What Classes as Multitasking, and Will I Benefit from More Cores?

[S_Lans]

My next (and first) planned PC build will either have a Ryzen 5 1600, or an i5 7600k, that's been decided. However, i'm unsure what is meant by the term multitasking, since the Ryzen is generally known as slower, but much faster for multitasking.

Would I benefit from the Ryzen if I were using Photoshop, SerifDrawX8, listening to music via Spotify, and having many tabs open in a browser? Keeping in mind that I will also be playing the latest games, when I am not working, and I want these to run quickly.

Finally, will either of these CPUs bottleneck a GTX1060 or GTX1070? Will I notice a frame rate difference at all in games like Ghost Recon: Wildlands?

Planned parts lists:
Intel i5
Ryzen

Any advice would be appreciated!

 

[James Mason]

"multitasking" is watching youtube and playing a game. That's not what people buy better CPUs for.
Multithreading, is a program using more than 1 core at the same time, something photoshop and serifdraw may do, and video editing software like Premier definitely do.

The problem is whether your software is smart enough to use more than 1 core, and if it is / isn't will it use a core besides the first core.

soptify is a program that would only ever use the first core.

 

[Viking2121]

Sounds like for your needs the i5 will do you better than Ryzen from what I read.

Anyway, I will not go back to a 4 core 4 thread CPU as I have a ton of things open such as 4 different webcams around the house to keep and eye on my ill grandfather when I have to finish my work at home, The cams do use around 15% of the CPU as they are 1080p cams, and they are on nearly 24/7 at least until he's able to get around without a walker and the cams will be uninstalled. I also like to game and record at the software level which uses a lot of CPU and editing the videos, and audio programs and I do file sharing among other PCs.

I could probably get away with the 4core 8thread i7 but recording BF1 at 1080p 60fps at 50,000 bit rate will use my CPU at nearly 90%, same with GTA5, and i7 7700k wouldn't be able to keep up in the regard.

So it depends on what you want to do with your system. If you plan to record or stream, I would have to recommend the Ryzen at that point although simple streaming and most games the i5 would do just fine.

 

[synphul]

Each game is different. Ghost recon wildlands is extremely gpu heavy and there weren't a lot of cpu differences between the i7, i5 and ryzen due to gpu bottlenecking. To get 60fps @1080p on ultra settings took a gtx 1080. Very high settings @1080p the rx 480 and gtx 1060 were capable of 60fps.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Performance_Analysis/Ghost_Recon_Wildlands/5.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/1360-amd-ryzen-5-1600x-1500x-gaming/page3.html

Photoshop will perform slightly better on intel as will most games. Multitasking can mean a variety of things but generally where multiple cores/threads benefit is streaming a game while playing or working in photoshop or web browsing with music playing while a video is encoding in the background. Having a lot of tabs open isn't cpu intensive, it's memory intensive. More ram will help. Photoshop enjoys a fair amount of ram so depending what you're doing, 8-16gb would be preferred, 8gb being the min. If you want the browser with a lot of tabs open as well, edge toward 16gb.

Obviously if you're using photoshop to just touch up a few photos, adjust color levels or add text to them then not much ram is really needed and 8gb would suffice. If you're working with large images (4000x5000px) and working with 30-40 layers or more, 16gb would be a big benefit.

Sometimes it's difficult to suggest because simply 'photoshop' or 'gaming' can mean a lot of different things with varying requirements. Playing slots or something on fb doesn't require the same that ghost recon does. Cs:go is a popular game for many but again doesn't need the type of hardware ghost recon or witcher 3 do. You asked if either cpu will bottleneck the 1060 or 1070, in cs:go both those gpu's are likely overkill. In ghost recon, both those gpu's could be the bottleneck depending how high you turn up the graphics. One game to another and the situation can change that much.

 

[madmatt30]

To me ryzen sounds a better choice for you.
The improviso would be IF you were running a 1080p 144htz screen , competitive gaming ,& want 100fps+ in every game out there.
Then & only then the i5 heavily overclocked 'may' be a better choice.

Your I5 build component wise is fine
The ryzen , you can spend your budget more optimally than that & get a decent ssd in there .
You want faster ram with ryzen , the 1600 with its stock cooler is a far better buy than the 1600x & an evo 212.


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (£194.96 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-AB350-GAMING 3 ATX AM4 Motherboard (£99.12 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£116.02 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial - MX300 275GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£83.15 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£41.88 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB WINDFORCE OC 6G Video Card (£234.97 @ More Computers)
Case: NZXT - S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£62.10 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit (£83.99 @ CCL Computers)
Other: Corsair cx550m (£58.06)
Total: £974.25
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-05-18 08:33 BST+0100