[SOLVED] Is upgrading ryzen 2600 to 3500x worth it?

Feb 12, 2021
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So lately on a few newer games I've been getting getting a choppy framerate, just not very smooth. I've looked on gamedebate and it's always my cpu that's below recommended. I don't have much money to spend on my computer, it's budget, but have found a 3500x for a reasonable price. Is the upgrade from 2600 to 3500x worth it? Will I see a smoother experience?

Also, as a bonus question to you tech gurus :) how does the number of threads affect game performance, mine has 4 the 3500x has 6 but what actual effect will this have?

Gtx 1060 6gb (know its not fancy but does the job)
16gb ddr4

Cheers, for any suggestions
 
Solution
So lately on a few newer games I've been getting getting a choppy framerate, just not very smooth. I've looked on gamedebate and it's always my cpu that's below recommended. I don't have much money to spend on my computer, it's budget, but have found a 3500x for a reasonable price. Is the upgrade from 2600 to 3500x worth it? Will I see a smoother experience?

Also, as a bonus question to you tech gurus :) how does the number of threads affect game performance, mine has 4 the 3500x has 6 but what actual effect will this have?

Gtx 1060 6gb (know its not fancy but does the job)
16gb ddr4

Cheers, for any suggestions
With the 2600's 6 core/12 thread vs. 6 core/6 thread the 3500X is the lesser processor. Except it also benefits from...
So lately on a few newer games I've been getting getting a choppy framerate, just not very smooth. I've looked on gamedebate and it's always my cpu that's below recommended. I don't have much money to spend on my computer, it's budget, but have found a 3500x for a reasonable price. Is the upgrade from 2600 to 3500x worth it? Will I see a smoother experience?

Also, as a bonus question to you tech gurus :) how does the number of threads affect game performance, mine has 4 the 3500x has 6 but what actual effect will this have?

Gtx 1060 6gb (know its not fancy but does the job)
16gb ddr4

Cheers, for any suggestions
With the 2600's 6 core/12 thread vs. 6 core/6 thread the 3500X is the lesser processor. Except it also benefits from Zen 2's performance efficiencies giving it higher single core boosts and every so slight IPC uplift; but if you overclock it the 2600 could probably overcome even that. But otherwise, they're close enough it's not an upgrade but much more of a sidegrade and not worth the trouble and expense IMO.

6 cores/12 threads is pretty much the sweet spot in gaming but 8 core/16 thread (and up) CPU's are desireable if you do anything alongside gaming such as video encoding/streaming. I'd be far more likely to suspect your GPU is what's failing you on a budget system. Either that or an 'unclean' Window's setup. If you've several resident applications running, for instance, so check your system tray and remove/uninstall anything that's unecessary. Do a clean re-install of video drivers using DDU to make sure no dregs of old ones are causing problems.
 
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Feb 12, 2021
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Thanks for the replies, if the 3500x isn't worth it what would be? I'd prefer ryzen as I have a b350m gaming mobo and know its compatible with ryzen with the am4 or whatever the sockets called, and really anything that's budget (under £200) if possible.

Really just wanting the best bang for buck, thanks
 
I think, 3600X should give noticeable performance increase. Yes, both (2600 and 3600X) are 6C/12T CPU's, however 3600X runs on quite higher frequencies. Actually, even newer AMD 5000 series CPU's exist, 3600X is still considered as very solid performer right now.

The 3000 series supports PCIe 4.0 so that part is definitely an upgrade if your motherboard can support it.
PCIe 4.0 looks good on paper, however difference in real world usage is practically zero
 
Thanks for the replies, if the 3500x isn't worth it what would be? I'd prefer ryzen as I have a b350m gaming mobo and know its compatible with ryzen with the am4 or whatever the sockets called, and really anything that's budget (under £200) if possible.

Really just wanting the best bang for buck, thanks
It would do well to better know the rest of your system: what motherboard (precisely) and GPU do you have? what PSU also?

A few things to note: with a b350 motherboard, any Ryzen 5000 CPU is not an option as there will be no BIOS's made available for them for that processor. And even a Ryzen 3000 will mean using a 'beta bios', which isn't necessarily bad if your board has one available. But also, B350 boards as a whole had terrible VRM's so upgrades to more powerful processors need to be considered carefully.
 
I think, 3600X should give noticeable performance increase. Yes, both (2600 and 3600X) are 6C/12T CPU's, however 3600X runs on quite higher frequencies. Actually, even newer AMD 5000 series CPU's exist, 3600X is still considered as very solid performer right now.


PCIe 4.0 looks good on paper, however difference in real world usage is practically zero

I agree that differences in GPU speeds using PCIe 4.0 are negligible but NVMe speeds are significantly faster, on the order of 60%+ on sequential reads over PCIe 3.0, which has an impact on booting, application loading and data loading. I have a Sabrent Rocket 4.0 and it makes quite a bit of difference.
 
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Feb 12, 2021
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OK thanks, I can't remember off the top of my head the psu, I remember mobo is b350m gaming Pro or some thing like that, will post specs when I get aback in. Just to stress aswell I'm not the most knowledgeable with this stuff. I know the basic amount of where the bits go and what they do but that's about it.
 

oldcracc

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So lately on a few newer games I've been getting getting a choppy framerate, just not very smooth. I've looked on gamedebate and it's always my cpu that's below recommended. I don't have much money to spend on my computer, it's budget, but have found a 3500x for a reasonable price. Is the upgrade from 2600 to 3500x worth it? Will I see a smoother experience?

Also, as a bonus question to you tech gurus :) how does the number of threads affect game performance, mine has 4 the 3500x has 6 but what actual effect will this have?

Gtx 1060 6gb (know its not fancy but does the job)
16gb ddr4

Cheers, for any suggestions
GPU is most likely a larger part of the framerate issue, but regardless if I were you I'd wait for Ryzen 5000 stock to get better before upgrading so you can upgrade to latest gen. Your CPU is probably fine for now
 
OK thanks, I can't remember off the top of my head the psu, I remember mobo is b350m gaming Pro or some thing like that, will post specs when I get aback in. Just to stress aswell I'm not the most knowledgeable with this stuff. I know the basic amount of where the bits go and what they do but that's about it.
B350m Gaming pro...if the MSI board I'm thinking of...means it's got a relatively decent heatsink on the VRM FET's. That's pretty good and would handle a 3600X pretty well if not trying to overclock it. Ryzen 5000 is, of course, completely out of the question as it lacks BIOS support.

But I agree totally that your GPU is far more likely what's holding you back, especially if the same vintage and performance level as the motherboard. A 2600 should be adequate for high-resolution (1440p up), triple-A title gaming even with 3000 series Nvidia GPU's. It's the high-refresh-rate, high FPS tournament style gaming at 1080p and lower it will probably come up short.

Sadly, decent GPU upgrades won't be had in today's pandemic stricken market at economical prices. Or not very likely, at least. But I'd hate for you to drop the dime on something that just won't serve as well.

Another thing to consider is your memory: one stick isn't doing your CPU justice and neither would low-clocked memory. Ryzen of all generations loves fast memory, so getting it up to 2933, stock for a 2600 CPU, and 16GB for modern games would have to be a benefit.
 
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So lately on a few newer games I've been getting getting a choppy framerate, just not very smooth. I've looked on gamedebate and it's always my cpu that's below recommended. I don't have much money to spend on my computer, it's budget, but have found a 3500x for a reasonable price. Is the upgrade from 2600 to 3500x worth it? Will I see a smoother experience?

Also, as a bonus question to you tech gurus :) how does the number of threads affect game performance, mine has 4 the 3500x has 6 but what actual effect will this have?

Gtx 1060 6gb (know its not fancy but does the job)
16gb ddr4

Cheers, for any suggestions
The 3500x will give a nice bump in perf just make sure the mobo supports it.
You might also need to change your ram to get the best bang.
 
What would be the best ddr4 memory to get? I actually didn't realise they had different speeds when I built my rig
Start with your motherboard's QVL page for Pinnacle Ridge processors. Memory is pretty cheap at the moment, I'd suggest just going for 3200 speed even though it's only rated for 2933. But first find out what your memory is to see if it's has good potential for an upgrading.
 
Feb 12, 2021
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Just a quick question while I get my specs, I've been playing watch dogs legion and that's what's not running at a decent frame rate, but I played doom eternal, death stranding and rdr2 on the same rig and they ran like butter on toast (good), I would have thought that something like this would have ran at least decent enough, could it just be the optimization or am I missing something? I've tried all graphic setting and the same result with this one. And thanks for putting up with my game of upgrade 20 questions lol
 
A Ryzen 2600 is still a rather good processor, and when paired with a GTX 1060, it's unlikely that upgrading the CPU would result in any noticeable performance benefit in today's AAA games. The 1060 will typically be the limiting factor in those scenarios, even at 1080p resolution. Either way, a Ryzen 2600 should be capable of pushing 60+ fps in nearly all of today's games, provided it is paired with a capable graphics card. A 1060 is a several year-old mid-range design at this point, and while it's still capable of running games reasonably well at 1080p resolution, you may need to cut the graphics settings a bit in some titles to maintain good performance. Don't expect to get 60fps at ultra graphics settings in all the latest titles with that card. You may need to tone them back to a high or medium preset, or manually turn some individual settings down.

As for the RAM, 1066MHz would mean that it's running at DDR4-2133 speed, which is not particularly good for Ryzen, and will limit performance to below what a Ryzen 2600 is typically capable of. That RAM is DDR-3000 speed though, so you should be able to enable its XMP profile in your BIOS to get it running at its proper speed.

Running a single stick of RAM like that will also hurt performance though, as it will only be running in single-channel mode, limiting bandwidth. You would need to buy some RAM to fix that, either getting a 2x8GB kit and selling your existing stick, or adding another identical 16GB stick to what you have, though you may potentially run into compatibility issues when pairing RAM not sold together in a kit. 16GB of RAM should currently cost around $70 or so, at least at online stores in the US.

For now though, it's probably worth setting the RAM's XMP profile to get it running at its rated speed, and how much that helps performance.
 
Feb 12, 2021
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A Ryzen 2600 is still a rather good processor, and when paired with a GTX 1060, it's unlikely that upgrading the CPU would result in any noticeable performance benefit in today's AAA games. The 1060 will typically be the limiting factor in those scenarios, even at 1080p resolution. Either way, a Ryzen 2600 should be capable of pushing 60+ fps in nearly all of today's games, provided it is paired with a capable graphics card. A 1060 is a several year-old mid-range design at this point, and while it's still capable of running games reasonably well at 1080p resolution, you may need to cut the graphics settings a bit in some titles to maintain good performance. Don't expect to get 60fps at ultra graphics settings in all the latest titles with that card. You may need to tone them back to a high or medium preset, or manually turn some individual settings down.

As for the RAM, 1066MHz would mean that it's running at DDR4-2133 speed, which is not particularly good for Ryzen, and will limit performance to below what a Ryzen 2600 is typically capable of. That RAM is DDR-3000 speed though, so you should be able to enable its XMP profile in your BIOS to get it running at its proper speed.

Running a single stick of RAM like that will also hurt performance though, as it will only be running in single-channel mode, limiting bandwidth. You would need to buy some RAM to fix that, either getting a 2x8GB kit and selling your existing stick, or adding another identical 16GB stick to what you have, though you may potentially run into compatibility issues when pairing RAM not sold together in a kit. 16GB of RAM should currently cost around $70 or so, at least at online stores in the US.

For now though, it's probably worth setting the RAM's XMP profile to get it running at its rated speed, and how much that helps performance.
Thanks for the detailed response, I'll look at getting a new set of faster ram. I briefly remember their been 2 profiles for it in my bios, just labeled profile 1 and 2. Does it matter which is used?
 
Feb 12, 2021
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Yes it does. Which one are you using now?
What is the Max Bandwidth from CPU-Z?
Sorry for the wait, Windows decided it was time to update and take its sweet ass time. It says max bandwidth DDR4-2132 (1066 Mhz)

I hadn't activated XMP as I've never heard of it before, turned it to profile 1 but if need be I'll switch it.
 
Thanks for the detailed response, I'll look at getting a new set of faster ram. I briefly remember their been 2 profiles for it in my bios, just labeled profile 1 and 2. Does it matter which is used?
I take it you don't have XMP enabled at all right now, seeing as you mentioned it running at 1066MHz (DDR4-2133 speed)? When enabled, that RAM should be listed as running at roughly 1500MHz (DDR4-3000 speed). Profile 1 and profile 2 should adjust some additional settings for RAM, that may have some additional performance differences between them. I believe with profile 1 the motherboard will select some of those settings, while with profile 2 the settings defined by the RAM module will be used. One profile may potentially perform a little faster than than the other, or be more stable than the other, so if something like crashing is occurring with XMP enabled, you might try using the other profile.

I've looked on gamedebate and it's always my cpu that's below recommended...
...how does the number of threads affect game performance, mine has 4 the 3500x has 6 but what actual effect will this have?
Perhaps you were looking up information for the much older quad-core i7-2600 CPU, rather than the Ryzen 2600? As was pointed out above, the Ryzen 2600 is a newer, somewhat more capable 6-core, 12-thread processor.