AMD Ryzen 5 3600

A good option for work PCs being built to a tight budget, but better chips lurk nearby

SCORE

PRICE £133 (£160 inc VAT) from currys.co.uk

The Ryzen 5 3600 is one of the most affordable ways to get your hands on the Zen 2 architecture in a six-core format, and this part is multithreaded – which instantly lifts it above the Intel Core i5-9400F ( see p90), which has six cores, no multithreading and a slightly lower price.

The Ryzen 5 3600 motors along with clock speeds of 3.6GHz and 4.2GHz, and it’s got 32MB of cache, meaning it’s ahead of Intel in both of those departments. Because it’s a Zen 2 part, it supports PCIe 4 and has 24 PCI lanes.

On paper, the 3600 easily outstrips the Intel chip, but tougher competition comes from within AMD’s ranks. The Ryzen 5 3600X ( see p84) only costs £31 more and it delivers better clock speeds and more aggressive turbo abilities.

The 3600 is comfortably ahead of the i5-9400F in virtually all application tests, and it’s never slow: for mainstream work tasks, it’s easily good enough, and in some multithreaded tests it almost matches Intel’s newer, pricier i5-10600K. However, there is a significant performance gulf between the 3600 and the 3600X.

This cheaper AMD chip is underwhelming in gaming, too. Its 3DMark score beats the i5-9400F, but the Intel chip is faster in virtually every real-world test. The 3600X is quicker, too.

Still, the 3600 remains a fine option for a work PC on a budget. Just be aware that the Ryzen 5 3600X is only a little more cash and offers a lot more speed.

The Ryzen 7 3700X is AMD’s best-value eight-core chip: its £300 price makes it nearly £40 less than the Ryzen 7 3800X ( see p85), and the two chips share a similar specification. In particular, the 3700X runs with speeds of 3.6GHz and 4.4GHz, while the Ryzen 7 3800X sits at 3.9GHz and 4.5GHz.

This £300 chip is cheaper than the aging Intel Core i7-9700K ( see p91), which still costs £335. It’s miles cheaper than the new i7-10700K, which arrives at a hefty £430. AMD’s part is only £25 more than the new i5-10600K, too.

In our application tests, the 3700X delivered an overall score of 337 – neck and neck with both the 3800X and i7-10700K. It was a similar story in Cinebench and Geekbench, although it fell slightly behind its rivals in Adobe’s apps.

Intel’s chip also proved faster in single-threaded tests overall, but bear in mind that the 3700X was faster in Blender, both SiSoftware Sandra benchmarks and in Y-Cruncher’s multicore test. It’s deeply impressive considering the price difference. And if you compare the Ryzen 7 3700X to the i5-10600K, there’s only one choice.

The Ryzen did falter a little in gaming. It was a couple of frames behind the 3800X in Ghost Recon Wildlands, and up to ten frames behind the i7-10700K. The i510600K was faster in real-world gaming tests, albeit with a poorer 3DMark result.

If you’re not fussed about a few frames here and there, the 3700X is a bargain.