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 Web Tests
One of the issues when running web-based tests is the nature of modern browsers to automatically install updates. This means any sustained period of benchmarking will invariably fall foul of the 'it's updated beyond the state of comparison' rule, especially when browsers will update if you give them half a second to think about it. Despite this, we were able to find a series of commands to create an un-updatable version of Chrome 56 for our 2017 test suite. While this means we might not be on the bleeding edge of the latest browser, it makes the scores between CPUs comparable.
SunSpider 1.0.2 [link]
The oldest web-based benchmark in this portion of our test is SunSpider. This is a very basic javascript algorithm tool, and ends up being more a measure of IPC and latency than anything else, with most high performance CPUs scoring around about the same. The basic test is looped 10 times and the average taken. We run the basic test 4 times.
Mozilla Kraken 1.1 [link]
Kraken is another Javascript based benchmark, using the same test harness as SunSpider, but focusing on more stringent real-world use cases and libraries, such as audio processing and image filters. Again, the basic test is looped ten times, and we run the basic test four times.
Google Octane 2.0 [link]
Along with Mozilla, as Google is a major browser developer, having peak JS performance is typically a critical asset when comparing against the other OS developers. In the same way that SunSpider is a very early JS benchmark, and Kraken is a bit newer, Octane aims to be more relevant to real workloads, especially in power constrained devices such as smartphones and tablets.
WebXPRT 2013 and 2015 [link]
While the previous three benchmarks do calculations in the background and represent a score, WebXPRT is designed to be a better interpretation of visual workloads that a professional user might have, such as browser based applications, graphing, image editing, sort/analysis, scientific analysis and financial tools. Web2013 is the older tool, superceded by Web2015, however both still are highly relevant for high-performance web applications today.
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bodonnell - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
Good luck with that. Since Microsoft is only supporting Kaby Lake and Ryzen on Windows 10 I guess you'll be sticking with 2015 and older technology for a while. I bet you desperately hung onto Windows XP too..._zenith - Thursday, April 13, 2017 - link
... except for the fact that many games are console ports now, aaaaannd those are often - usually - already written for DX12, and this will only become moreso once Xbox Scorpio is released, with it's special DX12 hardware optimisations.Notmyusualid - Tuesday, April 18, 2017 - link
@zenithGo ahead and release a DX12-only game.
Let me know how you get on with sales...
Arbie - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
When I do upgrade it will be with AMD. Even where (and if) Intel offers a little more performance per dollar, AMD has amazingly reduced the difference to the point where I can accept it in order to help fuel competition. If the market does not reward AMD for their valiant effort in Zen, the company may be forced to give up. It seems impossible for them to come from behind yet again in such a high-stakes arena. Then Intel will really slack off, and several years from now we'll ALL be worse off than if they were still duking it out.Everyone has to make their own decision, and I couldn't buy the Excavator etc fiascos, but the AMD product is now a real contender - and we need to keep them there.
bodonnell - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
Agreed. I updated my main rig a couple years ago and Intel was really the only option at the time, but if I was in the market now I would definitely be looking at a Ryzen 5 as keeping AMD around is better for consumers. For the money where Ryzen 5 lags it doesn't lag by much (and honestly legacy software that is single threaded was made to work on much lower performance cores) and where it shines (multi-threaded performance) it often beats price comparable Intel processors by a healthy margin.BrokenCrayons - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
Ryzen 5 is an interesting CPU, worth a careful look given the outcome of the benchmarks in this article. Modern workloads seem to be much more likely to use more than one thread and legacy workloads that are single threaded would perform perfectly well on just about any modern CPU so it really isn't a difficult choice to look into a Ryzen 5 if you fall into its price bracket. AMD's APU offerings in the future might offer a better value for some customers since the price of a Ryzen CPU doesn't currently include graphics. People happy with iGPU performance would either require a dedicated graphics card purchase or reuse one thy already have available to build a complete system around a Zen-based processor so those sorts might be better off waiting until the APU versions are released later this year or they might be compelled to purchase a competing Intel product with an iGPU.bodonnell - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
Can't wait to see what AMD does with the Zen core in the mainstream and mobile markets. A well balanced quad core design with a good Polaris based iGPU will be all most consumers need for their day to day use.OddFriendship8989 - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
Is there a reason you don't put in the 7700k in these charts? I mean if you're going to put in 1700X and 1800X, you should put in 7700k too. Plus at just $80 more it's honestly a CPU being considered too people consider the 1600X.vladx - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
Reason is obvious, anandTech have an AMD bias.Outlander_04 - Thursday, April 13, 2017 - link
Unlike yourself, and your well respected neutrality ?