[SOLVED] Ryzen 5 5600X vs Ryzen 7 5800X for future proof gaming build

Gamer31

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I'm currently working on selecting parts for a gaming build that I plan on building when GPU prices come down. I plan on using it primarily for gaming on a 4K or 5K resolution VR headset at 90 or 120hz, so I figure I'll need an RTX 3080. I'm trying to decide on the CPU, which I've narrowed down to either the Ryzen 5 5600X or the Ryzen 7 5800X. From benchmarks I've seen, the 5600X and 5800X are almost identical in gaming performance. The reason I'm considering the 5800X is for future proofing. I want to make this build last for 5-7 years or more without having to upgrade anything except the GPU and RAM capacity.

I feel like the biggest determining factor for which CPU to buy is whether or not the 5800X will end up being significantly better than the 5600X for gaming in 5 or so years. Do you think gaming benefit from 8 cores in 5 years or so? If the answer is yes, then I think it would be a good idea to buy the 5800X now so that I don't have to upgrade the CPU for a long time.

I've already read some forums on this sort of question but haven't come to a satisfactory conclusion yet. I know that this is probably a tough question as it involves guessing about the future, but I would still appreciate your opinions.
Thanks!
 
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I'm currently working on selecting parts for a gaming build that I plan on building when GPU prices come down. I plan on using it primarily for gaming on a 4K or 5K resolution VR headset at 90 or 120hz, so I figure I'll need an RTX 3080. I'm trying to decide on the CPU, which I've narrowed down to either the Ryzen 5 5600X or the Ryzen 7 5800X. From benchmarks I've seen, the 5600X and 5800X are almost identical in gaming performance. The reason I'm considering the 5800X is for future proofing. I want to make this build last for 5-7 years or more without having to upgrade anything except the GPU and RAM capacity.

I feel like the biggest determining factor for which CPU to buy is whether or not the 5800X will end up being...

Mickieg1994

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So in short, i believe if you want 5 years out of your machine, then a 5800x might be slacking a little bit in 3-4 years, a 6 core processor will not last that long at all, if you really want the pc to last that long then a 5900x would not be ridiculous, it's spending more now to make it last longer in the long run, with that i reckon you would be getting around 5 years out of it with little fuss, 32gb ram atleast on a nice motherboard and you will be flying with your 3080

The difference between a 6 and 8 core chip is better seen in user experience rather than a benchmark, many games will already use all 8 cores and hyperthreading too, 6 cores is entry level at this point as the experience will be a lot smoother and better on the 5800x, not to mention, multitasking and longevity will be much improved too, as a result of having more cores and threads, however a 12 core chip could easily run any game for the next few years as games get better optimised to use that many cores and threads, the performance will far outweigh the costs and the total cost of ownership goes down too as you will keep that same pc for longer
 
I'm currently working on selecting parts for a gaming build that I plan on building when GPU prices come down. I plan on using it primarily for gaming on a 4K or 5K resolution VR headset at 90 or 120hz, so I figure I'll need an RTX 3080. I'm trying to decide on the CPU, which I've narrowed down to either the Ryzen 5 5600X or the Ryzen 7 5800X. From benchmarks I've seen, the 5600X and 5800X are almost identical in gaming performance. The reason I'm considering the 5800X is for future proofing. I want to make this build last for 5-7 years or more without having to upgrade anything except the GPU and RAM capacity.

I feel like the biggest determining factor for which CPU to buy is whether or not the 5800X will end up being significantly better than the 5600X for gaming in 5 or so years. Do you think gaming benefit from 8 cores in 5 years or so? If the answer is yes, then I think it would be a good idea to buy the 5800X now so that I don't have to upgrade the CPU for a long time.

I've already read some forums on this sort of question but haven't come to a satisfactory conclusion yet. I know that this is probably a tough question as it involves guessing about the future, but I would still appreciate your opinions.
Thanks!

'Future Proofing' is always tricky - if you get lucky a CPU will last a long time, but other advances can come into play when you start talking over 5 years.

In terms of number of cores needed for gaming - the advice is almost always to go with the lower core count parts of the time... for a long time it was 'all you need is a dual core', then it moved to 'all you need is a quad' and so on. The reality is however if you are looking for longevity the higher core count parts will hold up longer. Take Sandy Bridge, the i7 2600 / 2700 parts are still viable in modern games, whereas the i5 2500K (the recommended gaming chip of the time) really can't handle many of the most recent titles due to only have 4 threads. Where this might not work though is instruction sets - for example the Phenom II X6 series still have enough threads and raw performance to play many recent titles, however there are a growing list of games that require newer instructions that the Phenom II series lack so these titles simply won't start (whilst the first gen i7 parts from the same year still work). Then again we are talking cpus that released 11 years ago so the fact any current titles still run is impressive.

In terms of how many cores to go for now - if you are really looking for longevity then I'm not sure 8 cores is the way to go - it looks like the core counts are going to go up again in the next major generation for both Intel and AMD (note AMD are probably going to be doing a refresh of Zen 3 with more cache, but Zen 4 looks set to increase core counts again and Intel's next gen is using a 'big.LITTLE' style processor with 12 total cores / 16 threads). I would probably look at getting the Ryzen 9 5900X over the 5800X if you want to keep the system for that kind of time frame. The consoles are already 8 core / 16 threads (admittedly based on the older Zen 2 core) and the PC versions of most titles tend to need a bit more than the consoles (in part due to the higher quality / frame rates possible). The 5900X gives you a good overhead for now, and also features double the cash of the 5800X so my bet is it will be able to hang with the mainstream parts from newer generations where the 5800X will fall down the stack.
 
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Gamer31

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'Future Proofing' is always tricky - if you get lucky a CPU will last a long time, but other advances can come into play when you start talking over 5 years.

In terms of number of cores needed for gaming - the advice is almost always to go with the lower core count parts of the time... for a long time it was 'all you need is a dual core', then it moved to 'all you need is a quad' and so on. The reality is however if you are looking for longevity the higher core count parts will hold up longer. Take Sandy Bridge, the i7 2600 / 2700 parts are still viable in modern games, whereas the i5 2500K (the recommended gaming chip of the time) really can't handle many of the most recent titles due to only have 4 threads. Where this might not work though is instruction sets - for example the Phenom II X6 series still have enough threads and raw performance to play many recent titles, however there are a growing list of games that require newer instructions that the Phenom II series lack so these titles simply won't start (whilst the first gen i7 parts from the same year still work). Then again we are talking cpus that released 11 years ago so the fact any current titles still run is impressive.

In terms of how many cores to go for now - if you are really looking for longevity then I'm not sure 8 cores is the way to go - it looks like the core counts are going to go up again in the next major generation for both Intel and AMD (note AMD are probably going to be doing a refresh of Zen 3 with more cache, but Zen 4 looks set to increase core counts again and Intel's next gen is using a 'big.LITTLE' style processor with 12 total cores / 16 threads). I would probably look at getting the Ryzen 9 5900X over the 5800X if you want to keep the system for that kind of time frame. The consoles are already 8 core / 16 threads (admittedly based on the older Zen 2 core) and the PC versions of most titles tend to need a bit more than the consoles (in part due to the higher quality / frame rates possible). The 5900X gives you a good overhead for now, and also features double the cash of the 5800X so my bet is it will be able to hang with the mainstream parts from newer generations where the 5800X will fall down the stack.
I don't think I can afford the 5900X. Do you think it would still be worth getting the 5800X over the 5600X for longevity, even if the 5800X can't get as much longevity as the the 5900X?
 
I don't think I can afford the 5900X. Do you think it would still be worth getting the 5800X over the 5600X for longevity, even if the 5800X can't get as much longevity as the the 5900X?

Personally I think I'd go with the 5600X for now, then look to upgrade the cpu in a couple of years time (if it starts to become an issue) - there are already the 5900X and 5950X available as upgrade options, and it looks like AMD are going to do a refresh gen on AM4 before moving to the AM5 socket in 2022 so you may have some better options to look at in the future and the older parts should come down in price.
 
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Gamer31

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Personally I think I'd go with the 5600X for now, then look to upgrade the cpu in a couple of years time (if it starts to become an issue) - there are already the 5900X and 5950X available as upgrade options, and it looks like AMD are going to do a refresh gen on AM4 before moving to the AM5 socket in 2022 so you may have some better options to look at in the future and the older parts should come down in price.
Isn't upgrading the CPU really expensive because I'd have to upgrade the motherboard to a new socket and possibly have upgrade RAM to ddr5 as well? Maybe if I wait for AM5 to come out before building my pc I could upgrade the CPU a few years after that without having to change the motherboard. Would this work? Would AM5 even stick around long enough to make upgrading the CPU on the same socket worth it?
 

Mickieg1994

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I don't think I can afford the 5900X. Do you think it would still be worth getting the 5800X over the 5600X for longevity, even if the 5800X can't get as much longevity as the the 5900X?

Absolutely, again benchmarks won't show you how much smoother the overall user experience is going from 6 cores to 8, the 5800x is a very capable chip and will be for a good while, especially as it will easily compare with the specs of the consoles you will be able to keep up with whatever games come out for the next few years atleast, if you're happy to lower settings and be ok with lower framerates then your pc will easily last for a good while longer than that, by the time you will want to upgrade anything it will be to a whole new platform, might even be able to keep it long enough to skip a whole generation of hardware

As stated above the pc market is so hard to predict and future proofing is something that does not really exist, we never really know what the future holds so the best you can do is get a pc that makes you happy with some room to expand in future and enjoy it for now, the moment using your pc isn't an enjoyable experience start considering an upgrade, the type of upgrade depends on what you want from your pc
 

Gamer31

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Absolutely, again benchmarks won't show you how much smoother the overall user experience is going from 6 cores to 8, the 5800x is a very capable chip and will be for a good while, especially as it will easily compare with the specs of the consoles you will be able to keep up with whatever games come out for the next few years atleast, if you're happy to lower settings and be ok with lower framerates then your pc will easily last for a good while longer than that, by the time you will want to upgrade anything it will be to a whole new platform, might even be able to keep it long enough to skip a whole generation of hardware

As stated above the pc market is so hard to predict and future proofing is something that does not really exist, we never really know what the future holds so the best you can do is get a pc that makes you happy with some room to expand in future and enjoy it for now, the moment using your pc isn't an enjoyable experience start considering an upgrade, the type of upgrade depends on what you want from your pc
Thanks for the help, though I was wondering what you mean by smoother gameplay. Are you talking about 1% low frames or a lack of stuttering or better loading times or something like that?
 

Mickieg1994

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Thanks for the help, though I was wondering what you mean by smoother gameplay. Are you talking about 1% low frames or a lack of stuttering or better loading times or something like that?

It's kind of all of the above, your system won't just be running the game, there will be windows and other programs running in the background too, having this load spread across more cores means that you're cpu will have an easier time, running the game ontop, queuing up frames for the gpu, processing ai, user input, moving stuff to and from the ram, vram and storage of your system, aswell as anything else, youtube on another monitor or just alt-tabbing from the game to use the internet or another program will all be smoother and more responsive.

Your cpu has to calculate the position and colour of every pixel on the screen too, before sending that info over to the gpu to render the frame, this is tens of millions of calculations per second and even if you are playing at higher resolutions where the gpu does most of the work the cpu is still working hard too, it needs to keep those frames coming at a reliable pace to the gpu so it can render them, so again the more processors and threads you have the better, playing vr? well now the cpu has to calculate for 2 points of view aswell as everything else

Not to mention 32gb of ram, forgive me if you have mentioned it already but that would also be a viable upgrade as being able to pull more game data into the faster storage also increases load times, responsiveness and better multitasking, aswell as the fact that windows likes to compress things to save ram, usually speaking, 16gb is plenty but upgrading to 32 and you will notice, "x" game is using 10gb and windows is using 9gb, with mozilla and a few tabs open

Something i noticed with my little bro's pc, ryzen 5 3600, very nice cpu, perfectly capable 6 cores 12 threads, a fair bit slower than a 5600x but with a rtx 3060, it was using about 60-70% usage while gaming, using around 95-100% gpu power however it was only addressing 40% of the vram, running the game high/ultra on watch dogs legion, now there may be an issue there if the cpu can't handle all the vram as graphics get more detailed in future and that could be a possible draw back of a 6 core chip

Now a 3080 is quite abit faster than a 3060 and this makes me wonder if you risk leaving too much performance on the table if the cpu can't keep up, even a reasonably faster 5600x, a 5800x would have more cores and threads to give more instructions to the gpu, this will improve frametiming which will improve smoother looking gameplay with less stuttering, especially in vr
 

ClapTrapper

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Personally I would wait until you can snag the video card for a decent price. This way the rest of the components may drop in price or they may be replaced with something better. Either way,it is a win-win if you wait. (Assuming you can wait).
 
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Gamer31

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Personally I would wait until you can snag the video card for a decent price. This way the rest of the components may drop in price or they may be replaced with something better. Either way,it is a win-win if you wait. (Assuming you can wait).
Yeah. I think I'm definitely going to wait until graphics cards come down in price. I just hope that happens sooner rather than later.
 
Isn't upgrading the CPU really expensive because I'd have to upgrade the motherboard to a new socket and possibly have upgrade RAM to ddr5 as well? Maybe if I wait for AM5 to come out before building my pc I could upgrade the CPU a few years after that without having to change the motherboard. Would this work? Would AM5 even stick around long enough to make upgrading the CPU on the same socket worth it?

Well my thinking is you would have worthwhile upgrade options on the AM4 platform, especially if AMD do release the rumoured refresh of Zen 3 with 3D stacked cache (which bumps the level 3 from 64mb to a massive 192mb - resulting in ~ 15% increase in fps in games). If you can wait until AM5 comes out, then you should have a very strong future upgrade path if AM4 is anything to go on.

Edit: Out of interest, what is your current setup?
 
It is premature to make a cpu choice now if you must wait for gpu prices to get back to normal.
That may well be a year out when amd will be offering new motherboards, processors, and needing ddr5 ram.
Ditto for intel 12th gen.
There is really no such thing as "future proofing"
Whatever you buy today will be old in 2 years.
For fast action gaming, particularly at higher resolutions, the graphics card means everything.
Find your card first.
Most any current gen processor in the $250 range will do a good job with a good card. either intel 11th gen or ryzen 5000

Your original question revolves around how many threads(not cores) you can make effective use of in games.
That number today is in the range of 4-6.
Perhaps higher if you play multiplayer with many participants.

High thread counts benefit mostly batch apps that can use many threads.

If you have a need today, go ahead and buy today.
Get what you need for perhaps 2 years out.
 

Gamer31

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Well my thinking is you would have worthwhile upgrade options on the AM4 platform, especially if AMD do release the rumoured refresh of Zen 3 with 3D stacked cache (which bumps the level 3 from 64mb to a massive 192mb - resulting in ~ 15% increase in fps in games). If you can wait until AM5 comes out, then you should have a very strong future upgrade path if AM4 is anything to go on.

Edit: Out of interest, what is your current setup?
I'm currently using a gaming laptop:
Windows 10
i5-9300H
GTX 1660 Ti (I don't think it's the max-q version but I'm not completely positive)
256 GB SSD + 1TB HDD
16GB DDR4 2666
60hz 1080p screen

Also, on the subject of Zen 3 refresh, are the rumors saying that this refresh will be an entire new series of chips (i.e. Ryzen 6000 series).
 
I'm currently using a gaming laptop:
Windows 10
i5-9300H
GTX 1660 Ti (I don't think it's the max-q version but I'm not completely positive)
256 GB SSD + 1TB HDD
16GB DDR4 2666
60hz 1080p screen

Also, on the subject of Zen 3 refresh, are the rumors saying that this refresh will be an entire new series of chips (i.e. Ryzen 6000 series).

https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/news/new-video-shares-details-about-amds-3d-v-cache-tech

That summarises what we know so for... the official word from AMD is "Zen 3 Ryzen processors with 3D V-Cache would enter production later this year ". That confirms that it is Ryzen cpu (so either desktop or laptop and on mainstream platform rather than HEDT / Server) and that it is coming. What we don't know is what product series it will be (as it's still Zen 3 it might be a Ryzen 5000XT series or they could launch it as 6000) and no confirmation of the socket. That said all the info we have suggests they aren't moving to AM5 until DDR5 is ready, and the timing of this is too soon for that, so if it's on the desktop it's fairly safe to assume it will be on AM4. I guess there's a possibility that it could require a new chipset, but I would have expected some rumours to have been doing the rounds if a new 600 series of chipsets were in the works so I'm guessing they will just stick with B550 / X570 boards. The other possibility is this would be launched as a new laptop part, however the extra cache is probably going to bump up power use so I think that is unlikely.
 

Gamer31

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https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/news/new-video-shares-details-about-amds-3d-v-cache-tech

That summarises what we know so for... the official word from AMD is "Zen 3 Ryzen processors with 3D V-Cache would enter production later this year ". That confirms that it is Ryzen cpu (so either desktop or laptop and on mainstream platform rather than HEDT / Server) and that it is coming. What we don't know is what product series it will be (as it's still Zen 3 it might be a Ryzen 5000XT series or they could launch it as 6000) and no confirmation of the socket. That said all the info we have suggests they aren't moving to AM5 until DDR5 is ready, and the timing of this is too soon for that, so if it's on the desktop it's fairly safe to assume it will be on AM4. I guess there's a possibility that it could require a new chipset, but I would have expected some rumours to have been doing the rounds if a new 600 series of chipsets were in the works so I'm guessing they will just stick with B550 / X570 boards. The other possibility is this would be launched as a new laptop part, however the extra cache is probably going to bump up power use so I think that is unlikely.
Thanks for the info.
 

Gamer31

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