Ryzen 7 3800X vs Core i5-10600

Gaming speed, cores and clocks

The Ryzen 7 3800X and the Core i5-10600 are within a few percent of each other for gaming. In a game, you will not see the difference.

The Ryzen 7 3800X has 8 cores and 16 threads, and the Core i5-10600 has 6 cores and 12 threads. The extra cores of the Ryzen 7 3800X help with video editing, streaming while you play and heavy multitasking more than with the game itself. Boost clocks are 4.5 GHz and 4.8 GHz.

Platform, power and price

The Ryzen 7 3800X uses the AM4 socket and the Core i5-10600 uses LGA1200, so they need different motherboards, and often different memory. When you compare prices, count the board as well as the chip.

Rated power is 105 W for the first and 65 W for the second. That difference changes the cooler you need, and it shows up in heat and noise.

At launch the Ryzen 7 3800X cost $399 and the Core i5-10600 $213, which gives 13.0 and 23.9 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 7 3800X can feed a card up to the Radeon RX 6800 XT before it holds the card back by more than 10 percent. The Core i5-10600 reaches the GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop. Both chips are in the same range for graphics card pairing.

Choose the Ryzen 7 3800X if you want the faster gaming chip and the same or more cores. Choose the Core i5-10600 if you would rather spend the difference on a graphics card, which does more for frame rates in most games.