AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU Review
Multimedia, Compression, Synthetic, and Gaming
HandBrake is a free and open-source video transcoder, originally developed in 2003 by Eric Petit to make ripping a film from a DVD to a data storage device easier. Essentially, it can convert video to almost any modern format. HandBrake is available for Linux, macOS, and Windows. The workload video file is a file that I’ve used for years called Sintel. It is a 1.09-gigabyte file that is full HD. I used the Apple 240p preset for this test.
The Ryzen 5 3600 completed the transcoding in 95 seconds with an average frame rate of 215.5. The Ryzen 5 3600X completed the task in 86 seconds with a 219.8 frame rate average and the Intel i7 8700K completed the task in 99 seconds with an average frame rate of 240.8.
7-Zip
The 7-zip benchmark shows a rating in MIPS (million instructions per second). The rating value is calculated from the measured speed, and it is normalized with the results of the Intel Core 2 CPU with the multi-threading option switched off. So, if you have a modern CPU from Intel or AMD, rating values in single-thread mode must be close to real CPU frequency. There are two tests, compression with the LZMA method and decompression with the LZMA method. Once the total passes reach 100, the score is taken. 7-Zip gives the resulting score for decompressing, compressing and an overall score.
In 7-Zip, the Ryzen 5 3600 scores 35121 MIPS in the compression test. In the decompression benchmark, the Ryzen 5 3600 and 3600X score exactly the same at 69663 MIPS.
PCMark 10
PCMark 10 is a system benchmark for Windows PCs that focuses on common tasks performed in the office. PCMark 10 offers a variety of workloads categorized into four groups. The Essentials group includes web browsing, video conferencing, and app start-up time. The Productivity group includes tests based on spreadsheets and writing. The Digital Content Creation group includes photo editing, video editing, and a rendering and visualization test. The final group, Gaming, includes tests for real-time graphics and physics. It has three different benchmarks, PCMark 10, PCMark 10 Express and PCMARK 10 Extended.
PCMark 10 show the 6-core CPUs are all very close together with the Intel i7-8700K edging out the two Ryzen CPUs slightly.
3DMARK
3DMark is a computer benchmarking tool created and developed by Futuremark (now UL) used to determine the performance of a computer’s 3D graphic rendering and CPU workload processing capabilities. It does this through a series of graphics and physics and or CPU tests. I ran the extreme and ultimate version as I wanted to see how well AMD could handle the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080ti and keep the testing platform consistent.
The 3D Mark tests are really the first time we’ve stressed the entire system all at one time. In Firestrike the overall score is close across the board indicating the GPU is the limiting factor in the test. CPU scores tell a bit of a different story. The Ryzen 5 3600 scores 19699 in the CPU test, the 3600X scores 20029 and the Intel i7-8700K scores 18339. In the Timespy Extreme test, things are a bit different but the results are still close. The Ryzen 5 3600 scores 3385 in the CPU test, the 3600X scores 3448, and the Intel 8700K edges them out with a score of 3545.
Gaming
Most games we test are first-person shooters, so I chose to throw a flight simulator in the mix. Xplane 11 depends heavily on single-thread performance, even more so than newer modern games. Games are slowly starting to use more and more cores. I also used the Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm AI benchmark.
Not to beat a dead horse but in our gaming test, there is virtually no difference between the Ryzen 5 3600 and the Ryzen 5 3600X. The 200 MHz advantage the Ryzen 5 3600X enjoys doesn’t really show up in real-world testing and a 1-2 FPS difference falls well within the margin of error. With that, the 8700K still pulls a bit ahead of both of the Ryzen 6-core CPUs.
The last gaming test I chose was Sid Meier’s Civilization 6 and the Gathering Storm Benchmark. This benchmarks the artificial intelligence portion of the game and measures the time it takes to complete each turn.
All of the 6-core CPUs turn in the same time of 35 seconds when it comes to average turn time.
