Should I cancel my order for a Ryzen 5 3600?

There is an offer today from Curry's for the R5 3600 at 145 UKP after voucher, collection. I can collect no problem. I am wondering if this is a good idea?

I currently have a R7 1700 which is obviously old now but supports 4 more threads. It can run about 3.85 GHz if I push it (which I generally don't). Stock boost anyway is 3.75 GHz. I also have a 3070 FE (and don't game much currently but might a little if I find the right game or for Star Citizen / Elite new expansion). I happen to game at 1080p 120HZ (should be able to fix this to 144hz soon).

The main reason I bought it in a slight hurry this morning is this Anandtech Geekbench 4 result, which shows a 12 thread 3600 with about 20% more performance than a 1700 (or equiv) even with 4 more threads. However, since that I've seen benches with CPU-Z placing a 3600 "about the same" as an 8 core Zen 1 which would be a sidegrade. Bit of a shock!

Assuming I can sell my current CPU for 90 + UKP , would you personally go for this upgrade? The 3600 is likely to be able to make 4.1-4.4 GHz all core speed, and I don't know what speed single thread, it's obviously going to be a newer stepping so probably stepping MTS-B0 at this stage and there are rumours that these days not much between a new 3600 or 3600xt... due to process yield improvements. The CPU release is almost 2 years old though!

The other upgrade option is the 5600x which is likely to be 270+ (though there was a recent deal around 230 from USA with a may delivery timeframe). I could of course just stick with what I have which would (have been) ok by me as I was really planning to wait for Zen 4 / AM5 sockets. I would also have to use my 1700 to flash a x470 board to run it, bit of effort.

I happen to have GSKILL FlareX 3200 CL14 which is B die and can probably do 3600 CL15/16 and is lovely RAM for Ryzen historically. I also got a 3070 FE recently which is great but I don't game much any more unless something really engages me. Currently RAM runs at XMP on a B350 gaming plus.

Would you continue with this 60 ish quid upgrade or not bother? In fitting the new CPU I would have to rebuild my PC which currently has a B350 but would be upgraded to an MSI X470 Gaming Plus I bought ages ago and is currently not doing anything*. My hope would be around 4.3 GHz all core or just run stock + PBO + Auto OC and see what happens in terms of speeds. One of the main reasons I actually consider this upgrade is recent coverage of Nvidia drivers being less good on slower CPU than AMD, my previous GPU was Vega 56 and in some circumstances actually the 3070 is slower due to driver design on an older CPU like a 4790k (clearly worse than a 1700 @ 3.85 but ... gives me pause) as per here and I think Hardware Nexus has been looking into this.

TLDR: Worth upgrading R7 1700 to R5 3600 for RTX 3700 GPU considering I rarely game but like best FPS when I do, and need to completely rebuild my PC to do so, at effective cost 55-65 quid cost and having to totally rebuild my PC (but 'upgrade' the mobo) to do so?

*bought this board not realising it is actually super budget for another build I never did. I could always jog it on.

I upgraded from a Ryzen 5 2600 to a Ryzen 7 3700X,and in Fallout4 and OW even with a GTX1080 and qHD I noticed decent improvements in average FPS and 1% lows. I would say,that a Zen3 CPU is even better but the price/performance is terrible for the Ryzen 5 5600X(unless you managed to get that deal for £230ish IIRC). An Intel CFL Core i5 10600K CPU with a B560 in theory with decent RAM should be faster than a Ryzen 5 3600 too.

It's facts like this that make me just want to wait for the next socket. Honestly I'm just not sure if I'm looking forward to rebuilding my PC with a new mobo / CPU on Monday evening. Also I don't know if I have any suitable thermal paste - I could manage something or other but ... hassle.

Well, I bought it and installed it today, taking the opportunity to use my old CPU to flash a new mobo (for me), X470 Gaming Plus from MSI, which is working fine now.

Everything is running fine and Windows certainly seems more snappy. I think it's a small upgrade if anything for games though, I haven't really had much time to try them but Timespy Demo shows actually slightly lower scores even when I ran the CPU at 4.4 GHz (with a fixed vcore and no PBO) all core.

This wasn't prime stable - currently at 4.25 GHz and effective vcore (HWINFO) up to 1.238 v . With this my temps are around 75-80 max depending on how badly I stress test the CPU and for how long. Maybe a little less. I am using a Noctua NH-D15 and fresh paste.

It's all done now, I suppose it will keep me going until Zen 3+ / 4 and that's all I need it to do. Happy days for a 145 processor!

*Things that helped were reinstalling AMD Chipset drivers for x470, and setting Ryzen High Performance power plan in Windows 10.