W
hileAMD’s12-coreRyzen9 3900Xis undeniably
awesome,therestofthe3rd-genRyzenstackis
nolessimportant.Afterall,theRyzen5 2600and
Ryzen5 2600XoutstrippedeveryotherdesktopCPUin
termsofsalesaccordingtoseveralretailers,andtheRyzen 5
1600 andRyzen5 1600Xofferedsuperbmulti-threaded
performanceforthecashaswell.Asa result,theRyzen 5
3600X’spriceis a keybattlegroundforAMD.
Intermsofprice,thecompetitioncomprisesjustone
CPU– Intel’sCorei5-9600K,whichsits£20belowthe
Ryzen5 3600.Thenextstepupis theCorei7-9700K,which
willsetyoubackaround£120more,
highlightingthehugegapinIntel’s
current9th-genproductstack.The
AMDchiphasa coupleofsizeable
advantagesovertheIntelonetoo.
Thebiggestoneis theadditionof
SimultaneousMultithreading(SMT),
givingtheRyzen5 3600X 12 threads
comparedtotheCorei5-9600K’s
sixthreads.Secondly,theAMDCPU
comesequippedwitha WraithSpire
cooler;whilemodest,thisis more
thanuptothetaskofdealingwiththis
6-coreCPUatstockspeed,whereas
you’llneedtoinvestina coolerto
getstartedwiththeIntelCPU.
Thedeeperspecificationspainta fairly
rosypictureforAMDtoo.TheRyzen 5
3600Xhasa massive32MBofL3cache
and,duetoa pairofcoresbeingdisabled
ononeofif itsquad-coreCCXmodules,
it hasjust1MBlesstotalcachethanthe
Ryzen7 3700X.Evenbetter,AMDhas
givenit thesame4.4GHzmaximum
boostfrequencyoftheRyzen7 3700X.
Interestingly,theRyzen5’s
basefrequencyis 200MHzhigher,AMDRYZEN5 3600X
/£240incVAT
SUPPLIER overclockers.co.ukSOCKET AM4 PROCESSOR
which points at the reason why its TDP is higher too, at
95W compared to just 65W for the Ryzen 7 3700X. The
latter also had an all-core boost frequency of 4GHz, but
the Ryzen 5 3600X often hits 4.1GHz in multi-threaded
workloads when all six cores were under load.
Compared with its predecessors, the Ryzen 5 3600X
continues to give the Ryzen 5 series a 200MHz per-
generation bump to the maximum boost frequency,
starting with 4GHz for the 14nm Zen Ryzen 5 1600X,
4.2GHz with the 12nm Zen+ Ryzen 5 2600X and
finally 4.4GHz with the new 7nm Zen 2 CPU.
Both its predecessors only offered 16MB L3 cache as
well, and there are other benefits from the Zen 2 CPU,
as we covered in Issue 192. The result is a slightly higher
launch price, with the Ryzen 3 3600C costing £240
inc VAT, compared to the Ryzen 5 2600C’s £210.Performance
Despite its similarities to the Ryzen 7 3700X, we couldn’t
quite hit the same manual all-core overclock of 4.3GHz
with the Ryzen 5 3600X. That was at our usual AM4 vcore
of 1.425V, but even increasing this vcore to 1.44V didn’t yield
any benefits. In the, end we took a step down to 4.25GHz
where it was perfectly stable, but that’s a little disappointing
given that we managed 4.2GHz with the Ryzen 5 2600X.
The new CPU’s stock speed performance was stellar,
though, making the IPC gains from the new architecture
clear. We saw a 24 per cent boost to the single-threaded
image editing test compared with the Ryzen 5 2600X – a
score of 63,194 versus just 51,016. AMD also added big gains
in the video encoding test too, with the score rising from
424,790 with the old Zen+ CPU to 484,128 on the new chip.
Multi-tasking was also much improved, with a 27 per cent
boost over the Ryzen 5 2600X’s score. The 3600X’s final
stock speed system score of 202,642 is in a different league to
the Ryzen 5 2600X’s 173,016.REVIEWS / PROCESSOR
SPEC
Base frequency
3.8GHz
Max boost frequency
4.4GHz
Core
Zen 2
Manufacturing process
7nm
Number of cores
6 x physical (12 threads)
IGP
None
Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT)
Ye s
Cache
32MB L3 cache, 3MB L2 cache
Memory controller
Dual-channel DDR4, up to 3200MHz
Packaging
AMD Socket AM4
Thermal design power (TDP)
95W
Features
Precision Boost 2, Precision Boost
Overdrive, FMA3, F16C, SHA, BMI / BMI1
+ BMI2, AVX2, AVX, AES, SSE4a, SSE4,
SSE3, SSE2, SSEcc
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