New 6 Core Ryzen 5 3600 Vs. Intel i5-9600K | CPU Comparison

AMD has launched their new 6 core Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, but how does it compare against
the i5-9600K from Intel?

Let's see what the differences are and find out how they perform in games and applications, both at stock and when overclocked.

Ryzen 5 3600 And Intel i5-9600K Specifications:

Let’s start out with the specs. While both have 6 cores, one of the major differences is that the AMD 3600 has SMT, so it’s got 12 threads, while Intel’s 9600K has no hyperthreading, so just 6 threads.

Based on this we’re expecting the 3600 to come out ahead in multicore performance
due to the higher thread count.

Otherwise the Intel CPU has higher base and boost clock speeds, however these aren’t directly comparable due to architecture differences anyway.

Both CPUs are unlocked and support overclocking, while the 3600 has a fair amount more cache and also comes with a cooler in the box.

I’m comparing these two CPUs because they’ve both got 6 cores and while the price points are roughly the same, the Intel chip costs more.

Both CPUs were tested in the same system, however I’ve obviously had to change motherboards.

For the AMD 3600 I’ve tested with the MSI X570 ACE motherboard and for the Intel 9600K I’ve used the MSI Z390 ACE motherboard.

The rest of the components were otherwise
the same, I’ve tested with 16gb of DDR4-3200 memory running in dual channel at CL14 and with an Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti to reduce GPU bottlenecks.

Although the 3600 comes with a cooler included in the box I haven’t tested with it.

I’ve used the same Fractal S36 AIO with Noctua NT-H1 paste for both CPUs so we can get an apples to apples comparison, especially for thermals.

Testing was completed with the latest version of Windows and same Nvidia drivers along with all BIOS updates available installed.

I’ve tested both CPUs at stock, and with the 9600K overclocked to 5.1GHz and 3600 overclocked to 4.2GHz, so we can see how overclocking helps improve performance with both.

With that in mind we’ll first check out the differences in various applications, as well as power draw and thermals, followed by gaming tests at 1080p and 1440p resolutions afterwards, then finish up by comparing some performance per dollar metrics.

Let’s start out with Cinebench R20. I’ve got the overclocked results on the upper half
of the graph while the stock results are on the lower half.

As expected the 3600 is coming out ahead in the multicore workload due to the higher thread count, as the 9600K has no hyperthreading.

At stock the 3600 was actually ahead when it came to single core, however the 9600K pulled out ahead in single core performance once overclocked as we’re able to push it much further.

Compared to Intel, the Ryzen CPUs are generally quite tapped out out of the box.

In terms of multicore performance, at stock the 3600 was scoring 41% higher than the 9600K, but then once both are overclocked the gap narrows with the 3600 now with a 28% lead, again due to the better overclock that was possible on the i5.

While Cinebench R15 has been replaced by the newer R20 just covered, I wanted to also include the results of this one too.

Again the 3600 is beating the 9600K in the multicore score, with a 51% lead at stock which again lowers down with both overclocked to a 35% lead.

The 3600 also got the lead in single core prior to overclocking. After the overclocks
though, the 9600K is 11% ahead in single core compared to being behind at stock.

I’ve tested the Blender BMW and Classroom benchmarks, and as a test that works better with more threads it’s another clear win for the 3600 which was completing these rendering tasks faster.

At stock the 3600 is completing the BMW test 44% faster than the 9600K and 49% faster in the Classroom test.

This gap closes again once we overclock both CPUs, with the 3600 reduced to a 28% lead in the BMW test, while coming out 32% ahead for the Classroom test.

Handbrake was used to convert a 4K file to 1080p, and then a different 1080p file to
720p.

This is another workload that benefits from more threads, so at stock settings we’re
seeing the 3600 complete both tasks 36% faster than the 9600K.

Again once overclocked the gap narrows, with the 3600 now 20% ahead of the 9600K.

Adobe Premiere was used to export one of my laptop review videos at 1080p, and is another where the 3600 was ahead, again due to the higher thread count.

At stock the 3600 completed both tasks about 30% faster, but this drops in half once both are overclocked, with the 3600 only maintaining a 15% lead now.

I’ve also tested the warp stabilizer effect in Adobe Premiere, basically this processes

a video file to smooth it out, and in this test the 3600 was 13% faster than the 9600K.

There was no change to the 3600 once overclocked in this test, which makes sense, this seems to be a single threaded workload and the 4.2GHz all core overclock is the same as if we’d not overclocked it and allowed an active core to boost up to this.

The 9600K on the other hand saw a nice improvement once overclocked, as we’ve raised single core speeds by 500MHz.

I’ve used 7-Zip to test compression and decompression speeds.

Once more the 3600 was ahead in all instances here, and quite substantially for decompression, where it had a 60% lead
over the 9600K at stock, but then lowering a fair bit to a 40% lead once both are overclocked.

Compression was closer together, at stock the 3600 was 39% ahead of the 9600K, lowering to a 25% lead with overclocks applied.

VeraCrypt was used to test AES encryption and decryption speeds, and in this test the
3600 saw the largest improvement over the 9600K out of everything I’ve tested.

At stock the 3600 was around 80% faster at both encryption and decryption, but once both are overclocked this changes to around a 57% lead, and we can see the larger change that happens of the 9600K once overclocked, the 3600 hardly rises at all in comparison.

The V-Ray benchmark is another that relies on thread count to boost performance, and
as a result the 3600 is 40% faster than the 9600K at stock,

and then with both CPUs overclocked this lowers to a 28% lead, so still substantially faster but even with fewer threads the higher overclock potential from the 9600K can go a long way in closing the gap.

The Corona benchmark uses the CPU to render out a scene, and as another test that scales well over multiple threads it’s giving us one of the highest improvements with the 3600,

with a 50% lead over the 9600K at stock. With both overclocked though the 9600K narrows the gap, and the 3600 is 33% ahead now.

We can see the overclock on the 3600 only sped the task up by 3 seconds, while the overclocked 9600K saw a much more impressive 29 second improvement.

These are the differences between the 3600 and 9600K CPUs in all of these applications, as we can see it really varies depending on the specific workload.

At stock in all instances the 3600 was faster than the 9600K, and as most of these tests are multicore based the 3600 sees large improvements.

On average over all of these tests, the 3600 was 40% faster than the 9600K.

Once overclocked things change quite a bit, these are the differences between both CPUs with the 3600 overclocked to 4.2GHz on all cores and 9600K overclocked to 5.1GHz on all cores, the best I was able to get each to.

We can see the two single core Cinebench results are now faster on the 9600K, while the multicore results narrow in, now putting the 3600 24% ahead on average in these tests over the 9600K.

While the 3600 is the clear winner in these
sorts of multicore workloads, the amount of improvement we’re able to get from the overclock on the 9600K is quite impressive.

I’ve also measured total system power draw from the wall while running the Blender benchmark.

At stock the 3600 was using 15% more power, however consider that it’s also completing this task 44% faster than the 9600K,

so by the time the 9600K actually finishes the task it would have ended up using more power to do so.

Once overclocked the 9600K is using 22% more power than the 3600, and while the 9600K does close the performance gap in the overclocked state, the 3600 was still completing the task 29% faster while using less power, so a pretty nice result from AMD’s 7nm architecture.

These are the CPU temperatures with the same blender tests running.

Both at stock and while overclocked the AMD chip was running a warmer, but this doesn’t seem too unexpected considering
how much more work it’s doing.

The Intel chip rises 17 degrees with the 5.1GHz overclock, while there’s little change to the 3600 as it doesn’t overclock anywhere near as far.

Games Testing:

Let’s get into the gaming results next, I’ve tested these games at all setting levels at both 1080p and 1440p resolutions, and just as a reminder I’m also using a 2080 Ti to
reduce GPU bottlenecks as much as I can.

We’ll start off with stock results, then look at overclocked and precision boost overdrive results afterwards.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider:

Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the built in benchmark. In all upcoming gaming graphs I’ve got Intel’s 9600K shown by the blue bars and AMD’s 3600 shown by the red bars.

I’ve also tested all setting levels, which are shown on the left hand side of the graph.

In this game the 9600K was ahead at all setting levels, though the gap narrows in at higher settings, where the 9600K was just 1.5% ahead at 1080p max settings.

At 1440p as we become more GPU bound there’s less of a difference between the two, until finally at highest settings at the top both CPUs were scoring the same in this test.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey:

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was also tested with the built in benchmark, and at 1080p
the 3600 was ahead in terms of average FPS at all setting levels.

At ultra high settings it was just 2.2% ahead, so not really a big deal, while at low settings though the 3600 scored 18% higher average FPS.

The 9600K was ahead when it came to 1% lows at all levels except low and medium, at least at this resolution.

When we step up to 1440p though things start to change.

The 3600 is only ahead at low and medium settings in average FPS, while the 9600K is otherwise faster and also winning in terms of 1% low. At ultra high settings the 9600K is 6% faster than the 3600, but it really comes down to what setting level you’re running at as to which wins, it’s quite close.

Battlefield 5:

Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode, I prefer testing this as I can more precisely
perform the same test run with less variance, however multiplayer does seem to be more CPU intensive.

At 1080p the 9600K was winning in all results, though at ultra settings the gap in 1% lows narrows quite a bit when compared to other setting levels.

At ultra the 9600K was scoring 10% higher average FPS over the 3600, a fair difference.

At 1440p the differences in 1% low get closer together, and are virtually the same at ultra.

Average FPS is also much closer together now at the higher setting levels, again presumably as we get more GPU bound, and the 9600K had just under a 5% lead at ultra settings now.

Far Cry New Dawn:

Far Cry New Dawn was tested with the built in benchmark, and at 1080p we’re seeing the biggest win for the 9600K out of all games that I’ve tested here, with a 13% higher average frame rate at ultra settings, and similar was seen regardless of setting level, both for average FPS and 1% low.

At 1440p although the results get closer together the 9600K is still clearly in the lead, with a 7.5% higher average frame rate at ultra settings now.

Watch Dogs 2:

Watch Dogs 2 is a game that loves CPU power, yet is a game that I can personally play just fine with a stable 30 FPS, so from a practicality perspective either CPU is giving insane performance and I honestly couldn’t notice a difference when actually playing the game.


In terms of the differences though, at ultra the 3600 was getting 5% faster average FPS with a larger 10% improvement to 1% low when compared against the 9600K. At 1440p the results are much closer together.

The 3600 is still in the lead in terms of 1% low regardless of setting level, however for averages it’s almost always just behind now,

though realistically it’s within margin of error between ultra and medium with just a single frame or so one way or the other.

CS:GO:

CS:GO is a game that’s well known for performing better on Intel CPUs due to the typical higher single core performance, so I just had to try it out.

In terms of average FPS the 3600 was ahead at all setting levels, well at least at 1080p.

With all settings maxed out, the 3600 was 8% ahead in terms of average FPS, while the 1% lows were very close to each other comparatively.

At 1440p things get a bit strange. At low the 3600 is still ahead, and then slightly ahead at medium settings, but once everything is at maximum the Intel 9600K takes back the lead, now scoring 9% higher average FPS over the 3600.

Rainbow Six Siege:

I’ve also tested out Rainbow Six Siege with the built in benchmark, and in this test it
was a clear win for the Intel chip regardless of the setting preset in use despite not really being a CPU heavy test.

At ultra settings the 9600K was getting 6% higher average FPS over the 3600 and a 9% higher 1% low.

At 1440p the Intel CPU actually gets a little farther ahead, now with a 6.2% higher average frame rate at ultra settings, and again clearly in the lead at all setting levels.

Gaming Overview:

Out of all 7 games tested once we average things out we’re looking at a 2.3% higher
average frame rate with the 9600K at highest setting levels at 1080p.

As we can see though, it really depends on the game. Titles like Assassin’s Creed, Watch Dogs, and even CS:GO seemed to favour the 3600 at 1080p, so based on this if there’s a specific game you plan on playing you might need to see how it behaves on both platforms.

At 1440p things swing in favour of the 9600K, which now had a 5% lead over the 3600 at highest setting levels.

Again it depends on the game, but in terms of average with these games it’s not that big of a deal, as we step up resolution and become more GPU bound the CPU generally
matters less and less, which is why I haven’t tested 4K.



That’s stock settings, so what about with both CPUs overclocked? 

As testing every single setting level takes a long time I’ve just picked one setting to test overclocked results at 1080p.

I’ve also tested the 3600 with Precision boost overdrive enabled, noted as PBO onwards, which essentially boosts power limits.

Speeds of each core are also controlled for us here, which is different when compared to my static 4.2GHz all core overclock.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey:

In Assassin’s Creed Odyssey both CPUs saw a nice performance improvement once overclocked, interestingly I had worse results with PBO enabled compared to my manual overclocks.

I think this is because we’re overclocked to 4.2GHz on all cores, which is the boost speed of the 3600.

When I tested other CPUs like the 3700X in the past I found PBO to do better in games compared to a manual overclock because the best manual overclock I could get was lower than the boost speed.

As that’s not the case here, perhaps we’ll see less improvement with PBO.

Battlefield 5:

Battlefield 5 saw basically no change in terms of average FPS on the 9600K once overclocked, however there was a massive 28% improvement to 1% low.

With the 3600 on the other hand, while it did see an 11% improvement to average FPS once overclocked, there was very little difference between the manual overclock and PBO.

It’s also worth noting the larger improvement to 1% low on the 3600 once overclocked too, which saw a huge 36% increase.

Far Cry New Dawn:

Far Cry New Dawn is another example of there being minimal difference between the 3600 when looking at the overclocked and PBO results, then again neither are really very different when compared to the stock speed anyway.

Interestingly I actually had worse results with the 9600K, so a bit of a weird test where increasing clock speed doesn’t really help in either instance.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider:

Shadow of the Tomb Raider saw a 1.5% higher average FPS on the 3600 by enabling PBO compared to stock, however our manual overclock gave a larger 3% boost.

The Intel CPU in comparison saw a larger improvement once overclocked this time, where average FPS increased by 5.7% compared to the stock result.

Watch Dogs 2:

Watch Dogs 2 was another instance where PBO on the 3600 wasn’t as good as simply overclocking all cores to 4.2GHz, in fact the PBO result was slightly lower, though it’s just 1 FPS, kind of margin of error stuff despite these being averages of multiple runs.

The overclocked 3600 got 2.3% higher average FPS compared to stock, while the overclocked 9600K beat its stock score by a much larger 16%.

CS:GO:

In CS:GO again there’s no major differences between PBO and the manual overclock on the 3600, though both were scoring lower FPS compared to stock,

showing how strange of a game this is, and why I’ll probably not include it in future CPU comparisons, I was just personally interested in testing the classic CS:GO does better on Intel thing.

Rainbow Six Siege:

Rainbow Six Siege didn’t really see a change with the 3600 regardless of using PBO or overclocking manually compared to stock,

while the 9600K saw a larger difference, though only 2.7% higher average FPS once overclocking it.

When it comes down to it I don’t think we’re seeing that big of a difference in gaming
performance by overclocking, though it does vary by game, and as we’ve already established the 9600K performs better out of the two once overclocked.

To be fair I have only tested 7 games here, however from what I’m seeing you can get decent gaming performance with both, I honestly can’t say I personally was able to notice the extra FPS from either.

At 1080p the 3600 was coming out ahead in some games, then at 1440p the 9600K was doing better, and in terms of averages regardless of resolution the 9600K seems to be the winner in terms of raw gaming performance.

If you only care about gaming then at first glance it appears that the 9600K may the better choice, however we need to factor in overall costs.

These are the dollar per frame values at 1080p averaged out over all 7 games tested at maximum settings.

I’ve got the 3600 shown up the top in red, with a couple of different options for the 9600K in blue.

The bottom bar represents the CPU only, however it doesn’t come with a cooler so is essentially useless like this until we buy one.

The 3600 comes with a decent stock cooler which is a great advantage here. Even without the cooler though, in terms of dollar per frame value the 3600 is ahead, but the 9600K falls further behind once we add on even a cheaper cooling option.

I haven’t added the 9600KF here, while that’s meant to be a cheaper solution on paper, at the time of recording it’s available for exactly the same price.

Here are the results with both CPUs overclocked. In general we saw the overclock from the 9600K give us better performance compared to the 3600, so we’re seeing the dollar per frame values from it close in.

Again the 9600K is still more money per frame in games even without a cooler, while the additional cooler cost again makes it cost more.

Just to be absolutely clear, while the 9600K was ahead in the majority of games from an FPS perspective, you’re paying more money to get this experience.

It is worth noting that I am using the stock cooler for my dollar per frame graphs but
not actually testing with it.

From what I have seen in other tests, the stock cooler is just fine and works good enough in most cases.

Basically it’s not really worth paying more for a third party cooler, as you’ll only be looking at around a 1% improvement,

and while this would alter the graphs slightly it would not be anywhere near enough to change the conclusion, which is that overall in terms of value AMD appears to be the winner.

It’s not all about gaming though, as we saw earlier, many applications benefit more
from the extra threads with the 3600 compared to gaming.

These are the cost per frame values while exporting a 4K video file to 1080p with Handbrake. I’ve chosen this particular test
as it completed 36% faster on the 3600,

which was quite close to the 40% average improvement that we got from all applications tested, plus it’s a very real and common workload.

The 3600 is giving us far better value here due to those 12 threads, while this would
have made less of a difference in most games it matters a lot here.

Not only is the 3600 cheaper, but it’s also completing this task significantly faster.

Once both CPUs are overclocked the 9600K lowers a fair bit, much more so compared to the 3600 in any case.

This is due to the much higher overclock that it’s able to hit, resulting in more performance.

To be fair though, to maintain such a high overclock will require higher end cooling, something I haven’t factored in here as I’ve just picked a somewhat average $40 budget.

It’s also worth considering the future upgrade options on offer from each platform.

At the moment, the AM4 platform has the 8 core 3700X and 12 core 3900X, with the 16 core 3950X coming later in the year, however to be fair for these higher end CPUs you’d ideally be looking at a more expensive motherboard.

The Intel 9600K on the other hand could be
upgraded to a 9700, 9700K, 9900 or 9900K, so 8 cores 8 threads or 8 cores 16 threads.

In terms of core count AMD’s platform has definitely got you covered, however at the
moment in the games I’ve tested the Intel lineup will give you better performance, though these chips also do cost more and require additional cooling.

AMD should be supporting the AM4 socket next year, which possibly means another future generation of CPU will be a drop in replacement, while at the time it’s not clear what Intel will be doing in this regard.

Additionally AM4 has been around for a bit now, if you’ve already got a system with a B350 board upgrading to the 3600 is a simple process.

If you only care about gaming and want the best performance in terms of raw FPS, then
the 9600K may give you what you’re after.

I say may, because as we’ve seen it really
depends on the game. The 3600 is keeping up in many cases, and performing better in otherswhen it comes to gaming.

For anything that actually requires multicore performance such as the applications covered earlier,

the higher thread count on offer from the 3600 will give it a big advantage, which will also likely mean it will age better as more games start to utilize more threads, it will be interesting to revisit the comparison in a year or two.

For me personally, I use my machine for more than gaming so I’d pick the 3600, and the future possibility of picking up a cheaper 3700X or 3900X down the road is a tempting upgrade path.

While the 9600K was doing better in some games, the 3600 did better in others, and I don’t think the performance difference really justifies spending more money on the
9600K, even before factoring in additional cooling, but that’s just me.