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
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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
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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.