Ryzen 5 7600 vs Ryzen 5 5600

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600 and Ryzen 5 5600 are admittedly two different product classes with well-differentiated price points, and unlike previous generations, one won’t replace the other (at least for now). But in this feature, we want to find out at what point it makes sense to go from an affordable Ryzen 5600 to a relatively expensive 7600, so that’s what we’ll be doing in this CPU and GPU scaling test.

We recently updated our CPU cost per frame data and found that a well-equipped Ryzen 5 5600 platform will cost $365, while a similarly configured 7600 costs 53% more at $560. In the 10 games tested, the Zen 4 processor was 33% faster on average, which helped improve its value, but even so, it was still more expensive per frame.

Naturally, for those of you already on the AM4 platform and using an older generation processor, or if you have a good quality DDR4 kit that you want to port over, the 5600 shouldn’t be a problem as it’s a significantly cheaper upgrade.

But if you’re building a brand new PC from scratch, which is what you’re really forced to do with the 7600, is it worth investing in a new Zen 4 processor and its more promising AM5 platform?

For those of you who are also considering buying a high performance GeForce 40 or Radeon 7000 series GPU – yes – we’d say upgrading to Zen 4 is worth it to upgrade to Zen 3, but what about if you’re using a previous GPU generations?

Slower GPUs in most gaming situations will be more GPU limited than CPU limited and so the difference between 5600 and 7600 will be much less obvious, but of course things will change when you upgrade to a faster graphics card in the future, which is why benchmarks CPU bound CPUs make the most sense, but a lot of you like GPU scaling tests, so let’s get to it…

Landmarks

First, we have Watch Dogs: Legion preset at very high quality at 1080p, and with the RTX 4090, the Ryzen 7600 delivered 32% more performance than the 5600, hitting 149fps.

Fields were almost the same when using the Radeon 6950 XT, although frame rates were generally higher due to Nvidia’s driver overhead, which often rears its ugly head in CPU-limited scenarios.

Now, using the much more modest Radeon 6650 XT, we see the Ryzen 7600 is now only 13% faster than the 5600, which is still a reasonable margin admittedly, but certainly doesn’t justify the price premium.

The Total War: Warhammer III results are interesting and probably more like what you would normally expect from a CPU/GPU scaling test with three very different levels of GPU performance.

Using the RTX 4090, the Ryzen 7600 was 46% faster than the 5600, hitting nearly 300fps. But when moving to the Radeon 6950 XT, which is still a very powerful GPU in this test, averaging almost 200fps, the 7600 was only 3% faster than the 5600.

Then when testing with the 6650 XT, we see no difference in performance. So for a game like Warhammer III, the 7600 just isn’t worth the 5600. But if the GeForce RTX 4090 results indicate future gaming performance, then the 7600 will be worth the premium, the question is, when will that future become a reality?

Hitman 3 brings us mixed results. First, using the RTX 4090, we can see that the 7600 is 42% faster than the 5600, so the new Zen 4 processor has a significant performance advantage here. But that difference has shrunk to 27% with the 6950 XT, which is still a big win for Zen 4, but with less driver overhead with a Radeon GPU, the slower 5600 performs much better.

Then when we move on to the Radeon 6650 XT the performance headroom is neutralized as the results become 100% GPU limited.

The results of A Plague Tale: Requiem are interesting. The Ryzen 5 5600 and Core i3-13100 do get crushed by Nvidia’s overhead when using the RTX 4090, but that’s much less of an issue for the more powerful Ryzen 7600, although it was still 6% faster using the 6950 XT in this test. terms.

The fact is that when using the RTX 4090, the 7600 was 36% faster than the 5600, while this lead drops to 15% with the 6950 XT, and then completely cancels out with the 6650 XT.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II is a game that has at least a 200 fps advantage, and as a competitive shooter, more serious players will choose lower quality settings not only to improve frame rates, but to a greater extent. to improve players’ ability to detect enemies.

So this is an example where a more powerful processor such as the Ryzen 7600 really benefits by delivering 42% more frames than the 5600 with the GeForce RTX 4090, though that margin drops to 28% with the 6950 XT.

For most gamers, the 190fps provided by the Radeon 6650 XT will be enough, and if you fall into that category then for the most part the Ryzen 7600 has little to offer. But as the 4090 and 6950 XT have shown, in the more demanding parts of the game it is possible that the 7600 will provide much better performance than the 5600 even with a smaller GPU.

The big advantage of the Ryzen 7600 in Spider-Man Remastered is the use of DDR5 memory.

Armed with the RTX 4090, the 7600 delivered 35% more frames than the 5600, going from 82fps to 111fps. That lead stayed pretty much the same with the 6950 XT, and interestingly, both Ryzen processors were slower with the 6950 XT, while the more limited CPU Core i3-13100 actually got a performance boost.

Then with the Radeon 6650 XT, the results become heavily GPU-limited, though the 7600 still managed to outperform the 5600 by an 8% margin.

The scaling of Shadow of the Tomb Raider is very typical: when using the RTX 4090, the 7600 was 34% faster than the 5600, and that lead was reduced to 20% with the 6950 XT as the 7600 became GPU limited. Then with the 6650 XT, all three CPUs are heavily GPU-limited at around 110fps, which is admittedly more than enough to fully enjoy this game.

Horizon Zero Dawn scales like Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Ryzen 7600 scales 24% faster with the RTX 4090 and 23% faster with the 6950 XT, so the new Zen 4 processor offers a clear performance advantage.

But by the time we get to the Radeon 6650 XT, the results are completely GPU-limited with less than 5% performance variance.

In Cyberpunk 2077, the Ryzen 7600 delivered 35% more performance than the 5600 with the RTX 4090, which is a huge performance advantage for the new Zen 4 CPU. However, moving to the 6950 XT reduces that headroom to 14% as the Radeon GPU boosts the 5600’s performance by 12%, while the 7600 is now GPU-limited, reducing performance by 5%. As you’d expect, we’re GPU-limited with the 6650 XT, with all CPUs delivering 95-96fps.

All ACC results are highly CPU-limited, regardless of the GPU used. When using GPUs, the Radeon 7600 was 35% faster than the 5600, and it’s rather odd that this lead is reduced to 28% with the RTX 4090. Still, about 30% faster than the 5600, the new Zen 4 processor offers a significant boost. performance in this title.

Riftbreaker doesn’t require high framerates so any of these processors will run just fine, but using it as a performance measurement tool we found the 7600 to be 40% faster than the 5600 with an RTX 4090 and then 22% faster with RTX 4090. 6950 XT before data becomes completely GPU-limited with 6650 XT.

CS:GO, like ACC, is another game that is heavily CPU-limited. As a result, the Ryzen 7600 was about 26-28% faster than the 5600 across the board, even with the 6650 XT.

12 games average (1080p)

Using the GeForce RTX 4090, we can see the Ryzen 7600 is 35% faster on average than the Ryzen 5600, although that lead drops to 23% with the Radeon 6950 XT. It is interesting to note that the Ryzen 5600 was faster using the 6950 XT, while the opposite was true for the 7600, which is attributed to Nvidia’s overhead issue that reduces CPU performance under high load.

With heavily CPU-limited games like CS:GO and ACC, we can see the Ryzen 7600 is still 7% faster on average using the Radeon 6650 XT, although that’s not a margin that would make you invest in a Zen 4 CPU .

What have we learned

There’s no denying that the Ryzen 5 7600 is much more powerful than the 5600 and we’ve just seen it improve gaming performance by around 30% in most typical scenarios, but often even more when the CPU is severely constrained.

You won’t always need an extreme GPU like the RTX 4090 to see the difference, upgrading from a Ryzen 5600 to a 7600 can certainly be justified by a more affordable graphics card, but at the same time, that’s not all. which is beneficial to everyone.

For most Ryzen 5 5600 owners, upgrading to the 7600 is somewhat pointless. As we noted earlier, upgrading to the 7600 will cost at least $560 for a base B650 board and a decent 32GB DDR5 memory kit. The best alternative for AM4 owners looking to achieve 7600-like performance is the 5800X3D, currently available for $340about 40% cheaper than upgrading to 7600 for the same performance level.

However, if you are new to building systems and choosing between these two processors, the choice becomes much more difficult, or maybe not… Obviously, if you want to spend as little money as possible, the Ryzen 5600 is the one for you. . go, but if you want to maximize your investment, the Ryzen 7600 might be a smarter choice.

While the Ryzen 7600 package costs at least 53% more, we saw an average of 30% more performance with a relatively high-end GPU. This is a solid performance boost that adds value to the 7600 on an AM5 platform that will support future processors.

The affordable and easy situation of upgrading to 5800X3D for 5600 owners (or those with a much older AM4 processor today) could be the same situation that Ryzen 7600 owners will face in a few years. Of course, we don’t know how the AM5 story will unfold, but we do know how the AM4 story played out, and that story is already over.

In the end, there is no right or wrong choice here. In our opinion, both processors are very viable options. The Ryzen 5600 remains a perfectly capable gaming processor, especially if you’re using a more modest GPU and tend to play mostly single-player games, although it’s still very suitable for competitive multiplayer games.

The new Ryzen 7600 tends to take performance to the next level. So it’s up to you to decide which option is best for you, which may be dictated by your budget and whether you already have an AM4 motherboard or not.

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