AMD Zen 3 Ryzen 7 5800X processor review

The highly anticipated Zen 3 processor is finally launched today on the 5 Nov 2020. Today, we are going to examine this new Zen 3 processor and see if it really can achieve better better performance with higher instructions per clock (IPC) over the previous Zen 2 processors.

The Zen 3 focuses on performance, delivering increase in IPC. It improves latency by unifying cores and cache in a contiguous 8 core complex as compared to the previous generation which shares 2 x 4 core complex with 16 MB L3 cache.

If you recall, the first ZEN/ZEN+ at 14nm and supports up to 4.35GHz and has an IPC improvement of 50% over the previous generation. it has a 4 core complex and 8 MB L2 per complex. That changed in ZEN 2 which was built at 7nm and can boost up to 4.7 GHz and boosted a 15% IPC over the earlier generation. It increases the L3 cache to 16 MB per complex.

In the ZEN 3 architecture, it improves it’s max boost to 4.9 GHz and has an average of 19% boost in IPC performance over the previous generation. This is done by having a 8 Core complex instead of 4. The L3 cache is now unified into a contiguous 32 MB. This greatly reduces core and cache latency, improving core to core and core to cache speeds.

With an improved IPC performance, content creation and games which usually do not take much advantage of multi-core will benefit. Applications that make use of multicore will see a boost as the single core performance is improved.

In our test, we will be testing the Ryzen 7 5800X processor (Codename Vermeer) against the Ryzen 7 3800X. The 5800X processor is a processor with 8 cores 16 threads. It has a base clock of 3.8 GHz and a max boost speed of 4.7 GHz. It comes with 4 MB L2 cache and 32 MB L3 cache. It is of 7nm FinFET and has a TDP of 105W. The official supported memory spec is 3200 MHz.

The Ryzen 7 5800X didn’t come with a heatink. So, you will have to purchase your own compatible cooler for it.

In the next few pages, we will investigate it’s performance against other processors using the Gigabyte X570 AORUS MASTER motherboard.

[nextpage title=”Set-up, CPU-Z, Ryzen Master and overclocking”]

System Setup

Our setup comprises

• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X and Ryzen 7 3800X processor
• GSkilll SniperX F4-3400C16D-16GSXW DDR4 modules 8GB x 2
• Gigabyte GTX 1060 graphics card
• Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4 cooler

The first thing we check is the CPU-Z.

CPU-Z info

As we can see from the screen shots, the Ryzen 5800X has a TDP of 105W. Using the balance profile in power management of Microsoft Windows, the processor is clocked at a lower speed but will trigger it to boost speed up to 4.7 GHz. Base clock is 3.8 GHz.

The memory modules are run in XMP Profile mode and is detected as CAS 16-16-16-1T and at 1700 MHz (which is DDR4-3400).

For the tests, the load optimal profile is loaded and XMP profile for the ram modules.

Ryzen Master

Launched together with the Ryzen 5000 series, the Ryzen master looks different from the past.

There is the basic mode and the advance mode.

The basic mode should be simpler for most to understand. By selecting Manual mode, you can adjust the CPU core speed and voltage. On the left panel is the temperature readings and current clock speed and voltage.

The advance mode is more complex and it allows tweaking of the individual core frequencies etc.

Overclocking the Ryzen 7 5800X

We attempted to overclock it beyond the Boost clock of 4.7 GHz to no avail. Although we can POST at 4.8 to 4.9 GHz, once we run the Cinebench R20, temperatures soar above the 90 deg C reaching 100 degrees C, system crashed. Perhaps we need better cooling or it has really reached the limit of 4.7 GHz as specified in the specs.

On the next page, we take a look at Cinebench R15 and R20 benchmarks and see if it the new generation of Ryzen 5000 outperforms by 19% as claimed by AMD.

[nextpage title=”Benchmarks – Cinebench R15, R20″]

Cinebench R15

Based on the score, the CPU (multicore) scores 2596 and single core is 267 cb.

Based on the previous generation 3800X which scores 212 per core, the Ryzen 7 5800X has an improvement of over 25.9%. In the multicore, the Ryzen 7 5800X has a jump of 19.4% in performance.

Cinebench R20

It shouldn’t differ a lot in Cinebench R20 benchmark. We can see that the jump in single core performance is 20.8% and in multicore performance, we get an improvement of 22.7%

On the next page, we take a look at the benchmarks of Blender 2.79b and PovRay.

[nextpage title=”Benchmarks – Blender 2.79b and PovRay”]

Blender 2.79b

Blender is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation.

In the Blender 2.79b, the BMW model is rendered and timed. The shorter the time to completion, the better the processor.

From the chart, we can see that the ThreadRipper are definitely way faster with more cores. Next on the list is the Ryzen 9 3900X at 2 min 32 sec. The Ryzen 7 5800X took 3 mins 18 secs which is 24 seconds faster than the previous generation Ryzen 7 3800X.

PovRay 3.7

POV-Ray, is a cross-platform ray-tracing program that generates images from a text-based scene description. It comes with a test tool which benchmarks single or multicore processors.

The benchmark unit is in PPS. The higher the PPS, the faster the processor.

As we can see, the ThreadRipper are leading ahead with twice the PPS as it has more cores and threads.

Likewise the Ryzen 9 3900X is slightly faster at 6221.08 (multi) and 282.74 (single). The Ryzen 7 5800X get a score of 5374.23 (multi) and 356.58 (single) vs the Ryzen 7 3800X at 4388.3 (multi) and 290.78 (single).

The performance gain in multicore is 22.46% while single core is 22.6%.

[nextpage title=”Benchmarks – PCMark10 and 3DMark FireStrike”]

PCMark10

PCMark10 is a well known benchmark tool that measures complete system performance for modern office needs using tests based on real-world applications and activities like Office, content creation tools, video editing etc.

The benchmark provides a score and also separate score for Essentials, Productivity and Digital Content Creation.

From the scores, the Ryzen 7 5800X just claimed the top score among all the processors we have tested so far. With a score of 6979 it is even faster than the Ryzen 9 3900X. That is thanks to the higher IPC.

The ZEN 3 architecture really makes a big difference to performance with it’s upgraded IPC performance.

Comparing the Ryzen 7 5800X vs Ryzen 7 3800X, we see a boost of

Score +9.15%
Essentials +9.1%
Productivity +8.2%
Digital Content Creation +11.28%

3DMark Firestrike

In Firestrike custom run, the Physics test runs 32 parallel simulations of soft and rigid body physics on the CPU.

From the chart, we can see that the Ryzen 7 5800X leads with a score of 97.9 fps as compared to 76.55 fps on the Ryzen 7 3800X. A 29% improvement is registered.

In fact, the the Ryzen 7 5800X on ZEN 3 architecture is faster than the Ryzen 9 3900X which has 12 core 24 threads.

[nextpage title=”Benchmarks – Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy Shadow Bringer”]

We have seen how the ZEN 3 benefits processor intensive benchmarks from Ray tracing to content creation. What about some games.

We use two benchmarks, Shadow of the Tomb Raider & Final Fantasy Shadow Bringer to see if the Zen 3 architecture improves game play with mid range 1080P graphics card.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Both CPU game and CPU render sees an improvement of 29.77% and 20.34%.

Final Fantasy Shadow Bringer

In Final Fantasy, we also see an improvement in the score of 4.2%

[nextpage title=”Conclusion”]

The AMD Zen 3 really answered most of the enthusiast’s request for a faster IPC performing processor that outperformed not only it’s previous Zen 2 processor, it also did much better than the Core i7-10700K (based on benchmarks seen on the net) with lesser cores and clock speed.

As usual with AMD processors, the room for overclocking might be just 100 MHz to 200 MHz if you are on air cooling.

If you intend to purchase this new processor, the good news is that you will be able to run this processor on the X570 and B550 chipset motherboards. Some of the older B450 and X470 will support the Zen 3 processors with beta bios ready in early Jan 2021.

In Conclusion, the AMD Ryzen ZEN 3 processors has achieve far better performance improvement than previous generations. On the average, it could improve by 20% in performance (depending on applications).

If you are an existing Ryzen 1000 series running on X370 since 2017 since 2017, it is definitely worth upgrading to the new ZEN 3 with a newer motherboard and processor to get the boost in content creation or gaming.

Here is the pricing information :