AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and Ryzen 7 5800X review: eliminating Intel's gaming advantage
We’ve loved AMD’s Ryzen processors for their high core counts and excellent value, but they’ve had one major weakness since their first generation: worse gaming performance than Intel, due to slower single-core speeds. Each subsequent Ryzen release has narrowed the gap, but Intel has held onto the gaming crown with grim determination – until today. AMD’s new Ryzen 5000 processor lineup has finally equalised with Intel when it comes to single-core performance, meaning this is the moment that Ryzen can earn our full-throated recommendation for gaming.
In this piece, we’ll be reviewing the two Zen 3 chips we’ve received ahead of launch: the mid-range Ryzen 7 5800X and the high-end Ryzen 9 5900X. (The mainstream Ryzen 5 5600X and flagship Ryzen 9 5950X should be detailed in an upcoming review.)
Looking to upgrade your CPU? We’ve rounded up where to buy Ryzen 5000 in the US and UK.
We’ll be putting them through our CPU benchmarking suite, which was originally designed to prove that even Intel’s then-flagship, the Core i7 8700K, wasn’t able to run all games at 60fps. It just so happened that this suite also highlighted Ryzen’s gaming deficiencies more than most canned benchmark sequences used elsewhere – so consider it a super tough workout that will provide final validation that AMD has done it.
So how are AMD able to claim such a big shift in performance from Ryzen 3000 to Ryzen 5000, considering that both processor lines are made using the same 7nm process? While there have been lots of changes behind the scenes, one major reason is that Zen 3 core complexes now contain up to eight cores each, rather than the up to four cores we saw on Zen 2. That means six and eight-core designs, like the Ryzen 5600X and 5800X, never need to send data through the relatively slow Infinity Fabric interface to reach a distant core, while larger designs like the 5900X at least take that performance penalty less frequently. It also means that all eight cores in a Zen 3 CCX have access to the same 32MB of L3 cache, compared to Zen 2 where the 32MB was split between the two complexes. As these are architectural changes, AMD hasn’t needed to resort to pushing more power into the chip, so rated TDPs for each processor remain the same as the last-generation examples.
| CPU design | Boost | Base | Cache | TDP | RRP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryzen 5950X | Zen 3 16C/32T | 4.9GHz | 3.4GHz | 72MB | 105W | $799 |
| Ryzen 5900X | Zen 3 12C/24T | 4.8GHz | 3.7GHz | 70MB | 105W | $549 |
| Ryzen 5800X | Zen 3 8C/16T | 4.7GHz | 3.8GHz | 36MB | 105W | $449 |
| Ryzen 5600X | Zen 3 6C/12T | 4.6GHz | 3.7GHz | 35MB | 65W | $299 |
| Ryzen 3950X | Zen 2 16C/32T | 4.7GHz | 3.5GHz | 72MB | 105W | $749 |
| Ryzen 3900X | Zen 2 12C/24T | 4.6GHz | 3.8GHz | 70MB | 105W | $499 |
| Ryzen 3800X | Zen 2 8C/16T | 4.5GHz | 3.9GHz | 36MB | 105W | $399 |
| Ryzen 3700X | Zen 2 8C/16T | 4.4GHz | 3.6GHz | 36MB | 105W | $329 |
| Ryzen 3600X | Zen 2 6C/12T | 4.4GHz | 3.8GHz | 35MB | 95W | $249 |
| Ryzen 3600 | Zen 2 6C/12T | 4.2GHz | 3.6GHz | 35MB | 65W | $199 |
We’ll discuss value in more detail later on, but for now it’s worth mentioning that each of these Ryzen 5000 processors debuts at a launch price $50 higher than its predecessors. Combined with the fact that third-gen Ryzen has been solidly discounted – when supply allows – over the past twelve months, and you’re looking at a significant price difference between current and next-gen offerings. For example, the Ryzen 3900X currently sits at £384 on Amazon UK, down from its launch price of £499, and the new 5900X costs £510 at pre-order. That’s a 25 per cent margin, and it could well expand if there isn’t sufficient supply of the new CPUs. So are we going to see a corresponding 25 per cent boost in performance, or indeed anything close to it?
