Summary

• 6 cores are enough for most games but newer titles have started to benefit from more cores.
• The Ryzen 5 7600X outperforms the Ryzen 7 5700X in productivity and gaming benchmarks.
• AM5 CPUs are a better investment for gaming PCs due to better performance and platform longevity.

The ideal number of CPU cores is a hotly debated topic, especially where games are concerned. While the picture is obviously clearer in multi-core workloads which more or less scale in performance with additional cores, modern games have been leveraging more and more CPU cores over the past few years. But, today, I'm not going to be talking about the best gaming CPUs or whether you should buy a 6-core or an 8-core CPU within the same generation.

I've decided to pit a modern 6-core AMD processor against an 8-core chip from the previous generation. I'll compare the gaming as well as productivity performance of the Ryzen 5 7600X and the Ryzen 7 5700X to explore whether the architectural improvements of Zen 4 are able to trump the additional cores of the Zen 3 CPU. I have the 5700X in my own gaming rig while the 7600X resides in my brother's PC.

I'll limit the gaming tests to 1440p to keep things simple as well as to better represent the common real-world configuration of builds featuring these powerful processors.

How many cores are enough?

Like many things in life, it depends

Conventional wisdom dictates that modern 6-core CPUs are plenty powerful for the latest titles, provided you also have a strong GPU to pair them with. While this still holds true for the most part, there are certain newer titles that have shown to load more than 6 cores and 12 threads. Cyberpunk 2077 and Alan Wake 2 are two prime examples of such games.

Cyberpunk 2077 with 89% CPU utilization on a Ryzen 7 5700X

If you want a better multi-tasking experience, CPUs with more cores might be worth the premium.

If all you're doing is gaming, you probably won't notice the missing 2 cores by going with a 6-core chip. But, if you even dabble in some content creation and video editing, and want a better multi-tasking experience as well, the best productivity CPUs with more cores might be worth the premium. The discussion at hand, however, is comparing a 6-core CPU with a previous-gen 8-core CPU, and drawing some preliminary conclusions about their relative performance.

Ryen 5 7600X vs. Ryzen 7 5700X: Productivity benchmarks

This might be interesting

First, let's see how the two chips stack up in productivity workloads. To test this, I've picked Cinebench 2024 and 7-Zip File Manager. These benchmarks would give a decent picture of the performance of these processors in intense, non-gaming workloads. I ran both the single-core and multi-core benchmarks in Cinebench, and focused on the decompression score during the 7-Zip File Manager benchmark.

The benefits bestowed by the Zen 4 architecture overcome any core count advantage the 5700X might have had over the 7600X.

Largely, the newer Ryzen 5 7600X is able to take a clear lead over the previous-gen 8-core chip in both single-core and multi-core workloads. The 7-Zip decompression scores are virtually the same. We can conclude that the benefits bestowed by the Zen 4 architecture overcome any core count advantage the 5700X might have had over the 7600X.

Ryen 5 7600X vs. Ryzen 7 5700X: Gaming benchmarks

You might guess this one right

Gaming is generally driven by single-core performance. Keeping this in mind, the Ryzen 5 7600X should be the better performer even at 1440p, which is the resolution I'll be using for these tests. The GPU involved is the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, and both test systems (AM4 and AM5) have 32GB of RAM and a 1TB Gen4 NVMe SSD storing the games in question. I used the latest Game Ready Driver from Nvidia at the time of testing (Version 551.76).

As for the in-game settings, I've tried to use the maximum settings where possible (except in Cyberpunk 2077 where I didn't opt for path tracing). Also, I chose DLSS Quality and didn't use Frame Generation.

Cyberpunk 2077 and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales are known to utilize the CPU to a significant degree (80%+ usage on both CPUs in my testing). And while A Plague Tale: Requiem isn't too CPU-dependent, it's quite a graphically intensive game even today. Although I had expected the AM5 chip to beat the 8-core AM4 one, a 7-9% increase in performance hardly counts as a landslide victory.

So, if you own a Ryzen 7 5700X (or 5800X), there's no need to consider an upgrade to the Ryzen 5 7600X anytime soon. A GPU upgrade instead would net you a far bigger performance bump.

Ryen 5 7600X vs. Ryzen 7 5700X: The low-down

Newer is better

As it stands, the Ryzen 5 7600X surpasses the Ryzen 7 5700X, both in single-core as well as multi-core performance. If you're building a new gaming PC today, there's little reason to save a few bucks by going the AM4 route. AM5 motherboard and DDR5 RAM prices have come down a lot recently, and they can set you up for easy future upgrades to upcoming Ryzen processors. AM4, on the other hand, has been a dead platform for a while now.

There might be a few cases where the Ryzen 7 5700X could beat the 7600X. What you could do is look online for specific applications and games relevant to you, and compare the two processors in those scenarios. That would allow you to make a better decision for your particular use case. Otherwise, the Ryzen 5 7600X is the better chip without question.

Extend AM4 lifespan or switch to AM5?

AM4 might be a dead platform for new builds, but if you already have a Ryzen 3000 or Ryzen 5000 processor, you might still have a few options to get some more juice out of it. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D, for one, is a fantastic upgrade from nearly every Zen 2 or Zen 3 mainstream processor. Its 3D V-Cache gives it a significant leg up in gaming performance, allowing it to compete neck-and-neck with the Ryzen 5 7600X.