by Sometimes we like to run polls on our YouTube channel, whether that's asking our viewers whether they'd pay $699 or more for a PS6 or whether they managed to buy a Steam Controller. As well as giving us good background information, it's also a great way to help us make tricky decisions.
When we asked our viewers whether their AMD Ryzen PC was powered by a Ryzen 3000, 5000, 7000 or 9000 part, it wasn't just out of idle interest - it was also to judge whether or not it was time to retire the venerable Ryzen 5 3600 from the "mainstream" configuration that we use for testing PC games on lower-end hardware. After just over 27,000 votes over an eight day period, we've got a pretty clear answer.
As the title to this article indeed spoils, only a fraction of our audience is still rocking a Ryzen 1000, 2000 or 3000 PC. Just 10 percent of respondents chose that option, despite new Zen, Zen+ and Zen-2-based chips having been released from 2017 to 2020. Quite a few people in the comments mentioned the 3600 by name, which isn't too surprising as it was the stand-out value option for years.
What desktop AMD Ryzen CPU do you use? (1,294 votes)
- AMD Ryzen 9000-series X3D
- AMD Ryzen 9000-series non-X3D
- AMD Ryzen 7000-series X3D
- AMD Ryzen 7000-series non-X3D
- AMD Ryzen 5000-series X3D
- AMD Ryzen 5000-series non-X3D
- AMD Ryzen 3000-series
- AMD Ryzen 2000-series
- AMD Ryzen 1000-series
Skipping over the little-used Ryzen 4000 desktop CPUs, AMD's Ryzen 5000 chips arrived in 2020 and proved to be the ultimate form of the AM4 platform with new releases into 2024. Multi-core and particularly single-core speeds increased substantially with Zen 3 over earlier architectures, while the introduction of the 5800X3D (and later 5600X3D and 5700X3D) unlocked a rich new seam of gaming performance by incorporating a huge vertically-stacked L3 cache.
It's not shocking to see that the largest percentage of respondents are therefore sporting a Ryzen 5000 chip in their desktops, totalling 38 percent of respondents. The 5700X3D and 5800X3D chips were specifically called out by many, as they minimise the gap to next-gen CPUs while still being compatible with cheaper DDR4 RAM and AM4 motherboards. We'll probably go with the weaker 5600X for our mainstream PC going forward, to ensure that we better capture likely performance for those not on X3D chips, but it's good to know that the X3D supremacy is alive and well here.
A pretty good proportion of respondents are also equipped with newer Ryzen 7000 (27 percent) and Ryzen 9000 chips (26 percent), totalling 53 percent of respondents in total. There's a relatively narrow performance gap between Zen 4 and Zen 5, prices are similar and X3D chips are available for both camps, so an even split is reasonable. Ryzen 7000 generally offers slightly better value, but either can make sense depending on local pricing and both are well beyond their initial launch (2022 for Ryzen 7000, 2024 for Ryzen 9000).
Nowadays, the bigger challenge is finding reasonably priced DDR5, and I dare say we'll see the proportion of AM5 versus AM4 owners stay level or even shrink if the current AI-fuelled RAM pricing surge continues into 2027.
What Ryzen CPU are you using on your desktop PC? Let me know in the comments below and/or vote in the poll embedded above.
Comments 10
I kind of always assumed the inclusion of the R5 3600 was to have the comparison point for approximating the console CPUs. If we're just looking for "low end for user base", then yep, the 5600x makes total sense.
As someone with a 3900X (built as a simulation workstation in 2019, then COVID hit and I got to take my work, er, workstation home anyway...) I am saddened by the thought that I am the lowest of the low (but also, it's absolutely fine for what I need 😆)
Are many games you test actually CPU-limited? Feels like VRAM capacity and the difference in RT/ML capabilities of the GPUs from different manufacturers are the main things spoken about rather than Game X runs like a dog on a 3600 but great on a 9800X3D.
@Magnumstache They certainly are!
As the owner of a 5600X, cool!
Still rocking an Intel Core i7-13600KF 14 core / 20 thread CPU here and, honestly, it's been one of the finest CPUs I've ever owned but then I upgraded from an Intel Core i7-4770K (which I owned for almost 9 years!). Despite the reported issues with the 13th and 14th Gen Intel CPUs, I have never experienced any issues and my system has been 100% stable even during hours of heavy gaming.
My next CPU will almost certainly be an AMD X3D one though with DDR5 memory as the primary use for my PC is gaming so it makes perfect sense to opt for that over anything from Intel. I just hope I'm not disappointed as I have always used Intel CPUs, mostly because of their previous long-established reputation for solid performance and reliability.
I had preferred to keep the 3600 as the base CPU for PC testing. PS5 is the main console platform, and with a long transitioning phase, it will stay relevant for many years to come. Future handheld PCs will likely target the PS5 CPU performance to improve „compatibility“ with a huge number of existing and upcoming PC games (which target PS5 as well).
Btw, what is the CPU model closest to Switch 2 CPU performance? And can the CPU and RAM of this laptop with the mobile RTX 3050 be downclocked in a way to match Switch 2 performance? Would be great for „But can it run xxx?“ videos!
9800x3d on X870E, 5800x3d on X570 (awaiting move to second system) 5800x on x470 in second system, 3700x on B450 in third system (will get 5800x, might rebuild server with this (server 1 using athlon x3)
If DF are updating the test/optimisation systems, please add an RX 9700xt.
Ta
@Max_the_German
I don't understand... Should the low-end PC showcase the low-end PC, or is it for general interest? The 4060 was often limited by the processor. Then, when it didn't work well, they said all the hardware wasn't optimized like on consoles.
Even choosing the 5600X is a cut-price option. The survey shows that 90% use 5000-7000-9000 models, and it's also said that many X3D owners on AM4 remained on the old platform.
In the end, they discard the 10% to include a processor that will be 10% of that 90%. The 5600X is essentially the minimum of the 5000s; the right processor would have been the 7600X, or at most the one without X.
The low-end shouldn't also be the old low-end, and if you include the 4060 there, it makes no sense, given that it came out 5 months after the Ryzen 7600X.
This distorts the result, making it appear that the low-end 2023 model, which is already three years old... is performing less than it could.
Finally, it's senseless to leave Intel out: It's even more popular than AMD, and a simple 2021 12600K performs on average 10% more than the 5600X.
Above is a user with a 13600K, a very popular processor in gaming (and good for other things too). It came out in the fall of 2022, tree and a half years from now, and on average it performs almost 15% more than the 7600X, which this one performs almost 15% more than the 5600.
Basically, the 5600X is old and pointless as soon as it's included; it's already a potential bottleneck, especially when it comes to overrevving... and you'd like to leave the Ryzen 3600 alone to make the consoles happy. Which also came out a year before the consoles, you don't really like well-done tests, huh...
I think it is absolutely the right decision to part ways with the Ryzen5 3600. It launched seven years ago! That's an entire console gen.
Although I personally would go even a step further and test with a Ryzen 7500f (it's a 120€ part after all). It would give DF a long-term baseline for the foreseeable future instead of having to consider making the next jump from the 5600 once again in a couple of years and devaluing the comparison data in the process.
The 7500f/7600 you could realistically keep using for the remainder of the decade.
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