AMD Zen 3 Ryzen Deep Dive Review: 5950X, 5900X, 5800X and 5600X Tested
by Dr. Ian Cutress on November 5, 2020 9:01 AM ESTCPU Tests: Simulation
Simulation and Science have a lot of overlap in the benchmarking world, however for this distinction we’re separating into two segments mostly based on the utility of the resulting data. The benchmarks that fall under Science have a distinct use for the data they output – in our Simulation section, these act more like synthetics but at some level are still trying to simulate a given environment.
DigiCortex v1.35: link
DigiCortex is a pet project for the visualization of neuron and synapse activity in the brain. The software comes with a variety of benchmark modes, and we take the small benchmark which runs a 32k neuron/1.8B synapse simulation, similar to a small slug.
The results on the output are given as a fraction of whether the system can simulate in real-time, so anything above a value of one is suitable for real-time work. The benchmark offers a 'no firing synapse' mode, which in essence detects DRAM and bus speed, however we take the firing mode which adds CPU work with every firing.
The software originally shipped with a benchmark that recorded the first few cycles and output a result. So while fast multi-threaded processors this made the benchmark last less than a few seconds, slow dual-core processors could be running for almost an hour. There is also the issue of DigiCortex starting with a base neuron/synapse map in ‘off mode’, giving a high result in the first few cycles as none of the nodes are currently active. We found that the performance settles down into a steady state after a while (when the model is actively in use), so we asked the author to allow for a ‘warm-up’ phase and for the benchmark to be the average over a second sample time.
For our test, we give the benchmark 20000 cycles to warm up and then take the data over the next 10000 cycles seconds for the test – on a modern processor this takes 30 seconds and 150 seconds respectively. This is then repeated a minimum of 10 times, with the first three results rejected. Results are shown as a multiple of real-time calculation.
Dwarf Fortress 0.44.12: Link
Another long standing request for our benchmark suite has been Dwarf Fortress, a popular management/roguelike indie video game, first launched in 2006 and still being regularly updated today, aiming for a Steam launch sometime in the future.
Emulating the ASCII interfaces of old, this title is a rather complex beast, which can generate environments subject to millennia of rule, famous faces, peasants, and key historical figures and events. The further you get into the game, depending on the size of the world, the slower it becomes as it has to simulate more famous people, more world events, and the natural way that humanoid creatures take over an environment. Like some kind of virus.
For our test we’re using DFMark. DFMark is a benchmark built by vorsgren on the Bay12Forums that gives two different modes built on DFHack: world generation and embark. These tests can be configured, but range anywhere from 3 minutes to several hours. After analyzing the test, we ended up going for three different world generation sizes:
- Small, a 65x65 world with 250 years, 10 civilizations and 4 megabeasts
- Medium, a 127x127 world with 550 years, 10 civilizations and 4 megabeasts
- Large, a 257x257 world with 550 years, 40 civilizations and 10 megabeasts
DFMark outputs the time to run any given test, so this is what we use for the output. We loop the small test for as many times possible in 10 minutes, the medium test for as many times in 30 minutes, and the large test for as many times in an hour.
Dolphin v5.0 Emulation: Link
Many emulators are often bound by single thread CPU performance, and general reports tended to suggest that Haswell provided a significant boost to emulator performance. This benchmark runs a Wii program that ray traces a complex 3D scene inside the Dolphin Wii emulator. Performance on this benchmark is a good proxy of the speed of Dolphin CPU emulation, which is an intensive single core task using most aspects of a CPU. Results are given in seconds, where the Wii itself scores 1051 seconds.
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jakky567 - Tuesday, November 24, 2020 - link
Total system, I think the 5950x should be more popular. That being said, the 5900x is still great.mdriftmeyer - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
I spend $100 or more per week on extra necessities from Costco. Your price hike concerns are laughable.bananaforscale - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
5900X has good binning and the cheapest price per core. For productivity 3900X has *nothing* on 5900X for the 10% price difference and 5950X is disproportionately more expensive. Zen and Zen+ are not an option if you want high IPC, 3300X basically doesn't exist... I'll give you that 3600 makes more sense to most people than 5600X, it's not that much faster.Kangal - Wednesday, November 11, 2020 - link
"Price per Core".... yeah, that's a pointless metric.What you need to focus on is "Price per Performance", and this should be divided into two segments: Gaming Performance, Productivity Performance. You shouldn't be running productivity tools whilst gaming for plenty of reasons (game crashes, tool errors, attention span, etc etc). The best use case for a "mixed/hybrid" would be Twitch Gaming, that's still a niche case.... but that's where the 5800X and 5900X makes sense.
Now, I don't know what productivity programs you would use, nor would I know which games you would play, or if you plan on becoming a twitcher. So for your personal needs, you would have to figure that out yourself. Things like memory configurations and storage can have big impacts on productivity. Whereas for Gaming the biggest factor is which GPU you use.
What I'm grasping at is the differences should/will decrease for most real-world scenarios, as there is something known as GPU scaling and being limited or having bottlenecks. For instance, RTX 2070-Super owners would target 1440p, and not 1080p. Or RTX 3090 owners would target 4K, and not for 1440p. And GTX 1650 owners would target 1080p, they wouldn't strive for 4K or 1440p.
For instance, if you combine a 5600X with a Ultra-1440p-card, and compare the performance to a 3600X, the differences will diminish significantly. And at Ultra/4K both would be entirely GPU limited, so no difference. So if you compare a 5800X to a 3900X, the 3900X would come cheaper/same price but offer notably better productivity performance. And when it comes to gaming they would be equal/very similar when you're (most likely) GPU limited. That scenario applies to most consumers. However, there are outliers or niche people, who want to use a RTX 3090 to run CS GO at 1080p-Low Settings so they can get the maximum frames possible. This article alludes to what I have mentioned. But for more details, I would recommend people watch HardwareUnboxed video from YouTube, and see Steve's tests and hear his conclusions.
Whereas here is my recommendation for the smart buyer, do not buy the 5600X or 5800X or 5900X. Wait a couple months and buy then. For Pure Gaming, get the r5-5600 which should have similar gaming performance but come in at around USD $220. For Productivity, get the r7-5700 which should have similar performance to the 5800X but come in at around USD $360. For the absolute best performance, buy the r9-5950x now don't wait. And what about Twitch Streamers? Well, if you're serious then build one Gaming PC, and a second Streaming PC, as this would allow your game to run fast, and your stream to flow fluidly.... IF YOU HAVE A GOOD INTERNET CONNECTION (Latency, Upload, Download).
lwatcdr - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
"You can get the 3700 for much cheaper than the 5800X. Or for the same price you can get the 3900X instead."And if you want both gaming and productivity? They get the 5800X or 5900X. So AMD has something for every segment which is great.
TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, November 12, 2020 - link
The 5900x is margin of error from the 5950x in games, still shows a small uptick in gaming compared to 5800/5600x, offers far better performance then 5600/5800x in productivity tasks, and is noticeably cheaper then the 5950x.How on earth is that a non buy?
The rest may be better value for money, but by that metric a $2 pentium D 945 is still far better value for money depending on the task. The 5000 series consistently outperforms the 3000 series, offring 20% better performance for 10% better cash.
Kishoreshack - Saturday, November 14, 2020 - link
AMD has the best products to offerSoo you expect them to sell it at a cheaper rate than intel ?
Threska - Monday, November 16, 2020 - link
AMD has a good product RANGE, which means something for everyone AND all monies go to AMD regardless of consumer choice.Ninjawithagun - Friday, November 20, 2020 - link
The price hike is mainly to cover ongoing R&D for the next-gen Ryzen Zen 4 CPUs due out in 2022. The race between Intel and AMD must go on!jakky567 - Monday, November 23, 2020 - link
I disagree about the 5900x being a no buy.I feel like it goes 5950x for absolute performance. 5900x for high tier performance on a budget. And then the 3000 series for people on a budget, except the 3950x.
The 5900x has all the l3 cache.