Intel Core i5-10600K vs. AMD Ryzen 5 3600 vs. Ryzen 7 3700X

Having tested the Cadre i9-10900K and Cadre i7-10700K in the by week, only the Core i5-10600K remains to consummate our tour of the new tenth-gen Intel Core K-series parts aimed at enthusiast builders.

The 10600K is arguably the most compelling of the 10th-gen unlocked desktop parts. Offset, it's the most affordable of the bunch, set to retail for $262. 2nd, if you lot expect at the spec sheet, it's basically a Core i7-8700K, which not only was an astonishing flagship processor in its heyday, but information technology was all the same being sold for about $360 before this release, then that's a 22% discount right in that location.

The 8700K was released in late 2022, and so of course we'd expect to pay less for older hardware and yet that's not how things piece of work over at Intel as of late which is becoming a trouble for them. Although the 10600K looks quite good compared to past Intel offerings, this new 6-core, 12-thread processor is coming up confronting the Ryzen 7 3700X, while AMD's own 6-cadre CPU, the Ryzen five 3600 is considerably cheaper at $200.

What all that ways is, for roughly the same price AMD is offering more cores and that will undoubtedly result in better productivity performance. Withal, for those of you seeking maximum frame rates in games, while too being somewhat budget conscious, the Cadre i5-10600K might have something to offer hither.

Out of the box, the 10600K will clock upwards to 4.viii GHz and that's going to brand it pretty snappy in games. After all most games don't require a six-core, 12-thread processor, certainly not 1 using a modern architecture clocked almost 5 GHz. Of course, there are other benefits of the college end Core i7 and Cadre i9 CPUs such as a big L3 enshroud, merely in most games they probably won't exist that much faster. It's likewise very likely that you'll exist able to overclock the 10600K to effectually 5 to 5.i GHz and attain Core i7-10700K and past extension Core i9-10900K-like functioning, at a fairly hefty discount.

Our test setup mirrors the 1 from previous reviews. Ryzen processors were tested on the Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master, 8th and ninth-gen Intel Cadre processors were tested on the Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Ultra, and the new 10th-gen Intel processors on the Asus ROG Maximus XII Extreme.

For this review we're going to expect exclusively at results for Intel CPUs that aren't power limited, so no TDP limited testing. This is typically how we test Intel CPUs, such as the 9900K and this is too how the majority of Z490 boards operate out of the box. So while nosotros'll be using the default clock multiplier tables, none of the Intel CPUs are adhering to any ability limits. All configurations were tested with an RTX 2080 Ti, 32GB of DDR4-3200 CL14 memory and a Corsair Hydro H150i Pro 360mm AIO liquid libation.

Benchmarks

First up here's a look at the Cinebench R20 multi-core results and here nosotros see that the 10600K is six% faster than the 8700K, quite a surprising upshot given the specs. Despite the surprisingly strong result relative to the 8th-gen Core i7, the 10600K was still 5% slower than the Ryzen 5 3600 and 27% slower than the 3700X.

The single core performance was as well slightly upwardly on the 8700K, here the 10600K was 4% faster and that fabricated it just 1% slower than the 3600.

Moving on to 7-zip, the 10600K over again matched the 8700K in decompression performance, making information technology 20% slower than the 3600 and almost 40% slower than the 3700X.

Looking at compression performance we see that the 10600K is very like to the 8700K, this time chirapsia information technology by a small margin. It was slower than the Ryzen 5 3600 and quite a chip slower than the 3700X.

AES encryption performance in SiSoftware is also very similar to that of the 8700K as the 10600K provided a throughput of xiii GB/s, making information technology 35% slower than the 3700X.

Side by side up we take the Blender Open Information benchmark where the 10600K was 5% faster than the 8700K, completing the CPU criterion is 1282 seconds. That meant it was slightly faster than the Ryzen five 3600, but 24% slower than the 3700X.

In the V-Ray benchmark the 10600K was slightly faster than the R5 3600 but over xx% slower than the 3700X.

The Core i5-10600K shows a small performance improvement over the 8700K in the Corona Benchmark and that meant it was 7% faster than the 3600, but information technology's no lucifer for the 16 threads of the 3700X, delivering over xx% more performance.

Next up we accept code compilation performance. Here the 10600K was 6% faster than the 8700K and that immune it to match the 9700K. That'southward one of the bigger margins we've seen and then far, just after re-running this exam on both CPUs nosotros ended upwards with the aforementioned results. The 10600K was still 11% backside than the R5 3600 and 28% slower than the 3700X.

DaVinci Resolve Studio sixteen sees a marginal gain for the 10600K over the 8700K and once again the new Core i5 processor was slower than the Ryzen 5 3600, managed only to friction match the R5 2600.

Moving over to Adobe Premiere Pro results we run across that the 10600K is 6% faster than the 8700K, the aforementioned margin seen in the Chromium test. It'due south not a huge difference but it's interesting to run into another repeatable case where the 10600K is faster by a larger than expected margin.

The most unexpected upshot so far, the 10600K was ten% faster than the 8700K in Adobe Photoshop. Although that saw it still come in behind the Ryzen 5 3600, information technology's a surprisingly large margin over the 8700K given what we've seen in other applications.

The 10600K as well outscores the 8700K in After Effects albeit by a marginal iii% improvement. That was enough for the new Core i5 processor to leapfrog the 2700X, but not enough to take hold of the Ryzen 5 3600.

That's going to exercise it for the application benchmarks, time to check out power consumption. Without whatsoever power limits in place the Core i5-10600K pushed full system usage to 198 watts, slightly higher than the 9700K and a 12% increase over the 8700K. Perhaps more crucially, the total arrangement usage was 21% higher than the 3700X and a whopping 32% more than the 3600, despite only chirapsia the Ryzen 5 processor by a iv% margin in this exam.

Gaming Benchmarks

Moving on to the gaming benchmarks we accept Battlefield Five upward kickoff with the 1080p results using a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics carte. Here the 10600K was 3% faster than the 8700K and please annotation nosotros've re-tested the 8700K since the 10900K and 10700K review to verify a few results and constitute a small improvement in i% low performance in Battlefield V at 1080p and Far Cry New Dawn at 1440p. In this instance we're talking almost a 4% increase. It'due south possible last time there was an update running in the background that threw this data off by a modest margin.

Anyway, in terms of performance the 10600K is very like to the 8700K and that means that while it's able to match the boilerplate frame rate of the 9900K, 10700K and 10900K, information technology was almost 8% slower when looking at the one% low information.

When compared to Ryzen, information technology was 11% faster than the Ryzen seven 3700X at 1080p, which is a reasonable performance uplift. That said, if you lot plan on playing at 1440p with an RTX 2080 Ti or mayhap 1080p with a lower finish graphics card, so the departure between the 10600K and 3700X is going to be very modest. In this instance the Intel CPU was just one% faster or 1fps faster when comparing one% depression information and iv% faster when comparison the boilerplate frame rate.

Testing with Far Weep New Dawn saw the 10600K evangelize 121 fps on average and that made it eight% slower than the 10700K, only 4% faster than the 8700K. So when compared to competing Ryzen parts it was 6% faster than the 3700X and ix% faster than the 3600.

Those margins alter slightly at 1440p, here the 10600K was 8% faster than the 3700X and 3600, while it was but 6% behind the 10700K and 10900K.

Jumping over to the Gears Tactics we come across that at 1080p, using an RTX 2080 Ti, the 10600K is able to match the 10700K, placing it within 1-2fps of the 10900K. That made it four% faster than the 8700K and ten% faster than the 3700X, so a very solid effect here for the new 6-core Intel processor.

Operation at 1440p is again potent, though as expected the margins exercise close upward but withal the 10600K is withal 8% faster than the 3700X.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6 Siege saw the 10600K deliver 276 fps on average which is comparable to the performance enabled by the 10700K and 10900K. There is a reasonably big difference in 1% low performance though as the Cadre i5 was 12% slower than the 10700K. Moreover, when compared to the 3700X, the 10600K might have provided a college average frame rate but it was slightly slower when comparing i% low functioning.

Every bit we've seeing and so far, those margins close up almost entirely at 1440p. Hither we're looking at near identical operation from the 3700X and 10600K, while the more expensive 10700K and 10900K are a few frames faster.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint is a very GPU limited title, even at 1080p with the mighty RTX 2080 Ti. As a result the 10600K was just a few frames slower than the 10700K and 10900K, while it vanquish the 3700X by a 5% margin.

Despite increasing the resolution to 1440p we encounter basically the same margins, this time the 10600K was 6% faster than the 3700X and 7% faster than the 3600.

Side by side up we take Shadow of the Tomb Raider and here the 10600K was up to 6% faster than the 8700K and that meant while it was 2% faster than the 3700X, information technology was 5% slower than the 10700K when comparing the average frame rate and eleven% slower when comparing ane% low data.

Moving to 1440p sees the 10600K and 3700X delivering identical performance, making them around 9% slower than the 10700K and 10900K when comparison 1% depression data.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is some other heavily GPU bound title, even with the dialed down high quality settings at 1080p. Here the 10600K was able to match the boilerplate frame rate of the 10700K and 10900K and simply marginally behind on the i% low result.

Increasing the resolution further increases the GPU bottleneck and now the 10600K, 3700X, 3600 and a bunch of other processors all deliver virtually identical functioning.

Overclocking

By but enabling enhanced multi-core we see the Cinebench R20 multi-core score increase from 3566 upwards to 3836 pts, an like shooting fish in a barrel to accomplish 8% performance boost. Basically nosotros're increasing the all-core clock frequency from 4.5 GHz to 4.8 GHz.

Then we meet that the manual five.one GHz overclock using 1.35v boosted the Cinebench score to 4039 pts, a further 5% functioning bump.

Looking at single core performance we come across that MCE boosted the score by 3% here, the 10600K should operate at an all-core frequency of 4.8 GHz by default, merely fluctuations in clock frequency volition result in a slightly lower score. So finally the v.1 GHz overclock boosted the score right upwards to 533 pts, a 7% jump in operation.

Looking now at overcloked gaming performance, we're just going to compare the five.1 GHz overclock with the stock results. Testing with Far Cry New Dawn at 1080p sees a frame rate boost of 12% and this was enough to put the 10600K on par with the 10700K and 10900K.

The overclocked results are non as impressive in Rainbow Half-dozen Siege, hither we're gaining but a few extra frames on boilerplate, though we do see an viii% increment in 1% low performance, so a fairly decent functioning uplift still.

Finally we have Shadow of the Tomb Raider where we see a vi% boost in one% low performance with a few extra frames on average. A decent functioning boost that gets the 10600K in range of the 10700K and 10900K -- not quite the aforementioned level, but certainly comparable operation.

When it comes to operating temperatures, we should notation we're using a rather beefy Corsair 360mm AIO, but you'll see like results with a high-end air cooler such as the DeepCool Assassinator 3 or Noctua NH-D15.

Stock the Corsair H150i Pro kept the 10600K at just 52 C and here we're looking at a packet power of just 104 watts. Enabling MCE pushed the acme operating temperature upwards to 65 C as we run across a 45% increase in package power to 145 watts. And so with our manual overclock the 10600K reached 75 C, which is still very cool by all accounts. That is a adequately large temperature increase for just a 13 watt power increase, but of course this stuff does scaling in a linear mode.

Deal or No Bargain? What Nosotros Learned

With all of that data out of the way, I'll share some of my opinions. Having reviewed the i9-10900K and i7-10700K recently, nosotros have a practiced idea of how those models fit into the current CPU landscape. In curt, both are objectively skillful, just they're also niche products.

The Core i9-10900K is unquestionably the world'southward fastest gaming processor, but its nearest rivals are within spitting distance and happen to offering a number of advantages. Because games don't do good in a meaningful way of 10 cores in 2022, the 10700K is simply every bit good, and by extension the approachable 9900K. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 9 3900X will mostly deliver a gaming feel that is indistinguishable to the Core i9's, merely there's a lower asking price, less power draw, and information technology's also much more than powerful for productivity tasks.

The Cadre i7-10700K matches the price of the 3900X and that makes information technology a meliorate value choice for gamers when compared to the 10900K, but it falls well short of Ryzen when it comes to productivity operation and operation per watt. In summary, the 10700K is either on par with the 3700X for a massive twoscore% price premium or much slower than the 3900X for the aforementioned price.

... the Core i5-10600K has the potential to deliver 10700K and 10900K-similar performance at an even cheaper cost bespeak.

On the other paw, the Cadre i5-10600K has the potential to deliver 10700K and 10900K-like operation at an even cheaper price signal. So for those seeking strong gaming operation and skilful value, the 10600K is an appealing option. When overclocked it tin match the $400 and $500 parts, or at least get so close information technology doesn't matter. That in my stance makes it Intel'due south best value high-end gaming CPU.

For those of you exclusively gaming, I can see how the Cadre i5-10600K makes sense. I should point out that nether realistic gaming conditions, information technology's ~6% faster than the 3700X every bit seen in our 1080p information with the RTX 2080 Ti across seven games. That margin is reduced to just 3% at 1440p. That being the case, I can also run into how ownership a processor with 25% less cores for roughly the aforementioned price might not be the wisest of investments moving forward. Simply, if you're playing games such as Fortnite or PUBG, and yous're using competitive settings, and then you'll run across double-digit gains with the 10600K.

In curt, if you're after a powerful gaming CPU only don't care well-nigh entering the realm of diminishing returns, then the Core i5-10600K is the part to get. However, if you're later on something a little more well-rounded information technology's difficult to pass on the Ryzen seven 3700X with its ~30% ameliorate productivity functioning.

If you're seeking maximum value -- for both gaming and awarding tasks -- so it'southward very difficult to ignore the Ryzen v 3600 at simply $175, that's an incredible deal which sees the 10600K toll 60% more, while offering a minor 6% speed bump in 1080p gaming.

But let's not terminate at the CPU. The Core i5-10600K is even more expensive than that equally it doesn't come up with a cooler and decent Z490 boards are more expensive than a good quality B450 or upcoming B550 motherboard. The cooler result can be solved for just $30, but when you add together in the price of the motherboard it starts to get more expensive. For instance the MSI B450 Tomahawk Max costs $115 and supports the Ryzen 9 3950X, whereas the cheapest Z490 boards we'd recommend investing in cost around $190, similar MSI's Z490 Tomahawk.

Factor in $xxx for an affordable tower cooler and $75 more for a decent Z490 motherboard, you're at a footling over $100 of additional costs to support the 10600K. If you plan to overclock to at least 5 GHz, you lot can double the price of the cooler. Factoring all that in, you're looking at having to pay at least $500 for the 10600K, with a decent entry-level Z490 motherboard and a budget belfry cooler. The Ryzen 5 3600 volition prepare you back $290 with something like the MSI B450 Tomahawk Max. Coincidentally, that's about what yous'd pay for only the 10600K.

Regardless of your determination, as of writing it'south simply not possible to purchase the Core i5-10600K. As far every bit nosotros're aware no retailer has received stock and we've been told there volition exist no stock available in Q2. That means the CPU will show upwardly erstwhile in July at the earliest and possibly in very short supply.