Depending on the game, the CPU will often handle tasks including scene management, gameplay logic, physics calculations, and asset loading. We took these factors into account when assessing the expected CPU performance for gaming. AMD has also implemented AVX-512 (Advanced Vector Instructions) in its Ryzen 7000 CPUs, which is a set of instructions for the x86 ISA (Instruction Set Architecture). Here AMD is using a double pump of the 256-bit wide extension, and they claim that this will prevent frequency fluctuations that the 512-bit operations could cause. Not to worry, we have included some productivity benchmarks in this review as we're sure many of you want to see how it compares with the 5800X. At 1440p the 5800X3D was 20% faster, seen when looking at the 1% lows. Interestingly, that margin opens up to 28% with the Radeon 6600 XT at 1080p and we even see a 12% performance advantage at 1440p for the 5800X3D. This was easy on the MSI and Gigabyte boards, where I simply started with the latest BIOS supporting the 1.2.0.7 microcode, but for Asus several previous BIOS revisions needed to be installed first before the board would accept the latest microcode, so it was more of an incremental update process. MSI B350 Tomahawk [B350]

Most of the 300-series boards were in line with the MSI X570S Carbon Max WiFi though oddly the Gigabyte Gaming 5 was a little faster, basically matching the Asus ROG Crossfire VIII Extreme, so that contradicts what was found in the Factorio benchmark. In our Chromium Code Compile test, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D falls significantly behind the 7700X, providing another success to the latter. Geek Bench 5 Geek Bench 5 Ultimately it's up to motherboard manufacturers to roll out these updates for their various AM4 products, but it looks like all are on board and we have models from MSI, Asus, and Gigabyte to try out that have public access to AGESA 1.2.0.7. For updating each board, we installed a Ryzen 5 1600 as the original BIOS on the older B350 and X370 boards would recognize that CPU, then flashed to the latest BIOS, removed the R5 1600 and installed the 5800X3D. So as we see it, you either go big with high-speed DDR5 when buying the 12900K or you might as well just opt for the more efficient and easier to cool 5800X3D. Of course, we'd love to compare these two across 30 or more games, and we're working on that right now to see beyond a shadow of a doubt which is the ultimate CPU for gamers. The 5600X is more affordable, but performance when CPU bound is considerably lower, so if you're seeking high-end performance you'll skip over this part for a new build or upgrade.

They're The Same!?

Forza Horizon 5, like Dying Light 2, isn't a CPU intensive game, but unlike Far Cry it doesn't need to be. The Ryzen 5 3600 is very capable here, driving over 200 fps with the 6950 XT at both 1080p and 1440p. The 5800X3D does not have "Pro" in the name but is not an APU (it doesn't have integrated graphics), so it does not fall into this category. I won’t go into too much detail, but the main draw to this CPU is it’s designed for gaming. And what AMD has done is pretty unique. They added what they call 3D V-cache which includes increasing the L3 cache to 96MB and apparently, this drastically increases the performance in some games. Finally, we have Horizon Zero Dawn, where previously we found this title to be slightly sensitive to PCIe bandwidth, which could explain why the 300 series boards are slightly slower, though the B450 Tomahawk is also a PCIe 3.0 board and it was slightly faster than the 300-series models. Either way, the difference is at most 5% between the slowest and fastest AM4 motherboards here. Flawless Victory

As a follow up to last week's opinion feature "Why Ryzen Was Amazing and the Haters Were All Wrong," this review goes to prove just how awesome the AM4 platform is. During Computex 2022, AMD announced their commitment to AM4 for at least the next few years, so you can expect the platform to improve beyond 2022. Now we just hope AMD manages to do the same with AM5, and even better, Intel smartens up and follows suit. Shopping Shortcuts: Previously we found that the 13600K's cost per frame was 11% higher using DDR5-6400 over DDR4-3600 CL16, and at 4K that margin grows to 19% making the DDR4 memory considerably better value, and that margin can only grow as large as 21%. The 1440p results are almost unchanged from what was seen at 1080p, so in most instances we're still CPU bound.With the Radeon 6600 XT, the 5800X3D still enabled up to 73% greater performance and even 42% stronger performance at 1440p. Office and web applications are typically single-threaded, so running a single application won't take advantage of a many-core CPU. Based on testing by AMD as of 12/14/2021. Performance evaluated with Watch Dogs Legion, Far Cry 6, Gears 5, Final Fantasy XIV, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and CS:GO. All games test at 1920x1080 resolution with the HIGH in-game quality preset (or equivalent). System configuration: Ryzen 7 5800X3D and AMD Reference Motherboard, Ryzen 9 5900X and ASUS Crosshair VIII Hero with BIOS 3801. Both systems configured with 2x8GB DDR4-3600, GeForce RTX 3080 with 472.12 driver, Samsung 980 Pro 1TB, NZXT Kraken X62, and Windows 11 28000.282. R5K-106 We take a look at the power draw for the two CPUs under load, with Handbrake being our tool to stress the CPU. Here, the 7700X shows cause for concern again, pushing 148 watts of TDP under load, which is very well above its 105 watts TDP rating. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is the better CPU, maintaining the TDP at under 105 watts under load. Pricing Difference

AMD should be commended for breathing new life into these old motherboards, and while we believe it's in their best interest to do so, it remains a big win for consumers. It's also great to see how well the AM4 platform has matured. All these B350 and X370 boards ran flawlessly with the new microcode, all accepted four DDR4-3200 models, and ran XMP without a hitch. Not only that, but AMD's new Smart Access Memory technology worked as well. So as you may have guessed, the “extreme” variants have better features and, consequently, heftier price tags, with X670E being the top-of-the-line chipset. The short form is that both the E variants have the same number of PCIe 5.0 lanes, but B650E has a decrease in the number of maximum possible PCIe 4.0 lanes. The rest of the I/O connectivity also varies with each chipset, with B650 (and B650E) having half the number of USB 3.2, USB 3.1, and SATA ports. Using the same DDR4-3200 memory as the 5800X, we're looking at a 44% increase in gaming performance, from 120 fps to 173 fps. That was also a 10% increase over the 12900K when using the same DDR4 memory. On to the main topic, how do these two CPUs with comparable (launch) prices and somewhat comparable specifications differ in performance? We take a look at their gaming and productivity performance across a variety of games and software. Let’s take a look at our test benches: Ryzen 7 5800X3DThe Ryzen 7 5800X3D is the first processor to feature AMD's 3D V-cache technology that was announced last October. AMD promised 3D V-cache would bring a ~15% boost to gaming performance used alongside the Zen 3 architecture thanks to a much larger L3 cache.

Here, AMD is using TSMC’s 5nm nodes as AMD continues its push on the roadmap to Zen 5, which will presumably be based on a 4nm process. With this, AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series also became the first lineup of desktop CPUs to use a 5nm node. Paired with this is the 6nm processing node for the I/O, which also contains the integrated GPU. Ryzen 7000’s boost in single-threaded performance over Ryzen 5000 (Courtesy: AMD)

The same is true of the Corona benchmark. We're looking at a 1 second difference between the 5800X and 5800X3D. There was basically no performance difference between the DDR4 memory kits with the 12600K while DDR5 was 7% faster. Then we see that performance is much the same with the 5800X3D while the faster DDR4 memory boosted performance using the 5600X by an 8% margin. There's a crazy amount of gaming data to go over, so we're not going to discuss all the results for all the games tested, at least not individually, but let's go over a few before taking a look at the geomean breakdown. As we've seen so far, the 1080p and 1440p data is similar when using the RTX 4090 as we're almost always CPU bound with an ultra fast GPU.