ZEN 3 is here and we have with us its most affordable part, the 6-core Ryzen 5 5600X Many of you would be asking about the availability, When? and at what Cost? Well Since you all know AMD haven’t been made available here (Pakistan). Yes, it’s true! AMD is not officially here but the import option is always there. The Pakistani PC market is a gold-mine if you’re looking for old graphics-card and processors but if you have a dream about buying brand new products at launch, then it’s not the right place to live. We at PPG are consistently upgrading the bench-system to keep the flow-and maintain the quality for accurate and more reliable benchmarks just like AMD is keeping its promise of rolling out a new micro-architecture every year since 2017 when ZEN 1 made its debut. AMD not only engineered a new, faster architecture, they also improved power efficiency without a node shrink. The ZEN 3 provides the 19% more IPC as you can say, instruction-per-clock in their latest architecture. AMD achieved this feat by some new architectural changes. One of the big architecture changes was integrating more cores in one channel or single CCX. Before, AMD had 4-core CCX, but now we are looking at the must needed significant change,8-core in one CCX, and with disabling of two cores the six-core beast 5600X was introduced! This means all cores within a chipset can talk to each other at a lower latency, and access a larger 32 MB shared L3 cache. Moreover, AMD has been marketing the Ryzen 5 5600X as the best gaming CPU and we will test that claim today!
A unified 8-core design
To eliminate the inter-core and inter CCX latency, ZEN 2 made their way to single-CCD (Core Chiplet Die). In the new line up of Ryzen 5000 series which includes the single CCX (Core Complex Die) that consists of an 8-core architecture, all the previous ZEN processors had 4-cores per CCX. In the 5000 series architecture the L3 cache pool is shared across all eight cores. It can reduce the latency by a noticeable amount of time. Now only CCX is responsible to handle 8-cores at once and a separate I/O die which is responsible for memory controller; inter-connected by an Infinity Fabric.
Hardware and Software Used
We will be using two different ZEN 2, 6-core CPUs, one is non-x and the other one is super-binned XT from AMD. Our software and games are updated to their recent build version respectively, including our operating system as well as updated system drivers
Gaming Performance
Testing Forza Horizon 4, The 5600X showed an amazing generational improvement of more than 20 FPS and 13% lead over an overclocked Ryzen 5 3600 in 1440p. Forza Horizon 4 is published by Microsoft Studio. An open-world beautifully crafted game loving the more single-core juice from the Ryzen 5 5600X. That’s translates to a pretty solid performance by the new series processor. We used the Ultra Preset for this game with the built-in benchmark, also dynamic-optimization was kept OFF. We even tested at 4K but the margins are almost identical because we are heavily GPU limited at that Resolution.
Our second game for our benchmark is Shadow of The Tomb Raider published by Square Enix. We’re using the highest preset and TAA and not using the built-in benchmark for this game. We did our own custom benchmark, at the cherry-picked place which is called Kuwaq Yaku town. The stock Ryzen 5 5600x is 17 FPS faster which translates into 13% performance lead as compared to Overclocked ZEN 2 Ryzen 5 3600. A solid lead over its predecessor.
Our third title is Microsoft Flight Simulator, the reason we added this game in our suite is pretty obvious, it’s an open-world game, and there is so much simulation for the CPU to render than the GPU. Microsoft Flight Simulator was one of the most anticipated titles that launched in 2020. Ryzen 5 5600X is 13% faster than the overclocked AMD Ryzen 5 3600. Impressive gains for sim lovers. We have tested on the High-End Settings Preset and we took this scores from Sydney Landing Challenge
Valhalla is the latest flavor from the Assassin’s Creed franchise and shockingly twenty-second release in the Assassin’s Creed series. We have used the builtin-benchmark. I find, the Builtin Benchmark of the Valhalla is pretty accurate. We are limited by GPU in this title, but still Ryzen 5 5600X is leading by 4%. We used Ultra-High DX12 Preset
Watch Dogs Legion 2020 is an action-adventure game and is the third-installment in the Watch Dogs series, based on London City. 5600X Stock is 3% Better than the overclocked Ryzen 5 3600. Which was expected, because this game has been quite GPU intensive. We don’t want you to expect big gains from the 5600X in this particular title.
There isn’t anything to see, Read Read Redemption ll has always been so much GPU demanding. We tested the Balanced Preset and Vulkan. Ryzen 5 5600X enjoys the 3% lead in the average FPS but the 1% lows were smooth and stable.
Counter-Strike Global Offensive taking the advantage from the IPC gains on the Ryzen 5 5600X CPU – Almost 20% faster than the overclocked Ryzen 5 3600. Which is quite impressive. If you love CSGO, then 5600X should be your go-to processor!
Gaming Performance 4K Slides [For the Enthusiasts]
At first, I wasn’t prepared for testing at the 4K resolution due to a number of facts: Graphics-card resources are heavily limited at 3840×2160 we are fully GPU bound here, the CPU does not play much of a role here. Regardless of the graphics-card, all processors are performing roughly the same. The gaming experience at 4K is extremely limited.
What We Learned / Worth Buying in Pakistan?
It’s an easy guess, AMD is actually competing with themselves. They have made significant changes in the architecture by reducing latency while increasing the instruction-per-clock by a double-digit number. However, the 5600X comes with a cost, if you want the maximum value switch to the Ryzen 5 3600.The extra $100 translates to roughly around 16,000 PKR, which is a heavy premium over the ZEN 2 value-beast. It has the same-core count as well as the same number of threads. If you’re the type of guy who loves CSGO and Valorant or you love simulators, then 5600X should be your first choice. Ryzen 5 3600 is no less though and still holds it own when competing with its next gen counterpart, as we showed the results of both processors going neck-to-neck with each other in GPU bound scenarios. The $100 increase might not be a big deal for some folks, but in Pakistan even $50 can amount to a huge deal because of the currency conversation rate. We are expecting AMD to launch Ryzen 5 5600 as soon as possible. I have recommended and suggested AMD Ryzen 5 5600X as an upgrade only if the price difference is around 6000PKR – 7000PKR more. Ryzen 5 3600 is currently being sold for 36,000 to 38,000 PKR at the moment, so if we are going to spend around 57,500 PKR for the Ryzen 5 5600x, that is roughly 40% more premium for the 15% performance not to mention the shipping charges and import duties on the product.
Most Common Question
Our recommendation for getting a processor under 60,000 PKR are two options, firstly we’d recommend the Ryzen 7 3700x and the second option is the newer Ryzen 5 5600X. On one hand, the Ryzen 5 5600X is bringing noticeable gaming improvement along with significant architecture changes, on the other hand, the 5600X doesn’t give you great performance for buck when compared to the 36,000PKR Ryzen 5 3600 or 58,000PKR Ryzen 7 3700x. Keep in mind that almost 90% of games require single core-performance and better Instruction Per Clock or IPC as well as better latency, core-count has little to no effect.
Ryzen 5 5600X has better latency and better-core performance, which could give you at-least 20% up-lift in gaming performance in E-sport titles like Counter-Strike Global offensive. Keeping all the value stuff and money aside, 5600X is a great gaming processor, and Ryzen 7 3700X can never match the 5600X even after two years. Our recommendation is do not waste your brain resources to think! Just go for the 5600X!
