Looking for Opinions on 3600x or 3800x

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limitedaccess

Supreme [H]ardness
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No plans to overclock for performance, might tune for efficiency.

Primarily gaming, but I keep wanting to dabble more back into 3D rendering (although these days it seems like the GPU can be leveraged more) and maybe even some video stuff. I also do always have something else going on while gaming (dual screens) in terms of multi-asking (I wish reviews would test less lean).

Also the elephant in the room with the next console CPUs (Zen 2 8c/16t) and possibly more leveraging of CPUs for physics.


3600x - $175 (game bundle, resale value)
- Might need to buy a new HSF. Hearing mixed opinions on the noise profile of the included (downgraded) Wraith Spiral.


3800x - $300 (but possibly no games)
- Wraith Prism might be good enough.

3600 is more expensive, and 3700x is <$10 cheaper so they aren't worth considering.

I'm not concerned about the up front cost difference but the total cost of ownership over the longer run (eg. resale value a year or so from now to upgrade to Zen 3) and upgrading the HSF.
 
They'll both perform essentially the same for gaming. You just need to weigh how much 3d rendering you'll be doing and if the few minutes you save on each render is worth the extra money. As for reviewers 'testing lean' GamersNexus has gone over this before; having other apps running basically does nothing to hurt performance unless you're talking about doing some sort of encoding/rendering jobs while you're gaming. Youtube, Discord, AV, etc only use a very tiny bit of CPU time.

My son has a 3600 and has said that the Wraith Stealth that came with it isn't loud. I would go ahead and budget a decent cooler for either of them though but I hate noise.
 
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I think the box cooler is incredibly silent.

I owned a 3600 nonx and couldnt tell the difference in gaming between it and my 3900x and 3960x. No longer own the 3900x. All zen 3k chips are gaming champs.
 
I had a 3800x and it was an undervolt champ. Sipping power while getting max boost. The 3600x was hotter running and could not sustain the higher clocks like the 8/12 core chips can. Its all about the binning and the 3600 and 3600x are not binned like the higher core counts. They are still good, but I'd go with the 3800x and undervolt it, once undervolted it runs less power than a 3600x.
 
The 3600 is a beast in it's own right, virtually equal to the 2700 with 2 fewer cores. I would personally take the $125 savings and dump it into a gpu or ssd or mobo upgrade.
 
It's really just savings in my case. The rest of my build is relatively set (well kind of) nor is really going to be impacted per (I have enough money on hand to not worry about upfront costs). Really the benefit would be being able to justify resell and upgrading earlier due to possibly lower TOC.

What's always "irked" me with my current build is I went with the 2500k over the 2600k but throughout most of its life the 2600k resale value was the same $100 higher than the buy at new price, so I didn't actually save any money per say.

In terms of the r5 3600 HSF comments, the reason I'm concerned about the 3600x is from what I understand AMD cost cut on the Wraith Spire and dumped the copper core (vapor chamber?) in favor of a higher RPM fan (1000 RPM higher) for the 3600x (versus the 2700 generation).

At the moment if I were to get an after market HSF I'd be looking at the <$30 range with something like the Deepcool GAMMAX GT or Hyper 212 Black or the Raijintek Thermis EVO (although the size of this one is a bit off putting). I have an older Hyper 212 Plus but that wouldn't support AM4 mounting. Although I've heard mixed reports on how the Wraith Prisms match up against the Hyper 212 in general, I'd want to get something that at least outperform it (from a noise/cooling stand point) to justify the cost.
 
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Plain jane 3600 is a better deal than the 3600x. PBO will get you the X speeds with a click in the bios.. You'll need a better cooler either way. I use a 2600x Spire on my plane jane 3600 and it's 'enough', but could be better. the 3600x Spire does not have the copper vapor chamber like the 2600x part, so I'd put it on the edge of not usable or barely usable.
 
Aftermarket cooler is a consideration to provide thermal headroom for boost.

Dabbling means anything will work until a consistent habit is formed. If that happens then you adjust your parts based on your real world use cases. Storage io, gpu power, etc may take precedence on your workflow down the road vs cpu power depending on that holds you back the most.

Pure gaming I just run an Intel box and the non gaming workloads I acknowledge as pipe dreams after a couple years of non output.
 
Shit I will send you my Wraith Prism from my 3900X for 10 bucks plus shipping. It is now sitting on my 2600 in a case in my storage room. Also have a few Corsair AIO's sitting there as well, H100i Pro and an H60. What can I say I was testing and settled for the EVGA 280 AIO I have now, which I may bump to the H150i just for the bigger ness and RGB goodness.
 
Thanks for the offer on that. The issue is although I converted the prices to USD (for easier context) I'm actually in Canada (where you'd consider the Pacific North-West) which might make the shipping costs a bit high. But I'll take this to PMs.

I've thought about trying to source a Wraith Prism or even previous gen Wraith Spire (since it does look a bit nice) locally. Although judging by the response above probably not worth it for the latter.

At the moment I guess I'm leaning towards the 3600x with a possible HSF upgrade if needed.
 
3800x for the 8 cores seems like the way to go since the next ps4 and xbox are 8 core. Friend who just built a Ryzen system for gaming got the 3800x for that reason.
 
Jamie Marsala said:
Shit I will send you my Wraith Prism from my 3900X for 10 bucks plus shipping. It is now sitting on my 2600 in a case in my storage room. Also have a few Corsair AIO's sitting there as well, H100i Pro and an H60. What can I say I was testing and settled for the EVGA 280 AIO I have now, which I may bump to the H150i just for the bigger ness and RGB goodness.
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Jamie I'll buy your Prism.
 
Kirika said:
3800x for the 8 cores seems like the way to go since the next ps4 and xbox are 8 core. Friend who just built a Ryzen system for gaming got the 3800x for that reason.
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3700x is really where it's at unless you get the 3800x at a large discount. They are the same basic chip. one 65w out of the box, one 95w out of the box
 
Kirika said:
3800x for the 8 cores seems like the way to go since the next ps4 and xbox are 8 core. Friend who just built a Ryzen system for gaming got the 3800x for that reason.
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I really wish core to core console vs pc comparisons would go away.
It's also like comparing mobile cores to pc cores when looking at ports of older titles like Civ 6.
 
Rvenger said:
The 3600x was hotter running and could not sustain the higher clocks like the 8/12 core chips can.
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With my 3600X I get 4.3 all-core on GTA V (good multi-core example) and it never goes over 65c no matter what I'm doing....

(my two "bad" cores peak at 4.375, the rest all hit 4.4)

- 212 Black in push/pull config
 
limitedaccess said:
Thanks for the offer on that. The issue is although I converted the prices to USD (for easier context) I'm actually in Canada (where you'd consider the Pacific North-West) which might make the shipping costs a bit high. But I'll take this to PMs.

I've thought about trying to source a Wraith Prism or even previous gen Wraith Spire (since it does look a bit nice) locally. Although judging by the response above probably not worth it for the latter.

At the moment I guess I'm leaning towards the 3600x with a possible HSF upgrade if needed.
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I am Canadian and owned both 3600X and 3800X .Go with 3600X for gaming it almost the same and any video work ,you can use GPU.Also no need to buy another CPU cooler for what you are doing.
I also suggest look on Canadian forums such as the two below for great deals on CPU'S.Last 3800X I bought, I paid $360 Canadian ($275 USD)shipped next day to my house.

Buy and sell Redflagdeals
https://forums.redflagdeals.com/bst-computer-hardware-tablets-software-accessories-f11/

Buy and sell hardwarecanucks
https://hardwarecanucks.com/forum/forums/buy-sell-trade.46/
 
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