Core i7-8700 vs Ryzen 5 3500

Gaming speed, cores and clocks

The Core i7-8700 and the Ryzen 5 3500 are within a few percent of each other for gaming. In a game, you will not see the difference.

The Core i7-8700 has 6 cores and 12 threads, and the Ryzen 5 3500 has 6 cores and 6 threads. Core counts are the same, so cache size and clock speed decide the difference. Boost clocks are 4.6 GHz and 4.1 GHz.

Platform, power and price

The Core i7-8700 uses the LGA1151 socket and the Ryzen 5 3500 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 i7-8700 cost $303 and the Ryzen 5 3500 $149, which gives 13.5 and 27.5 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 i7-8700 can feed a card up to the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB before it holds the card back by more than 10 percent. The Ryzen 5 3500 reaches the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB. Both chips are in the same range for graphics card pairing.

Choose the Core i7-8700 if you want the faster gaming chip and the same or more cores. Choose the Ryzen 5 3500 if you would rather spend the difference on a graphics card, which does more for frame rates in most games.