i5 7600k or perhaps Ryzen 5?

Hey there fellow auraxians.

Im about to build a new mid range gaming rig and all the parts are set in stone except perhaps for the most important.

Let me firstly,state than i am mainly a gamer and use Windows for everyday basic stuff.(browsing,downloading,watching films etc).Nor do i do any intensive application multitasking stuff.I also dont like tampering with overclocks etc.

Comes without saying,the game i mostly play is Planetside 2.

I,like most,am an Intel guy.Its CPUs have never let me down.So the i5 was a no brainer for me.But a friend of mine who is quite knowledgable with PCs is trying to convince me that Amd's new Ryzen is better as a whole and more future proof with its 12 threads despite sacrificing a little in terms of single core power.

1)Should i reconsider?
2)Has any of you first hand experience with Planetside 2 on these processors?

Although I am a massive fan of what AMD is doing, the introduction of the Ryzen has geniunely kicked Intel into gear and produce something more interesting than a slight rehash of last years tech, IF you are primarily interested in Planetside 2 then Intel is still the way to go.

The i5-7600k vs Ryzen 5 1600x is an interesting comparison. The i5 has fewer cores, far fewer threads, less cache. BUT it has higher IPC (instructions per clock) and a higher clock speed - potentially much higher with overclocking - and considering Planetside 2 (along with most games) won't fully utilise more than 4 cores then it will give a faster PS2 experience.

The Ryzen will spank the i5 in apps that multithread well (like video encoding) but not PS2.

(CAVEAT - the Ryzen is still relatively new - it is possible the performance will continue to increase with tweaks to Windows or PS2)

From what im reading,Intel will be following after AMD,with its new 6-core "coffe lake" processors.Perhaps i should wait for that?That also makes the 7th gen CabyLakes seem already obsolete as well as the 1151 socket...

Your friend is kind of right, multithreading support is improving in games and Ryzen would be the right choice if you're planning to play future games on it.
In general
i5 7600k - better for Planetside 2, current games and programs, overclocking
Ryzen 5 - better for recent and upcoming games, heavy multitasking

When you guys say that i5 is better for Planetside 2,what kind of better are we talking about?Also keep in mind that i have 60hz monitor so if Ryzen can give me a stable 60 fps it doesnt really matter if i5 is slightly better.

Difficult to say without directly comparing two (otherwise identical) machines but the single core ratings on the i5 are about 20% higher than the Ryzen so that is the best theoretical improvement - game benchmarks on older games suggest that 20% is in the right ballpark.

Whether or not that equates to a 'stable' 60fps is surprisingly hard to determine considering the myriad of performance threads around. I'd hazard a guess at - mostly, but there will be times when frames will drop.

DX12 and newer games in general are more equal.

Thumbs up for all the nice, concrete, helpful information without any ****-talking about whether AMD or Intel rulez.

I was facing similar choice when I was building my computer not so long ago and, although I was heavy AMD oriented person, I decided to go for i5. Need to mention it was a little bit before Ryzen was introduced. My current config is as follows:

Intel Core i5 6600K @ 3.50GHz
RAM 32GB 2-channel HyperX @ 1200MHz
MB MSI Z170A GAMING PRO
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (MSI)
along with a couple of SSDs/HDDs and a massive radiator for CPU

It is a kind of a budget rig but I have absolutely none problems playing games at max details including Planetside 2 or Witcher 3. My monitor is kinda old so I stick to 60fps but this rig has no problems with running games above 100 fps if you dont mind some tearing.
Maybe this won't help you with making a choice but I believe this rig is kinda affordable and will save you some problems with new, not very well tested (yet) CPU.

Ryzen will definitely give you a stable 60 FPS in any fight. I went for the 1600 and did the SUPER EASY overclock to about 3.8ghz. I am not a fan of overclocking either, but it was too easy. Even without the overclock I was able to get 60FPS easy in all fights, though I don't play with flora on, nor shadows because of the visual impairment...I impair my gameplay enough by other means .

If you really wish to know what it's like on max then I can test it for you.

Good luck with a GPU though I had to purchase a slightly overpriced RX580 4GB, the 8GB was still insanely priced at the time of my purchase.

Ryzen 1600 @ 3.8ghz
16GB Ram @ 2400mhz
RX 580 4GB

Wasn't very expensive, about $600 USD, which is great for me because I just can not justify spending anything more on video games.

Ryzen. Here's a comparison of the two: https://www.pcworld.com/article/318...ins-for-best-mainstream-power-cpu.html?page=2
The Intel has an ever-so-slight edge in single-threaded performance, but once the workload becomes multithreaded, the Ryzen 5 crushes the i5 with around twice the performance.

Does the single-threaded performance matter for games? Well, I have a Ryzen 7, and it is powerful enough that my GPU (GTX 1080) is the bottleneck in Planetside.
That, and it obliterates i7s in rendering/multithread workloads. The only Intel proc that can compete is the $1000 10-core i7, lol. And if you're looking in that range, you can go with Threadripper, which will again crush the 10-core i7.

Tbh, there's almost no reason to buy Intel right now.

Thanks for your responses people!From my own research,it also seems that Ryzen is the way to go..

I guess the only question remaining is how close we are to Intel's launch of the new "coffee lake" line.Does anyone know when will this happen?

Not wishing to rain on anyone's parade - but - the Ryzen will rule on multi-threaded apps without a doubt, and this includes MODERN games as DX12 itself is mutithreaded.

However - on older games (and I put PS2 in this pot), the i5 will be faster.

If you go one more page in that review - https://www.pcworld.com/article/3186811/computers/ryzen-5-review-vs-core-i5-ryzen-5-1600x-wins-for-best-mainstream-power-cpu.html?page=3 - you can see the effect on the older games, along with the quote "The thing is, Ryzen 5 still exhibits performance issues that have many wringing hands over the CPU’s gaming chops. You can see it with Sleeping Dogs, where at 1080p resolution and Medium settings, Ryzen exhibits the typical 20-percent to 30-percent slower performance."

As for waiting for coffee lake, well that is Intels direct response to Ryzen - but as usual it will undoubtedly have a new socket (Intel like doing this) and the system cost is likely to be high.
The choice comes down to - do you want the best machine for PS2 right now - or - do you want something that will handle PS2 at least ok, be more future proof and better at new / future games along with productivity tasks ?

Well if Ryzen runs PS2 marginally worse,and considering that when some games(like the latest Tomb Raider)received some optimization patches for Ryzen,performed better on it that on the i5,i think the choice becomes obvious.

4c/4t i5 just seems technologically surpassed right now.An i7 7700k is still the best choice but thats about 60-70% more expensive in my country.

Yep - i'd be in agreement - i'd personally go with Ryzen out of that choice but just wanted you to have all the info !

just want to add some small detail
both CPU's are a good choice but if you run a lot of background programs like me
recursion, teamspeak, music, open browser and so on you're better of with the Ryzen cause of the multitasking
but it's not like the I5 can't handle it, Ryzen will just do a better job at it

As someone who never operated on a PC capable of more than 4 threads, I'm not sure how much I'm missing out on. However, I've been extremely satisfied with the performance of my 7600k.

Surely Ryzen is a step up for AMD. The problem is it's still 10 steps behind when it comes to gaming. The only real advantage it has is number of threads, and it's an "on paper" advantage, that works only with properly optimized applications, which entirely depends on developers, and they usually never bother with things like that. Higher performance per core, however, always works.

If you're SOOOOO worried about upcoming games REQUIRING more than 4 threads, you can always just get an i7 with Hyper Threading, and then you'll have 8 threads.

Future proofing is a **** concept, though. It just doesn't work with computers, where hardware evolves as fast or even faster than software. It will be more cost effective to upgrade when necessary rather than spending extra or using sup par hardware right now.

I appreciate your scepticism regarding Ryzen and agree that being able to upgrade is better than trying to "future proof" your build.The thing is however,that even on that front AMD is ahead RIGHT NOW because the AM4 socket which Ryzen uses is here to stay while everything is pointing to Intel replacing the 1151 socket with its 9th Gen CPUs.

So even if Ryzen 5 doesnt prove to be as good as the reviews ive seen suggest,i could swap it for something newer/beefier while with an Intel CPU i wont be able to do that.As for the i7 ,its just TOO expensive.

In my honest opinion Ryzen has everything going for it RIGHT NOW.Besides id like to give AMD a chance.All my rigs were using Intel CPUs.

Personally I would stick with Intel if you are primarily concerned with gaming, especially on Planetside 2. Something about Planetsides programming does not jive very well with AMDs architecture. And the game does not use nearly enough threads to make the multithreading worthwhile.

I used to have an AMD Phenom II X6 1100t Black Edition, it was a 6-core processor I had on water and overclocked. I could Run PS2 pretty okay on Ultra but would bog down in huge fights like BioLabs of 96+.

I recently upgraded and got myself a new i7 Kabylake 7700k. And its just blown my old 1100t right out of the water for PS2. I can run on ultra in the biggest fights and not notice a thing. Ands that just stock without overclocking yet on my i7.

Granted, the Phenom X6 is a older architecture, but the 6 cores so far hadn't given me anything over the i7 in its raw clockrate and IPC.

From what I have seen on benchmarks, Ryzen isn't as competitive in the gaming market, as much as it is in the Commercial/Buisiness market with the Ryzen competing with intels 6900 series in terms of cost/performance. Ryzen only truly shines in environments created to make use of the sheer amount of threads Ryzen has available. On a core per core, thread per thread basis the Intel Kabylake will out perform a Ryzen and most games just don't use that many cores right now.

I feel the i5 would likely suit you better in the long run vs the comparable Ryzen processor in terms of performance in games, but if cost is more your concern, then Ryzen would be adequate. That's what AMD has always had against intel, is nice cost/performance vs intels CPUs.

Just wanted to point out that the older Bulldozer architecture from AMD was TERRIBAD in games, the design was poor - the shared FPU between cores utterly destroyed floating point performance and games suffered badly.
Ryzen is totally different, no longer sharing an FPU and significantly increasing the IPC (instructions per clock). Intel still has the edge - but the margin was closed considerably.

Games makers present and in the future will get better at multithreading and not just optimise for Intel architecture, several games have already been optimised for Ryzen and the boost is significant.

Will this help with PS2 ? Unlikely - so I go back to my original point - if you want the best for playing PS2 right now, the i5 is still the way to go. For everything else including future games - the Ryzen is a sound choice.

Planetside 2 is pretty heavily multithreaded. It utilizes all 16 threads on my 1800x to an equal degree (none of them max out).

Also notice that the Ryzen generally loses ground in games only when graphics are set to Medium or Low settings, or on older (i.e. less graphically intense) games, and framerates are very high. This is because, in these scenarios, lots of frames means lots of draw calls, which puts extra strain on the CPU using older APIs like DirectX 11 (which are very inefficient at using multiple threads for these draw calls_. However, this is not a very common situation. Usually, you'll want to turn up your graphics until the GPU is the limiting factor of a game's performance (otherwise you're literally wasting your GPU's potential). In these cases, there will be almost no difference between Ryzen and Intel in terms of gaming performance.

And then, once you look at DX12 and above, draw calls are very efficiently parallelized, which will likely give Ryzen an advantage even in those high-framerate, non-GPU-limited scenarios.

That being said, even if you are correct, and Planetside does perform slightly better with the Intel (which I rather doubt), is it wise to pay the same $250 for a CPU with almost literally half the power of the alternative, just to get a few extra FPS in one game? Personally, I'd still go for the Ryzen for the significantly higher general compute power.