[SOLVED] Ryzen 5 3500 vs 2600.

[D_Artagnan8291]

Guys I'm looking to get a cpu for primarily 1080p gaming and a little bit of hobby 3d modeling on Blender but mostly gaming. These 2 cpus are in my budget and cost exactly the same. I'm gonna pair them with a gtx 1060 6gb or a rx 580 8gb. The 3500 has 6 core 6 threads at 3.6ghz base and 4.1ghz turbo while the 2600 has 3.4ghz base and 3.9ghz turbo. I'm not looking to overclock them. Which one should i buy? Please try to give reasoning too.
Thank you.

 

[cdrkf]

Guys I'm looking to get a cpu for primarily 1080p gaming and a little bit of hobby 3d modeling on Blender but mostly gaming. These 2 cpus are in my budget and cost exactly the same. I'm gonna pair them with a gtx 1060 6gb or a rx 580 8gb. The 3500 has 6 core 6 threads at 3.6ghz base and 4.1ghz turbo while the 2600 has 3.4ghz base and 3.9ghz turbo. I'm not looking to overclock them. Which one should i buy? Please try to give reasoning too.
Thank you.

If your main use is gaming, then the stronger core of the Ryzen 3000 series is the way to go (if you were looking at doing a lot of rendering on the machine, e.g. creating animated vids from your blender models, then the higher thread count of the 2600 would be worth it as it will be quite a bit faster for that kind of task).

That said, for what you are looking at I wonder if you might be better served looking at the Ryzen 3 3300X as that chip games better than either and thanks to having SMT enabled is roughly on par with the 3500 for work tasks (the 3300X is a special case in the Ryzen 3000 line as whilst it only has 4 cores and 8 threads, all 4 cores are located in a single 'CCD' - the internal building block of a Ryzen cpu whereas all other Ryzen cpu's have the cores split over at least 2 CCD's - having the 4 cores together like this results in the 3300X being one of the best of all Ryzen cpu's for gaming despite being pretty cheap).

 

[D_Artagnan8291]

If your main use is gaming, then the stronger core of the Ryzen 3000 series is the way to go (if you were looking at doing a lot of rendering on the machine, e.g. creating animated vids from your blender models, then the higher thread count of the 2600 would be worth it as it will be quite a bit faster for that kind of task).

That said, for what you are looking at I wonder if you might be better served looking at the Ryzen 3 3300X as that chip games better than either and thanks to having SMT enabled is roughly on par with the 3500 for work tasks (the 3300X is a special case in the Ryzen 3000 line as whilst it only has 4 cores and 8 threads, all 4 cores are located in a single 'CCD' - the internal building block of a Ryzen cpu whereas all other Ryzen cpu's have the cores split over at least 2 CCD's - having the 4 cores together like this results in the 3300X being one of the best of all Ryzen cpu's for gaming despite being pretty cheap).

But wouldn't the 6 cores be more future proof than the 4 of 3300x as newer games are using more cores or is the 4 core 8 thread config equivalent to the 6 core 6 threads. I don't know much about how thread count affects gaming and stuff.

 

[Zerk2012]

But wouldn't the 6 cores be more future proof than the 4 of 3300x as newer games are using more cores or is the 4 core 8 thread config equivalent to the 6 core 6 threads. I don't know much about how thread count affects gaming and stuff.

Yes and it will help with Blender.

The 3500 barely edges it out using all cores.

https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-amd_ryzen_3_3300x-1345-vs-amd_ryzen_5_3500-1335

 

[cdrkf]

Yes and it will help with Blender.

The 3500 barely edges it out using all cores.

https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-amd_ryzen_3_3300x-1345-vs-amd_ryzen_5_3500-1335

6 cores, 6 threads and 4 core / 8 threads are about equivalent. Honestly I think for future 8 threads is better than 6 (even if the 6 are real cores). We've already seen this when looking at games that need '4 cores' to run - they will load up and work (albeit slowly) on old i3's with hyper-threading, but won't even start on much newer higher clocked dual core cpu's like the G4560 as the thread count requirement is a hard limit of the game engine.

I can see 8 threads becoming the minimum in the not so distant future, this is why I never liked Intels 6 core 6 thread i5's - they are going to become obsolete imo.

Edit: for rendering performance I've just looked up the V-Ray numbers for all 3 options:

3300X: 7321
3500X: 7477
2600: 9491

So for rendering workloads, the 3300X and 3500X are on par, whilst the 2600 is 27% faster. When it comes to games, it does depend what gpu and graphics card you pair it with, and what settings and games you want to play.

If you are looking mainly at high - ultra settings with a 60fps goal in mind, then all 3 cpu's will perform about the same. If you want to get into fast paced shooters (e.g. CS:GO), play on low settings and hit high frame rates then the 3000 series parts are going to give quite a bit better results than a 2600 thanks to the stronger single thread. The two Ryzen 3000 cpu's are also less likely to bottleneck a faster gpu, provided they have enough threads for the game.

This is where it gets trickier, as the 6 cores / 12 threads of the 2600 are more likely to be 'good enough' for longer than either of the other two options as games are tending to use more cores. It's like when the first gen Ryzen 1000 series came out - at the time reviewers all recommended the 4 core 4 thread i5's over the Ryzen 5's as they proved better in games at the time. There are now many games that struggle to run on the 4 threads of the i5, whilst the 6 core 12 thread Ryzen 5 1600 still run the games with no problem. The real issue is predicting how quickly games will need the extra threads.

One thing that does occur to me - with the next gen consoles both confirmed to have 8 core, 16 thread processors, I think that might become the optimal cpu setup fairly quickly once the consoles are released as many big budget games are developed console first. If that's the case, then it might make sense to get whatever the cheapest option is for now, save up and get an 8 core Ryzen cpu next year.

 

[D_Artagnan8291]

6 cores, 6 threads and 4 core / 8 threads are about equivalent. Honestly I think for future 8 threads is better than 6 (even if the 6 are real cores). We've already seen this when looking at games that need '4 cores' to run - they will load up and work (albeit slowly) on old i3's with hyper-threading, but won't even start on much newer higher clocked dual core cpu's like the G4560 as the thread count requirement is a hard limit of the game engine.

I can see 8 threads becoming the minimum in the not so distant future, this is why I never liked Intels 6 core 6 thread i5's - they are going to become obsolete imo.

Edit: for rendering performance I've just looked up the V-Ray numbers for all 3 options:

3300X: 7321
3500X: 7477
2600: 9491

So for rendering workloads, the 3300X and 3500X are on par, whilst the 2600 is 27% faster. When it comes to games, it does depend what gpu and graphics card you pair it with, and what settings and games you want to play.

If you are looking mainly at high - ultra settings with a 60fps goal in mind, then all 3 cpu's will perform about the same. If you want to get into fast paced shooters (e.g. CS:GO), play on low settings and hit high frame rates then the 3000 series parts are going to give quite a bit better results than a 2600 thanks to the stronger single thread. The two Ryzen 3000 cpu's are also less likely to bottleneck a faster gpu, provided they have enough threads for the game.

This is where it gets trickier, as the 6 cores / 12 threads of the 2600 are more likely to be 'good enough' for longer than either of the other two options as games are tending to use more cores. It's like when the first gen Ryzen 1000 series came out - at the time reviewers all recommended the 4 core 4 thread i5's over the Ryzen 5's as they proved better in games at the time. There are now many games that struggle to run on the 4 threads of the i5, whilst the 6 core 12 thread Ryzen 5 1600 still run the games with no problem. The real issue is predicting how quickly games will need the extra threads.

One thing that does occur to me - with the next gen consoles both confirmed to have 8 core, 16 thread processors, I think that might become the optimal cpu setup fairly quickly once the consoles are released as many big budget games are developed console first. If that's the case, then it might make sense to get whatever the cheapest option is for now, save up and get an 8 core Ryzen cpu next year.

So would the 2600 would be best as it's the most future proof? Or 3300x as it has the fastest clocks? Will I notice the difference in frames on a 1060 6gb between these cpus? What is your final suggestion considering they all cost the same.

 

[cdrkf]

So would the 2600 would be best as it's the most future proof? Or 3300x as it has the fastest clocks? Will I notice the difference in frames on a 1060 6gb between these cpus? What is your final suggestion considering they all cost the same.

As I mentioned it depends on what game and settings you use - if you are playing modern titles at highest playable settings, then no there will be 0 difference between the three cpu's with a 1060 card.... however if you want to play competitive titles (e.g. CS:GO, 1080p low) then you will get a performance boost with the 3300x.

The flip side is for final animation in Blender the 2600 will be faster. The other question is what motherboard are you getting? If you are on a budget then b450 board probably makes most sense, but then depending on the specific board you can run into problems with fitting a 3000 series cpu as the older B450 boards will need a bios update first before installing a 3000 series chip (if that is an issue you can always contact the motherboard vendor and ask them to do it for you but it is an extra thing to think about). If you are buying a newer B550 motherboard then there's no problem going for a 3000 series part.

Personally, I do quite a bit of rendering work as well as gaming so I'd take the 2600 - it also means you don't need to worry about motherboard choice much. Second choice would be the 3300X as it is (at least for now) the best gaming cpu of the three. The one really nice thing about AM4 is that you always have the option to upgrade your cpu in future without having to change anything else in the system, B450 boards are confirmed to be getting bios updates to support the next gen Ryzen 4000 series when it comes out (and you already have options all the way up to 16 cores)