Core i5-10500 vs Ryzen 5 3600

Gaming speed, cores and clocks

The Core i5-10500 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 i5-10500 has 6 cores and 12 threads, and the Ryzen 5 3600 has 6 cores and 12 threads. Core counts are the same, so cache size and clock speed decide the difference. Boost clocks are 4.5 GHz and 4.2 GHz.

Platform, power and price

The Core i5-10500 uses the LGA1200 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 65 W for the first and 65 W for the second. That is close enough that cooling needs will be similar.

At launch the Core i5-10500 cost $192 and the Ryzen 5 3600 $199, which gives 23.4 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 i5-10500 can feed a card up to the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB 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 i5-10500 if you want the faster gaming chip and the same or more cores. 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.