6 Cores vs. 8 Gaming Cores: 24-Gaming Benchmark (2023)

If you're looking to upgrade from an older Ryzen or are building a new PC, arguably the two most attractive options for gamers right now are the Ryzen 5 5600 for ~$200 or the Ryzen 7 5700X for ~$300. and easy the cost per core will do. Telling them the price of the 5700X is 13% higher making it an overall 50% price increase for what it's worth and at what point should gamers consider the 5700X over the 5600?

In this article, we'll answer those questions and more, so let's go over the test system's specs, jump into the results, and break it all down.

For this one, we benchmark 24 games covering both 1080p and 1440p resolutions, using bothRadeon RX6950XTj6600XT, with SAM enabled.

The motherboard used for the test is the old oneMSI B350 TomahawkUsing the latest AGESA microcode based BIOS Revision 1.2.0.7 which allows support for Variable Size BARs along with support for Ryzen 5000 series processors thisbest x570 cards.

Next up is 32GB of dual-rated, dual-channel DDR4-3200 CL14 memory, and the same configuration was used to test all Ryzen processors. Let's go through a dozen games tested and then look at the average of 24 games...

reference points

start withfourteen daysUsing competitive-level settings, we found the 5700X to offer a slight performance advantage, although I wouldn't be as quick to attribute it to the fact that we're comparing 6 vs. 8 cores.

We're talking about a small 4-5% performance difference and the 5700X typically runs 5% faster than the 5600, so we'd say most of the performance difference comes from there, which makes sense as Fortnite isn't heavy - Main Users.

When testing the ACC is similar, we see a 4-6% difference between these two CPUs and at medium quality settings the gameplay is heavily CPU dependent, especially at 1080p.

Again, the clock speed advantage of the 5700X is the key to the performance variance, but with both CPUs unlocked you should be able to achieve the same level of performance simply by overclocking.

Of the 24 games we tested, Call of Duty Vanguard was the only title to have more than a 10% difference between 5600 and 5700X. Here, the 5700X paired with the 6950 XT was up to 25% faster, and still 22% faster at 1440p, although the lows of 1% were similar, resulting in an overall indistinguishable experience.

Use of6950XTAt 1080p, the Ryzen 5 5600's CPU utilization never dropped below 80% in our tests and typically hovered around 90-95%. Still, frame-time performance was great with no stuttering, but with more free space the 5700X was able to increase frame rates.

This is an example where the 2 extra cores resulted in significantly higher performance, although given the level of performance the 5600 is already capable of, no one would notice to some extent.

Ciberpunk 2077It relies heavily on the CPU, although so does the GPU, and it's usually on the graphics side where performance is most limited in this game.

At 1080p with the 6950 XT, we found the lows of 1% to be 10% stronger on the 5700X, and that headroom extends beyond the 5% advantage in clock speed. However, the 5600's experience was virtually indistinguishable.

Next up is Counter-Strike Global Offensive, though there's not much to see here. We love competitive shooters, but with modern CPUs and GPUs capable of exceeding 300fps, it's hard to say how relevant this game is for modern hardware testing.

The 5600 and 5700X are the main system bottlenecks in this test, while the 6600 XT and 6950 XT offer the same level of performance. There is only a 4% margin between the two processors due to different clock speeds.

Rainbow Six Extraction is another competitive shooter, but this one is fully GPU bound with the 5600 or 5700X, even the top-end Radeon 6950 XT.

We're using the second highest quality preset for testing, but even so, the 6950 XT was good for over 300 fps at 1080p. That's probably more than enough energy for most of you.

F1 2021 is another game that runs at hundreds of frames per second on the latest and greatest hardware, although it's not as CPU constrained as CS:GO.

The Ryzen 5600 and 5700X were side by side with the RX 6600 XT and then with the 6950 XT we see an advantage of up to 6% in favor of the 5700X.

Forza Horizon 5 is a bit heavy on the CPU so these results are as expected, basically the same level of performance is seen with both CPUs and with the Radeon RX 6600 XT game it is fully limited by the GPU. .

Hitman 3 uses a lot more CPU than Forza, but we are still GPU limited with the 6600 XT. Games start to feel slightly CPU-limited with the 6950 XT at 1080p, but we're still talking about a 5% advantage for the 5700X.

Well, Riftbreaker can put a lot of pressure on the CPU. The 5700X was up to 21% faster than the 5600, which can be seen by looking at the 1% lows with the 6950 XT at 1080p, although we did see a slight 10% increase in the average frame rate. Those margins shrink at 1440p and we didn't see any difference on the 6600 XT.

The last game we're going to analyze individual data for is Watch Dogs: Legion, and it's a very demanding game on both the CPU and GPU. We used slightly reduced quality settings, but were still limited to ~100fps at 1080p with the 6950 XT with both CPUs.

The 5700X was 10-11% faster when the CPU was throttled in our tests, so those extra cores help boost performance a bit beyond the 5% higher clock speed.

24 game average

For those using high-end GPUs like the Radeon RX 6950 XT at low resolutions like 1080p, we don't see more than a 5% performance advantage for the Ryzen 7 5700X over the Ryzen 5 5600, so overall it narrowed the gap on the clock frequency.

That margin dropped to 4% at 1440p, meaning there's very little difference between the 6-core and 8-core Zen 3 processors. So, of course, if you're running a slower mid-range GPU like the Radeon RX 6600 XT, most of the time there won't be a noticeable difference in performance...

Looking at the Radeon 6950 XT's margins at 1080p, the Ryzen 5700X was up to 25% faster, as seen in Call of Duty Vanguard, which is an outlier in our tests, with a typical margin of just 5%.

There were only 5 titles where the margin exceeded the clock drift between these two CPUs: The Riftbreaker, Watch Dogs: Legion, Death Stranding, Far Cry 6, and Call of Duty.

With the Radeon RX 6600 XT, the results are a bit mixed, as games like Call of Duty Vanguard are almost exclusively GPU bound. Games that don't include Far Cry 6, ACC and Fortnite, with margins remaining within 5%.

6 cores or 8 cores for gaming?

For the most part, there is little difference between Ryzen 5 5600 and Ryzen 7 5700X for PC gamers. This probably won't be news to many of you, but it's nice to see it clearly in a dedicated test.

A few months ago we launched aZen 3 CPU scaling featurecompared the 5600X, 5800X, 5900X and 5950X across a variety of games, quality settings and graphics cards. The margins we saw with the RTX 3090 back then are similar to what we've seen today with the 6950 XT with a wider range of games, many of which are quite new.

Now to the question, should you spend an extra $100 on the Ryzen 7 5700X? Of course, that depends on what games you play, how you play them, and how likely you are that future games will need the extra processing power of the 5700X's two extra cores.

As it stands now, there are only a few games where you can justify buying the 5700X other than the fact that you can afford it and you just want it (productivity? hello). But if you're looking for gaming examples that clearly justify buying an 8-core Zen 3 processor over a 6-core model, you'll be hard pressed to find many.

On the other hand, if you're looking for current-gen PC gaming performance but want to spend as little as possible, the Ryzen 5 5600 makes more sense. Save $100 now and use it later for a faster upgrade or GPU.

Spending $300 on the 5700X is stilla great option overall. If you also use your PC to handle highly productive workloads, the choice becomes much easier. For those types of users, that's the 5700X, or maybe even5900Xit would be more what you would watch.

It's also worth noting that the value equation for the 5700X is more favorable if you're not just upgrading from an older Ryzen processor, but doing a full platform upgrade or building a new PC.

We often see the argument that even though a part like the 5700X is 50% more expensive, if you're building a complete PC that might cost $1200 with the 5600, that budget goes up to $1300 to accommodate the 5700X, just one 8% increase means .%. . But if you apply that mindset every step of the way, you'll end up with more memory, storage, better power supplies, the next level of GPU performance, etc., and in no time your budget will go from $1200 to $2200.

If you can afford it, great, but you're not exactly looking for good technical advice, you're just buying the best you can afford. Now, if you're more interested in getting the best possible bang for your buck, the Ryzen 5 5600 would be a smarter choice. If you're just gaming, the extra 33% processing power offered by the 5700X will make little noticeable difference to gamers within the realistic lifespan of these products, barring a few outliers.

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