaming, 14% blender and 3D modeling, 1% googling <Mod Edit> I don’t know.

The 2700x comes with BL3 which I’d love to own, the 3600 does not. (60$ can) value. So I’m theory the 2700x could be looked at as 214$ as I’d otherwise not be able to buy BL3 for a bit after building my rig.

Question: is the FPS and game performance difference between the two large enough to make the 3600 still the no brainer pick or with the game and the equal price am I still gonna get a great gaming cpu out of the2700x?
 
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With 3600 you can expect 10 - 15% better single core/thread performance over 2700x, if you OC it to 4.2GHz it would have about same multi thread performance as 2700x at stock.

Mrgr74

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Hi @heavymetal2000

Take everything I say below with a grain of salt as I'm only speaking from my own experiences.

I can't speak for the 3600, but I have the 2700x and it's been absolutely great thus far, plain & simple. I use it primarily to game and with my lower end 1060 6GB, I have had 0 issues. Overall, the 3600 looks to be a little bit faster when it comes to gaming. but not by much. For basic productivity, encryption & the like, the 2700x seems to be faster overall. The 2700x is an absolute Ferrari compared to my old 1090T so perhaps my views are a little skewed.
 
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heavymetal2000

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I’m not gonna lie, since the price drop I’ve been leaning towards the 2700x due to the free game and that I feel it will still perform admirably as a gaming cpu as well.
My biggest concern was that the 3600 is gonna be hugely better. If not and I’m looking at maybe 10% or so better I’m fine with the 2700x.

I switched over to Ryzen from a 965 BE and I hear ya in terms of the performance jump there. It’s ridiculous how good my current 2600 is over my old one!

Thank you for the post!
 

InvalidError

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The only thing that stops me from strongly recommending the 3600 over the 2700X if your primary use is gaming is motherboard selection - either got to go with an overpriced x570 board, pick from a handful of boards updated for 3rd-gen or have a CPU-less update method if you don't have an older AM4 CPU to flash them for 3rd-gen first.
 

heavymetal2000

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Thanks countmike, Is there headroom on the 2700x to boost it a bit more and close the gap on the 3600 a bit?

I have a 2600 I can use for bios as I’m keeping this tight budget wise. X570 is 100% out of the question at there current prices.
 

DMAN999

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Just FYI,
I recently upgraded from a 2600 (OC'd to 4 GHZ) to a 3700x.
See my signature for my full specs.
The performance in games with my 3700x and 1660 Ti is better But not that much better.
I game on a 1080p/60 Hz monitor so I was already getting 85+ to 120+ fps in games set on Ultra so the extra fps doesn't really make any difference to me.
The biggest thing I noticed is when I play a game while streaming to 2 1080p TVs via Plex the games don't stutter at all and some did occasionally when I had a 2600.
Also I encode videos fairly regularly and the 3700x does that a lot faster than my 2600 did.
 
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Thanks countmike, Is there headroom on the 2700x to boost it a bit more and close the gap on the 3600 a bit?

I have a 2600 I can use for bios as I’m keeping this tight budget wise. X570 is 100% out of the question at there current prices.
With 2700x practical OC is 4.2GHz although I had mine up to 4.3 but under liquid cooler which was not noticeable improvement over PBO.
 

JaSoN_cRuZe

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I will avoid 2700X instead of 3600 if your purpose mostly is gaming. Remember 2700x is power hungry and supports less memory speeds compared to Ryzen 3rd gen. I was in the same dilemma but Ryzen 3000 can eek out some more performance at better memory and also runs a lot cooler. So if your primary concern is gaming (85%) go for 3600 save the extra money use it to invest in a upcoming cheap 8c part.
 

Mrgr74

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I will avoid 2700X instead of 3600 if your purpose mostly is gaming. Remember 2700x is power hungry and supports less memory speeds compared to Ryzen 3rd gen. I was in the same dilemma but Ryzen 3000 can eek out some more performance at better memory and also runs a lot cooler. So if your primary concern is gaming (85%) go for 3600 save the extra money use it to invest in a upcoming cheap 8c part.

Good point about the RAM speeds. I think I'll go look at a few comparisons as I'm curious to just how much more performance you'd get on a 3600 vs my 2700x. I have 16GB of DDR4-3200 and at 1080p maxed out, I'm still hitting 85-144fps in several games if I don't enable Vsync. That's plenty fast for me. Of course if I go up to 1440p, then I really start to notice the age of my 1060. :)
 
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My son is currently running a 2700x (its great) and my buddy is running a 3600 (its great). I would always buy or recommend the 3600 for less money. The "free" game is kind of a wild card for me. Is that a game you're planning to buy 100% and something you have been looking forward to playing? If its not to that level then buy the 3600.
 

heavymetal2000

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BL3 is 100% a title I’ll need to have. But I don’t need it right now. Odds are I’ll buy it on a sale after Christmas some time if I didn’t get it with a cpu.

I’m buying a 5700xt for this build as well but I’ll be getting GR with it.

Thanks guys, still haven’t settled yet but I’ll be watching for sales and buying soon.
 

prophet51

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I will avoid 2700X instead of 3600 if your purpose mostly is gaming. Remember 2700x is power hungry and supports less memory speeds compared to Ryzen 3rd gen. I was in the same dilemma but Ryzen 3000 can eek out some more performance at better memory and also runs a lot cooler. So if your primary concern is gaming (85%) go for 3600 save the extra money use it to invest in a upcoming cheap 8c part.

Yup ram speed is important here too, a big win for 3600 in this department as it can run 4000mhz+, zen+ struggles to go higher than 2933mhz.
 

Mrgr74

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Yup ram speed is important here too, a big win for 3600 in this department as it can run 4000mhz+, zen+ struggles to go higher than 2933mhz.

That's what I've been hearing about the 3600. Sounds like a really good proc. Not too sure about your 2933 comment tho, as my 2700x has 0 issues with running at 3200mhz. This is the exact RAM I have and in the Bios/Post screen/desktop it states @3200mhz.
 

prophet51

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Yeah zen+ can run 3200mhz or even higher but some zen+ cpu's struggle to go higher than 2933mhz. With 3600mhz the ram speed limit is much higher.

Also being a 1080p 60fps gamer myself there's not really any difference in fps for me between 2400mhz ram and 2933mhz ram, but running the ram at 2933mhz feels ridiculously smoother than 2400mhz, as though it were running at higher fps. There's benefit to higher ram speeds than is reflected in pure fps.
 
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