Ryzen 3 vs. Ryzen 5 vs. Ryzen 7 vs. Ryzen 9

Today's review will expect at AMD's third-gen Ryzen processors, a sort of family overview if you will. This feature volition serve as a quick and piece of cake reference for those wanting to compare the Ryzen iii, v, 7 and 9 series processors. Information technology's rare that we characteristic all of these in a single commodity, let solitary standing on its ain. For case, when we reviewed the latest upkeep Ryzen 3 processors, none of the Ryzen 9 models were included, as $500+ parts aren't usually relevant when reviewing a $120 CPU, so we opt to remove some products in an endeavour to declutter the graphs.

Believe it or not, at that place'south a full of twenty third-gen Ryzen processors if y'all include OEM parts and the drool-inducing Threadripper models. Still, for general consumers looking at buying a mainstream AM4 processor, in that location'southward primarily v models that we recommend -- though parts such as the 3100, 3600X, 3800X and even the new XT variants maybe worth buying if available at the right cost -- for simplicity sake, we'll be focusing on the 5 superlative models nosotros recommend the most.

For upkeep shoppers there'due south the Ryzen 3 3300X (when it's in stock). The ever popular Ryzen 5 3600 is a dandy buy at the $200 MSRP, and even amend at $170, a price information technology'south been trending at for months at present. The R5 3600 has been our best value, best all-rounder option for a twelvemonth now and nosotros're not alone in that choice.

Another very pop option amongst shoppers is the Ryzen 7 3700X, and today information technology's incredible value at just $260 for an eight-core, sixteen-thread processor of this quality. The more premium 3800X has besides dropped from $400 down to $300, merely given information technology offers very fiddling over the 3700X, we still recommend you pocket the $40 and put information technology towards a more than meaningful upgrade.

	Ryzen three 3300X	Ryzen 5 3600	Ryzen 7 3700X	Ryzen 9 3900X	Ryzen nine 3950X
List Cost	$120	$200	$330	$500	$750
Release Date	April 2022	July 2022			Nov 2022
Cores / Threads	4 / 8	6 / 12	viii / xvi	12 / 24	sixteen / 32
Base Frequency	3.8 GHz	3.six GHz	3.6 GHz	3.8 GHz	3.5 GHz
Max Turbo	4.3 GHz	four.2 GHz	4.4 GHz	4.6 GHz	4.7 GHz
L3 Cache	16 MB	32 MB		64 MB
Retentivity Support	Dual Channel, DDR4-3200
TDP	65 W			105 W

The adjacent step upwardly, the Ryzen 9 3900X has too been discounted substantially, dropping from $500 at launch to merely $420, for the first mainstream desktop CPU to offering 12-cores / 24-threads. Finally, sitting at the meridian of the third-gen Ryzen family is the mighty 16-core, 32-thread Ryzen 9 3950X, which a year on is nevertheless completely unchallenged as the most powerful mainstream desktop processor, right now sitting at $700.

These processors work on all AM4 300, 400 and 500-series motherboards, assuming the advisable BIOS is installed. They officially support DDR4-3200 retentiveness only volition happily operate with up to DDR4-3600 memory, while the better quality silicon volition handle DDR4-3800 maintaining a i:ane ratio with the Infinity Fabric interconnect.

For testing we'll exist using a fully populated Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master motherboard with 8GB G.Skill FlareX CL14 modules for a 32GB capacity. As usual we're using an RTX 2080 Ti to alleviate GPU bottlenecks, assuasive us to have a better wait at actual CPU operation...

Benchmarks

Starting with Cinebench R20, we run across fairly typical scaling performance equally the core count increases. Where we see a 33% increase in core count, the performance uplift is around 30%, and in the instance where we're getting a 50% increase in cores, we encounter a corresponding 43 to 48% increase in operation.

There'due south a 43% performance boost when jumping from the 3300X to the 3600, the 30% from the 3600 to the 3700X, 48% from the 3700X to the 3900X and and then a 27% jump from the 3900X to the 3950X. Some of those margins will exist influenced by frequency, but overall pretty much what you'd await to see.

Looking at the maximum single cadre turbo frequency, while non the same frequencies that would have been seen for the all-cadre workload. This is exactly what yous'd expect to run into, the 3300X clocks 100 MHz higher than the 3600 and therefore overtakes it for single-cadre workloads. Then we see a 100 - 200 MHz increase between the Ryzen 7 and 9 models, so they scale appropriately.

The 7-zip compression results are interesting equally this test doesn't accept full advantage of SMT (simultaneous multithreading), at least for the higher cadre count parts. We're seeing a 35% performance boost when jumping from the 3300X to the 3600, 28% from the 3600 to the 3700X, 39% from the 3700X to the 3900X and so just a 16% spring from the 3900X to the 3950X. The 16-core, 32-thread 3950X isn't well leveraged hither, so let'due south take a look at the decompression results which do make far meliorate apply of SMT.

This is scaling more in line with our Cinebench R20 results, where we see a 50% increase in core count, going from the 3300X to the 3600 and from the 3700X to the 3900X we run across a ~50% increment in performance or thereabouts.

Blender can besides take full advantage of cadre-heavy processors, right upward to the 64-core Threadripper 3990X. As a result, performance scales appropriately. That said, while the 3900X volition reduce the render fourth dimension from the 3700X by 33%, we're but seeing a 22% reduction when jumping up to the 3950X from the 3900X. If time is money, and then the 3950X makes sense, only hither nosotros see diminishing returns past the Ryzen 9 3900X.

Moving from rendering to code compilation, manifestly a very different kind of workload that yields very similar results. We observe a big 45% boost when moving from the 3300X to the 3600, while the upgrade to the 3700X is a lot less dramatic, yet still sizable at ~23%.

And then from the 3700X to the 3900X we see another massive 47% performance jump, then we're back to a 21% increase with the Ryzen 9 3950X. For productivity tasks, the 3900X appears to deliver that perfect remainder of price and performance right now.

The DaVinci Resolve Studio sixteen benchmark is interesting as this is a mixed workload test, it doesn't peg these CPUs at 100% utilization from beginning to end, similar all video production software, rather utilization is all over the place. The single biggest performance jump can exist seen when upgrading from the 3300X to the 3600, just beyond that you go smaller increments from one series to the adjacent.

Scaling in Adobe Premiere Pro goes more than in line with the core increase. We're seeing a ~20% boost for a l% increase in cores, and a x% boost for a 33% increase in cores. The 3950X offers the more marginal gains, just at the aforementioned time is also the outright fastest.

Adobe Photoshop is the start application in our suite where core-heavy processors are non that well utilized. We see only a 17% heave in performance from the 3300X to the 3950X, fifty-fifty though the Ryzen 9 processor packs four times as many cores.

It'due south a similar story with After Effects, though we see double-digit gains when moving from the 3300X to the 3600, so it appears as though the 6-cadre, 12-thread processor is the sweet spot for this awarding.

Power Consumption

Before nosotros get to the gaming tests, here's a quick wait at total system consumption. Interestingly, the 3700X pushed power usage only seven watts higher than the 3600 despite packing twice every bit many cores as the 3300X.

The 3900X is the most power hungry processor, and while you might expect that honor to get to the 3950X, due to a binning process that sees AMD reserve the all-time silicon for the 3950X, the 16-core processor is able to operate at lower voltages and therefore consume less power.

Gaming Benchmarks

It's gaming where picking the right processor gets tricky. Most of you don't want to waste product money overinvesting in a CPU you'll never fully apply. This is often justified in the proper name of future proofing or for users who mix work and play, in those scenarios Ryzen can pull double duty beautifully.

We see virtually identical operation between the 3300X and 3600, even when using a $ane,000+ graphics carte at 1080p. So you may decide to purchase the 3300X as it clearly offers the all-time value, but spending $50 more in this instance to become the 3600 might pay off in a reasonably short time frame as games are slowly becoming more CPU demanding and quad cadre parts similar the 3300X are often right on the edge with modern titles.

Of course, if you're on a tight upkeep where every terminal dollar counts, and so worry virtually future gaming performance might be less of a concern, and therefore saving $50 by getting the 3300X might be the preferred solution. What'southward clear here is, stepping up to 8 cores with the 3700X has very petty impact on Battlefield V operation and going across that is a pointless practice.

Moving on to Far Cry New Dawn nosotros find some other situation where the 3600 is a little faster than the 3300X cheers to the two actress cores and the 3700X is a whisker faster again, but across that at that place are no performance gains to be seen with the 12 and sixteen-cadre models under these test conditions.

Interestingly, Gears Tactics goes the other mode, though we believe the advantages we're seeing hither are related to unmarried core operation as the 3300X matched the 3600 and the higher-end Ryzen 9 parts that clock a petty higher offered very small performance gains.

Next up we have Ghost Recon Breakpoint and this is a good instance of a game that's not particularly sensitive on the CPU side, assuming y'all have at the very least a decent quad-core with SMT back up, which is exactly what you get with the 3300X.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a adept instance of a game that can exist extremely CPU enervating and here we're seeing a significant performance uplift when moving away from the Ryzen 3 3300X to the Ryzen 5 3600, for nearly 20% more functioning. Beyond six cores though, at that place is little to exist gained.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is another CPU intensive title which shows solid functioning gains right upwards to the viii-core 3700X. The game plays very well on the 3300X with no noticeable stuttering, and so with lower-finish graphics cards the margins volition quickly evaporate, merely if you're seeing maximum performance in this title nether CPU limited weather condition, the 3700X is the chip to get.

What We Learned

At that place are many third-gen Ryzen processors to pick from, but you can narrow the choices down easily and having an intended budget will assist you quickly do that. Information technology's also good to empathize what kind of functioning boost yous'll get by going upwardly a tier, or how much you'll be sacrificing by going down to relieve some coin.

Equally we saw in the application benchmarks, the Ryzen ix 3900X is the sweet spot for those seeking strong functioning, while the Ryzen 5 3600 is a bully budget alternative. The Ryzen 7 3700X is, of form, faster than the vi-core model, but the cost increase is higher than the performance you lot receive in return, which is why we feel the R5 3600 is a better all-rounder.

Looking at the spec table we showed in the introduction merely with the current retail prices added, and how that translates to price per core, nosotros see that the Ryzen 5 3600 is the best value pick, coming in at simply $28 per core, whereas you're paying a 16% premium per core with the 3700X.

Naturally though, if time's coin and you lot need the most performance you can go on the AM4 socket without turning to Threadripper, then the 3950X is past default, the fleck to go, despite its rather loftier $44 per core.

	Ryzen 3 3300X	Ryzen 5 3600	Ryzen vii 3700X	Ryzen 9 3900X	Ryzen 9 3950X
List Price	$120	$200	$330	$500	$750
Current Retail	Out of stock	$170	$260	$420	$700
Cost Per Core	$xxx	$28	$32.5	$35	$44
Release Date	Apr 2022	July 2022			Nov 2022
Cores / Threads	4 / 8	6 / 12	8 / 16	12 / 24	16 / 32
Base Frequency	3.8 GHz	3.6 GHz	iii.half-dozen GHz	iii.8 GHz	3.v GHz
Max Turbo	4.3 GHz	4.2 GHz	4.4 GHz	4.6 GHz	four.7 GHz
L3 Cache	16 MB	32 MB		64 MB

Picking the right Ryzen CPU for productivity tasks is fairly straightforward. But when yous start talking about gaming operation, things get a tad muddier. Here'south a await at the boilerplate performance across the half dozen games tested and how that translates into toll per frame.

The Ryzen 3 3300X is clearly the most cost constructive gaming processor, coming in at just $1.fourteen per frame in our tests. Withal, equally seen in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the 3300X can skid behind in more demanding titles and it might non be long earlier 4-core / eight-thread processors become inadequate for the latest and greatest titles, though that remains to be seen.

This is where the "futureproof" argument comes into play. Nosotros feel that if you can, spending the actress money to secure the Ryzen 5 3600 will show to be a wise investment, but going one step further and spending 65% more for the 3700X, but isn't worth it for budget conscious gamers. Needless to be said, Ryzen 9 parts are an unnecessary luxury for pure gaming builds.

Information technology's worth keeping in mind that we're expecting 4th-gen Ryzen afterwards this year. It's no coincidence electric current Ryzen pricing is so attractive. AMD keeps moving fast and if yous tin afford the wait, it might pay to hold off on a new CPU purchase for a few months. The information in this characteristic should be relevant for that purchase equally nosotros're expecting Zen 3 processors to be fifty-fifty more efficient, so the 6-cadre, 12-thread option at that place should have fifty-fifty more headroom for gaming, which is why it can exist a trivial silly to fixate on cadre count, rather than raw functioning.