Ryzen 5 3500 vs Core i5-8600K

Gaming speed, cores and clocks

The Ryzen 5 3500 and the Core i5-8600K are within a few percent of each other for gaming. In a game, you will not see the difference.

The Ryzen 5 3500 has 6 cores and 6 threads, and the Core i5-8600K has 6 cores and 6 threads. Core counts are the same, so cache size and clock speed decide the difference. Boost clocks are 4.1 GHz and 4.3 GHz.

Platform, power and price

The Ryzen 5 3500 uses the AM4 socket and the Core i5-8600K uses LGA1151, 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 95 W for the second. That is close enough that cooling needs will be similar.

At launch the Ryzen 5 3500 cost $149 and the Core i5-8600K $257, which gives 27.5 and 15.6 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 Ryzen 5 3500 can feed a card up to the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB before it holds the card back by more than 10 percent. The Core i5-8600K reaches the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB. Both chips are in the same range for graphics card pairing.

Choose the Ryzen 5 3500 if you want the faster gaming chip and the same or more cores. Choose the Core i5-8600K if you would rather spend the difference on a graphics card, which does more for frame rates in most games.