The AMD Ryzen 5 1600X vs Core i5 Review: Twelve Threads vs Four at $250
by Ian Cutress on April 11, 2017 9:00 AM ESTBenchmarking Performance: CPU Office Tests
The office programs we use for benchmarking aren't specific programs per-se, but industry standard tests that hold weight with professionals. The goal of these tests is to use an array of software and techniques that a typical office user might encounter, such as video conferencing, document editing, architectural modelling, and so on and so forth. At present we have two such tools to use.
PCMark8
Despite originally coming out in 2008/2009, Futuremark has maintained PCMark8 to remain relevant in 2017. On the scale of complicated tasks, PCMark focuses more on the low-to-mid range of professional workloads, making it a good indicator for what people consider 'office' work. We run the benchmark from the commandline in 'conventional' mode, meaning C++ over OpenCL, to remove the graphics card from the equation and focus purely on the CPU. PCMark8 offers Home, Work and Creative workloads, with some software tests shared and others unique to each benchmark set.
Chromium Compile (v56)
Our new compilation test uses Windows 10 Pro, VS Community 2015.3 with the Win10 SDK to combile a nightly build of Chromium. We've fixed the test for a build in late March 2017, and we run a fresh full compile in our test. Compilation is the typical example given of a variable threaded workload - some of the compile and linking is linear, whereas other parts are multithreaded.
SYSmark 2014 SE
SYSmark is developed by Bapco, a consortium of industry CPU companies. The goal of SYSmark is to take stripped down versions of popular software, such as Photoshop and Onenote, and measure how long it takes to process certain tasks within that software. The end result is a score for each of the three segments (Office, Media, Data) as well as an overall score. Here a reference system (Core i3-6100, 4GB DDR3, 256GB SSD, Integrated HD 530 graphics) is used to provide a baseline score of 1000 in each test.
A note on contect for these numbers. AMD left Bapco in the last two years, due to differences of opinion on how the benchmarking suites were chosen and AMD believed the tests are angled towards Intel processors and had optimizations to show bigger differences than what AMD felt was present. The following benchmarks are provided as data, but the conflict of opinion between the two companies on the validity of the benchmark is provided as context for the following numbers.
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Arbie - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
I agree - this is implying the reverse of what was probably meant. And it's still broken.coder543 - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
"For $250, the top Ryzen 5 1600X gives six cores and twelve threads of AMD’s latest microarchitecture, while $250 will only get you four cores and no extra threads for the same price."You're missing a word in here. That word is "Intel". Right now, the opening paragraph contains one of the most confusing sentences ever written, because the only brand mentioned is AMD, where $250 simultaneously gets you 6 cores and 12 threads *and* only 4 cores? Please update this paragraph to show that Intel only gets you 4 cores.
Arbie - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
I agree - you really need to add "with Intel". This is a theme statement for the entire article and worth fixing.CaedenV - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
Well, that review was surprising.I am looking to re-do my system in the next year or so, and I thought for sure that the R5 would be the no-brainer pick. But that seems not to be the case. If on a tight budget it looks like the i3 is the all-around value king offering great single-thread performance and decent light to moderate gaming. The i5 still reigns king for non-production work while being right about the same price point as the R5. And if doing production work the R7 really makes more sense as it is not that much more expensive while offering much better render performance. I somehow thought that the R5 would be better priced against the i5, just as the R7 stomps all over the i7 chips.
So now when I look at building my next PC the real question is how much production work I plan on doing. If it is a lot then the R7 is the way to go. But if I am just doing media consumption and gaming then perhaps the Intel i5 will still be the best option. Hmm... maybe I'll just wait a bit longer. I mean, my i7 2600 still keeps chugging along and keeping up. The real temptation to upgrade is DDR4, USB-C, m.2, and PCIe v3. Seeing more 10gig Ethernet would also be a big temptation for an upgrade, but I think we are still 2-3 years out on that. Any up-tick in raw CPU performance is really a secondary consideration these days.
snarfbot - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
That is a strange position indeed, as it conflicts with all the data in the review.In other words lol wut?
Meteor2 - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
Indeed. My conclusion was 'wow, AMD have knocked it out of the park'. Same or better gaming, far better production.Cooe - Monday, March 1, 2021 - link
What happened to your "Ryzen 5 will be shit" comments from all over the OG Ryzen 7 review???Drumsticks - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
It's not really hard to figure out. If you just do media and gaming, stick with Intel.If you rely on your home PC for any significant measure of production work, you should probably be buying the most expensive Ryzen chip you can.
gerz1219 - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
Yeah, for the longest time I've maintained separate rigs for gaming and video work, but I'm in the process of building a hybrid machine and the Ryzen 7 chips came out at just the right time. I just ordered an 1800X for my new workstation/gaming/VR rig. Gaming performance is somewhat important to me, but I can handle lower frame rates in certain games versus the 7700K because for my post-production video work, I need those extra cores and threads. For the longest time Intel was able to charge whatever they wanted at the high-end and prices had gotten ridiculous, so the 7-series fills a huge niche.However, it seems less clear where the Ryzen 3 and 5 chips will fit in. People who only use their machines for games won't see very many of the benefits of the Zen architecture, but they're saddled with the weaknesses of relatively slower single-threaded performance, and AMD isn't competing on price.
msroadkill612 - Thursday, April 13, 2017 - link
You did luck out. u r the perfect ryzen demographic.I suspect teamed with a vega 8GB hbm & a pcie ssd, it will blow you away by xmas.
But the 1600 6 core comes close mostly, for $250~ less.