Core i3-12100F vs Ryzen 5 3600

Gaming speed, cores and clocks

The Core i3-12100F and the Ryzen 5 3600 are within a few percent of each other for gaming. In a game, you will not see the difference.

The Core i3-12100F has 4 cores and 8 threads, and the Ryzen 5 3600 has 6 cores and 12 threads. The extra cores of the Ryzen 5 3600 help with video editing, streaming while you play and heavy multitasking more than with the game itself. Boost clocks are 4.3 GHz and 4.2 GHz.

Platform, power and price

The Core i3-12100F uses the LGA1700 socket and the Ryzen 5 3600 uses AM4, so they need different motherboards, and often different memory. When you compare prices, count the board as well as the chip.

Rated power is 58 W for the first and 65 W for the second. That is close enough that cooling needs will be similar.

At launch the Core i3-12100F cost $97 and the Ryzen 5 3600 $199, which gives 47.4 and 22.6 points of gaming performance per $100. Today's prices will differ.

Which graphics cards each one can feed, and which to buy

At 1080p the Core i3-12100F can feed a card up to the Radeon RX 9060 XT 8GB before it holds the card back by more than 10 percent. The Ryzen 5 3600 reaches the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB. Both chips are in the same range for graphics card pairing.

Choose the Core i3-12100F if you want the faster gaming chip. Choose the Ryzen 5 3600 if you would rather spend the difference on a graphics card, which does more for frame rates in most games.