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 ESTGPU Tests: Civilization 6 (1080p, 4K)
First up in our CPU gaming tests is Civilization 6. Originally penned by Sid Meier and his team, the Civ series of turn-based strategy games are a cult classic, and many an excuse for an all-nighter trying to get Gandhi to declare war on you due to an integer overflow. Truth be told I never actually played the first version, but every edition from the second to the sixth, including the fifth as voiced by the late Leonard Nimoy, it a game that is easy to pick up, but hard to master.
Benchmarking Civilization has always been somewhat of an oxymoron – for a turn based strategy game, the frame rate is not necessarily the important thing here and even in the right mood, something as low as 5 frames per second can be enough. With Civilization 6 however, Firaxis went hardcore on visual fidelity, trying to pull you into the game. As a result, Civilization can taxing on graphics and CPUs as we crank up the details, especially in DirectX 12.
Perhaps a more poignant benchmark would be during the late game, when in the older versions of Civilization it could take 20 minutes to cycle around the AI players before the human regained control. The new version of Civilization has an integrated ‘AI Benchmark’, although it is not currently part of our benchmark portfolio yet, due to technical reasons which we are trying to solve. Instead, we run the graphics test, which provides an example of a mid-game setup at our settings.
At both 1920x1080 and 4K resolutions, we run the same settings. Civilization 6 has sliders for MSAA, Performance Impact and Memory Impact. The latter two refer to detail and texture size respectively, and are rated between 0 (lowest) to 5 (extreme). We run our Civ6 benchmark in position four for performance (ultra) and 0 on memory, with MSAA set to 2x.
For reviews where we include 8K and 16K benchmarks (Civ6 allows us to benchmark extreme resolutions on any monitor) on our GTX 1080, we run the 8K tests similar to the 4K tests, but the 16K tests are set to the lowest option for Performance.
MSI GTX 1080 at 1920x1080
MSI GTX 1080 at 4K
>
ASUS GTX 1060 at 1920x1080
ASUS GTX 1060 at 4K
Sapphire R9 Fury at 1920x1080
Sapphire R9 Fury at 4K
Sapphire RX 480 at 1920x1080
Sapphire RX 480 at 4K
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
254 Comments
View All Comments
mmegibb - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
Where did you get your info about OC'ing the 1600? I haven't seen much about OC'ing the Ryzen chips, at least in these initial comprehensive reviews. (I haven't searched much either). I still haven't decided between the 7600k and the 1600x, and how the 1600x overclocks will be a factor.haukionkannel - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
All Ryzens in all test have been running between 3.9-4.1 in all owerclocking test. So it does not matter what Ryzen you get. The oc performance is the same. Must be because if the manufacturing proses. This could be a beast if made by intel factories ;)MrSpadge - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
No, such a hard an consistent speed limit is usually by chip design. If it was "just the silicon lottery" there'd be more spread, like you see with Intels.Outlander_04 - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VvwWTQKCZsi5 and Ryzen 5 at good OC's
cheshirster - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
People are already bying 1600, it runs 3.8 OC on a box cooler1600X has no room to overclock at all
cheshirster - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
+1600bobbozzo - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
Hi Ian, on the last page,Rise of the Tomb Raider’s benchmark is notorious for having each of its three _seconds_ perform differently
I think that should be 'scenes' not seconds.
Thanks!
mmegibb - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
In the gaming benchmarks, Intel generally has higher average framerates. But, interestingly, in the 99th percentile and time-spent-under-60fps, Ryzen usually tops Intel. To me, this translates into an overall smoother and more consistent game play experience with the Ryzens. Is that right?I've been on Intel processors for years. In fact, my son still is doing heavy-duty 1080P gaming with an OC'd i5-2500k. But, soon I'm going to replace that beloved CPU, and I want to buy a Ryzen just to upset the apple cart and do something different.
I've been disappointed in the Ryzen 7 reviews as far as gaming is concerned. But, this review gives me hope. I'm really thinking that triple the threads of the i5-7600k with only a small loss of gaming performance is the way to go. Especially with DX12 getting more common.
Achaios - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
Αs a gamer, what you are primarily interested in is Single Threaded Performance simply because there's a host of games out there that depend on Single Threaded performance:1. All World of Warcraft versions.
2. All Total War versions.
3. Starcraft II.
4. Civilization games.
...and so on. The OP is just giving you a review tailored to make Ryzen shine whereas in fact it still is an inferior CPU for gaming due to inferior Single Threaded performance.
Very few games use for than 2-4 Cores, so that makes Ryzen largely irrelevant at the moment. It will also be irrelevant in the future too when games will begin utilizing more than 4 cores, because there will be -by then- far better Intel & AMD processors.
mmegibb - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
Yes, forever gaming reviews have hammered the idea that all that matters is single threaded performance.However, as I mentioned, this review shows the 1600x beating the 7600 in 99th percentile and time under 60fps, even in games like GTA V. Those are very important benchmarks for gaming quality perception. You didn't talk to that at all. You just repeated the boilerplate about "single core" that we all know.
Also, I don't think it will be too far in the future when more games use DX12, and that seems to make a big difference.
I think I'm getting a whiff of "intel-fanboy" from your post.