[SOLVED] Ryzen 3 3100 vs Ryzen 5 3600

[Balefire]

Hi
I've been doing some research into a new gaming pc and i wanted to know whether i should go for the Ryzen 5 3600 or the Ryzen 3 3100

Most of my components are fairly mid-range and I'm not looking to get ultra 4k gaming experience just mid level 1080p...

I dont intend to upgrade my cpu for the next 5 or 6 years and want it to remain usable(at recommended level) for the duration of that time.

My budget is a bit tight so i was wondering if i really needed the Ryzen 5 3600 which is about 60 - 80 usd more expensive from the retailer

 

[cdrkf]

Hi
I've been doing some research into a new gaming pc and i wanted to know whether i should go for the Ryzen 5 3600 or the Ryzen 3 3100

Most of my components are fairly mid-range and I'm not looking to get ultra 4k gaming experience just mid level 1080p...

I dont intend to upgrade my cpu for the next 5 or 6 years and want it to remain usable(at recommended level) for the duration of that time.

My budget is a bit tight so i was wondering if i really needed the Ryzen 5 3600 which is about 60 - 80 usd more expensive from the retailer

If you intend to keep the CPU for a long time, go for the 3600, no question. I would even go as far as to say maybe looking at a cheap option from the Ryzen 2000 series with more cores / threads would be a better bet than the 3100. 4 cores/ 8 threads is the minimum required these days to run most games smoothly (the old 4 thread cpu's really struggle in many games now). There are already titles out currently that show a benefit from moving up to 6 cores / 12 threads, and ironically this is more evident at 1080p than at higher resolutions (where the GPU will be the limiting factor).

Keep in mind, all the next gen consoles are being shipped with 8 core, 16 thread Zen 2 cpu's (essentially a 3700X) - so cross platform games are going to be written on the basis of that cpu config. The 3100 would only make sense really if you wanted something cheap now and were open to upgrading the cpu later (which might not be a bad idea - as AMD are really good for upgradability, if you invest in a B550 motherboard for example you will get support for the upcoming Ryzen 5000 series desktop cpu's with just a quick bios update). If you would rather not do that though then the 3600 will hold up better imo.

 

[Balefire]

If you intend to keep the CPU for a long time, go for the 3600, no question. I would even go as far as to say maybe looking at a cheap option from the Ryzen 2000 series with more cores / threads would be a better bet than the 3100. 4 cores/ 8 threads is the minimum required these days to run most games smoothly (the old 4 thread cpu's really struggle in many games now). There are already titles out currently that show a benefit from moving up to 6 cores / 12 threads, and ironically this is more evident at 1080p than at higher resolutions (where the GPU will be the limiting factor).

Keep in mind, all the next gen consoles are being shipped with 8 core, 16 thread Zen 2 cpu's (essentially a 3700X) - so cross platform games are going to be written on the basis of that cpu config. The 3100 would only make sense really if you wanted something cheap now and were open to upgrading the cpu later (which might not be a bad idea - as AMD are really good for upgradability, if you invest in a B550 motherboard for example you will get support for the upcoming Ryzen 5000 series desktop cpu's with just a quick bios update). If you would rather not do that though then the 3600 will hold up better imo.

Yah, thanks...
i was a bit on the fence about it, but if i buy a b550 board with the cpu then it would work out to the same price as the 3600 with a b450, so I'll be going for the Ryzen 5