5600x or 5800x - RAM CHOICE 2x16 Recommendation May 2021

Morning

As per the title, just weighing up between the 5600x/5800x - that’s an internal dilemma that I understand the pros and cons for, and it simply comes down to budgeting at the end of the day.

The choice that I am less sure about is the choice of RAM. I am looking for this build to last another 5/6 years - so 32GB is the quantity chosen, I am just unsure about the fine details... Primary uses for the PC are the norm, gaming, browsing plus lightroom.

Will I ‘notice’ a difference between 3200 and 3600, and reading other threads I understand that Corsair is to be avoided if possible and that Crucial CL16 kits are a good bet due to the type of RAM used, however 2x16’s seem a little scarce, so would 2 sets of 2x8 be just as viable?

Thanks in advance.

The Ryzen 5 5600X is a tad overpriced and its a false economy,especially if you intend to keep the CPU for 5 years or longer. If you are using it for gaming,many have forgotten we are still in an intergenerational period where games only really need between 4C to 6C. Give it a few years and 8C will start to become the norm,and future AMD/Intel generations will also increase core count.

32GB of 3600MHZ RAM is the best choice,as even if you don't want to break official spec(3200MHZ for Zen3 CPUs),you can run 3200MHZ at lower timings.

I couldn't get hold of a Crucial kit which has E-die(Samsung B-die and Micron E-die are the best memory ICs for Zen2/Zen3),so I got the 3rd best choice,a kit with Hynix CJR ICs. With some fiddling I had a relatively cheap kit running on my Ryzen 7 3700X at 3600C16.

The 5600X is £250 at Overclockers and I think Amazon right now. The 5800X is £375. That's a 50% price hike for 2 cores. Now I'm glad I went 8 cores, but it isn't the 5600X that looks overpriced to me.

For ram it would depend on price to some degree. It is harder work for the CPU to drive 4 sticks at high speed, but if you can you get more open pages and slight speed boost. The downside is you have no spare slots for future upgrade.

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

The 5600X is £250 at Overclockers and I think Amazon right now. The 5800X is £375. That's a 50% price hike for 2 cores. Now I'm glad I went 8 cores, but it isn't the 5600X that looks overpriced to me.

For ram it would depend on price to some degree. It is harder work for the CPU to drive 4 sticks at high speed, but if you can you get more open pages and slight speed boost. The downside is you have no spare slots for future upgrade.

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You mean a 50% price hike over a special offer price for 33% more cores,and a higher boostclock. Its actually around 10~15% faster in Lightroom single core operations overall,but will be more than that in certain multi-threaded photo software like DxO which can leverage all cores.

Also only in the last week it has been cheaper. The Ryzen 7 5800X has been as low as £330. Its still a false economy - all the people suggesting a Ryzen 5 5600X,won't be saying much when it becomes an issue much quicker and the OP needs to spend even more money,upgrading the CPU instead of the GPU.

You can get it cheaper as part of a bundle. Also the OP seems to keep their PCs for years. They have a Core i7 4790K instead of the cheaper Core i5 4670K,and a Core i7 920 instead of a Core i5 750. Both of those CPUs costed more than the budget versions,and as a result have lasted far longer. So over that time,its a much better purchase. The OP seems to buy high end GPUs too - the Core i7 rig has a GTX980TI with it.

I really doubt in 5 years a Ryzen 5 5600X is going to hold the same FPS as a Ryzen 7 5800X.

Also as a person who multi-tasks,I can game,and have other stuff running in the background such as LR/DxO batch exports,etc.

My mate who had an Ryzen 7 2700 had a much better multitasking experience compared to my Ryzen 5 2600,which used to have issues if I even enabled screen recording.

The Ryzen 9 5900X is even another £125 more! ;)

Thank you for that input Cat and Dances - I think I’ve just snagged a 5800 for a good price, so aiming for 32gb of 3600 then - I’ll link to the Set I’m looking at when I’m back at the desktop and would appreciate confirmation that it’s optimum/suitable in your experience please :)

If you can't bag a kit with E-die/B-die try for CJR. I had to fiddle a bit more with it,but I can give you some tips if there is a problem. It usually has looser timings,ie,3600C18 which identifies it as not being E-die/B-die.

Well done Syd for snagging the 5800X at a good price. Sounds like the best result.

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

The Ryzen 9 5900X is even another £125 more! ;)

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Oh don't worry, I had noticed :D
Am wondering at getting a couple for upgrades at work. Again, they make the 5800X at current price seem on the high side for me.

I suspect the prices are just down to what silicon has come off the boat recently; there seemed to be a sudden availability of 5800X a couple of weeks ago and I guess the feeding frenzy of that is dropping off and the sales with it. I hadn't even seen the 5950X listed at any price until recently, and now they are available at a price sane enough that if I had to do a work build they are a contender. Right now the 5600X is on sale, and honestly I'm still happy with the 3600 machines I have dotted around. The 2600 at work is struggling, that hasn't aged so well despite having 96GB of ram and a WD Black NVMe drive just for swap.

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

Well done Syd for snagging the 5800X at a good price. Sounds like the best result.



Oh don't worry, I had noticed :D
Am wondering at getting a couple for upgrades at work. Again, they make the 5800X at current price seem on the high side for me.

I suspect the prices are just down to what silicon has come off the boat recently; there seemed to be a sudden availability of 5800X a couple of weeks ago and I guess the feeding frenzy of that is dropping off and the sales with it. I hadn't even seen the 5950X listed at any price until recently, and now they are available at a price sane enough that if I had to do a work build they are a contender. Right now the 5600X is on sale, and honestly I'm still happy with the 3600 machines I have dotted around. The 2600 at work is struggling, that hasn't aged so well despite having 96GB of ram and a WD Black NVMe drive just for swap.

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TBF,it was consistently easier to get a Ryzen 5 5600X or Ryzen 7 5800X. Some of the pre-orders of the Ryzen 9 CPUs apparently took 5~6 months to fulfill.

I was kind of funny,when the Ryzen 5 5600X was £300+ and you could get a Ryzen 7 5800X for £330~£360. I do wonder whether some of this is stock clearance of the B0 stepping ahead of the improved B2 stepping?

Anyway,I recently got hold of a 5 litre Velka 5 case,and got a Core i5 10400 for £100 and a B460 mini-ITX motherboard for £60,and a Alpenföhn Black Ridge for £25. Suprisingly enough it does reasonably well in such a small case and its nice to have an IGP just in case.

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

I do wonder whether some of this is stock clearance of the B0 stepping ahead of the improved B2 stepping?

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From the trouble I had trying to buy *any* decent cpu just after Christmas I don't think old stock is a problem. The company only just got the refund from Amazon for the overpriced 3900XT that some toerag at the warehouse clearly stole and shipped us a box of fairy lights instead. This 3700X works just fine, but I'm still a bit sore that rapidly changing stock and pricing means I'm 4 cores down on what I originally ordered.

It does make sense that the 5900X and 5950X were hard to find though. AMD could make a pair of 5800X chips or a single 5950X with the same 7nm chiplets. The profit margin is about the same, but a pair of chips satisfies two sales.

That Velka looks like an interesting case. Don't think it would work for me with my noise aversion and CPU hammering workloads, but I can see the attraction and I do keep wanting a small case. I was actually eyeing up an 8 core PN50 for work use, but then was told I needed 25GbE networking and a quad port SDI video card. Ho hum, big ATX case again it is then.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Syd

Morning

As per the title, just weighing up between the 5600x/5800x - that’s an internal dilemma that I understand the pros and cons for, and it simply comes down to budgeting at the end of the day.

The choice that I am less sure about is the choice of RAM. I am looking for this build to last another 5/6 years - so 32GB is the quantity chosen, I am just unsure about the fine details... Primary uses for the PC are the norm, gaming, browsing plus lightroom.

Will I ‘notice’ a difference between 3200 and 3600, and reading other threads I understand that Corsair is to be avoided if possible and that Crucial CL16 kits are a good bet due to the type of RAM used, however 2x16’s seem a little scarce, so would 2 sets of 2x8 be just as viable?

Thanks in advance.

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Maybe that's what's wrong with my start up of my new board. I have 32gb of corsair but today ordered some viper memory which arrives tomorrow. as I am struggling with start up with mine. Hopefully with the new memory it will improve it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

From the trouble I had trying to buy *any* decent cpu just after Christmas I don't think old stock is a problem. The company only just got the refund from Amazon for the overpriced 3900XT that some toerag at the warehouse clearly stole and shipped us a box of fairy lights instead. This 3700X works just fine, but I'm still a bit sore that rapidly changing stock and pricing means I'm 4 cores down on what I originally ordered.

It does make sense that the 5900X and 5950X were hard to find though. AMD could make a pair of 5800X chips or a single 5950X with the same 7nm chiplets. The profit margin is about the same, but a pair of chips satisfies two sales.

That Velka looks like an interesting case. Don't think it would work for me with my noise aversion and CPU hammering workloads, but I can see the attraction and I do keep wanting a small case. I was actually eyeing up an 8 core PN50 for work use, but then was told I needed 25GbE networking and a quad port SDI video card. Ho hum, big ATX case again it is then.

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I think its more a case of bining too. Its quite clear the chiplets in a Ryzen 9 are probably better binned,because they have to operate within the same TDP as a Ryzen 7 but boost higher,and have more cores. Its kind of seen in reviews where they appear to have lower power consumption per core. With a Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7 its probably easier to bin lower quality parts,as their TDP ratings seem more lax.

The system isn't that noisy - I was running Valheim under Linux with an old GTX960 and its less noisier than my Ryzen 7 3700X under a Noctua L14S,with my GTX1080FE,and my 2X120mm and single 140mm case fan. Its probably because it does not have any case fans,and relies on the large vents in the side panels to remove hot air.

But the Core i5 10400 is around Ryzen 5 3600 power consumption levels - a Core i5 11400 wouldn't be as easy to use in such a small case.

Hey Cat, are these sets the ones with the correct ‘play nice’ chips:

Crucial Ballistix BL2K16G36C16U4R 3600 MHz, DDR4, DRAM, Desktop Gaming Memory Kit, 32GB (16GB x2), CL16, Red

Or

2 sets of Crucial Ballistix BL2K8G36C16U4R 3600 MHz, DDR4, DRAM, Desktop Gaming Memory Kit, 16GB (8GB x2), CL16, Red

(I have now picked up a brand new and sealed 5800x for £300 - which I thought was close enough to the £250 mark of a 5600x to be worth going for)

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Originally Posted by Syd

Hey Cat, are these sets the ones with the correct ‘play nice’ chips:



(I have now picked up a brand new and sealed 5800x for £300 - which I thought was close enough to the £250 mark of a 5600x to be worth going for)

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Nice and enjoy

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Originally Posted by Kovoet

Nice and enjoy

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Thanks Kovoet ;) Would have loved a 5950 - but just not feasible right now !

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Syd

Hey Cat, are these sets the ones with the correct ‘play nice’ chips:

Crucial Ballistix BL2K16G36C16U4R 3600 MHz, DDR4, DRAM, Desktop Gaming Memory Kit, 32GB (16GB x2), CL16, Red

Or

2 sets of Crucial Ballistix BL2K8G36C16U4R 3600 MHz, DDR4, DRAM, Desktop Gaming Memory Kit, 16GB (8GB x2), CL16, Red

(I have now picked up a brand new and sealed 5800x for £300 - which I thought was close enough to the £250 mark of a 5600x to be worth going for)

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As long as Crucial have not changed the spec,here is a review:
https://www.hardwareluxx.de/communit...eview.1264873/

This means it should have Micron E-die. So I would probably get the 32GB kit.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

As long as Crucial have not changed the spec,here is a review:
https://www.hardwareluxx.de/communit...eview.1264873/

This means it should have Micron E-die. So I would probably get the 32GB kit.

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Thanks again CAT, Ordered the 2x16GB kit (in red, as that is all they had) from Crucial direct (the only place I could get it from, at anything like a sensible price)

Now all I need to decide on is a form factor, a home for it and and a motherboard !!