The AMD Ryzen 5 1600X vs Core i5 Review: Twelve Threads vs Four at $250
by Ian Cutress on April 11, 2017 9:00 AM ESTBenchmarking Performance: CPU Web Tests
One of the issues when running web-based tests is the nature of modern browsers to automatically install updates. This means any sustained period of benchmarking will invariably fall foul of the 'it's updated beyond the state of comparison' rule, especially when browsers will update if you give them half a second to think about it. Despite this, we were able to find a series of commands to create an un-updatable version of Chrome 56 for our 2017 test suite. While this means we might not be on the bleeding edge of the latest browser, it makes the scores between CPUs comparable.
SunSpider 1.0.2 [link]
The oldest web-based benchmark in this portion of our test is SunSpider. This is a very basic javascript algorithm tool, and ends up being more a measure of IPC and latency than anything else, with most high performance CPUs scoring around about the same. The basic test is looped 10 times and the average taken. We run the basic test 4 times.
Mozilla Kraken 1.1 [link]
Kraken is another Javascript based benchmark, using the same test harness as SunSpider, but focusing on more stringent real-world use cases and libraries, such as audio processing and image filters. Again, the basic test is looped ten times, and we run the basic test four times.
Google Octane 2.0 [link]
Along with Mozilla, as Google is a major browser developer, having peak JS performance is typically a critical asset when comparing against the other OS developers. In the same way that SunSpider is a very early JS benchmark, and Kraken is a bit newer, Octane aims to be more relevant to real workloads, especially in power constrained devices such as smartphones and tablets.
WebXPRT 2013 and 2015 [link]
While the previous three benchmarks do calculations in the background and represent a score, WebXPRT is designed to be a better interpretation of visual workloads that a professional user might have, such as browser based applications, graphing, image editing, sort/analysis, scientific analysis and financial tools. Web2013 is the older tool, superceded by Web2015, however both still are highly relevant for high-performance web applications today.
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Bp_968 - Sunday, April 16, 2017 - link
This is the point I try to make all the time to console players saying PCs cost too much, require too much upgrading. My i7 970 or 980 (I forget!) Is still playing modern games wonderfully @2560x1440 with a gtx 970. We reciently built a pc for my neighbor out of spare parts and he ended up with a core2 quad (q6600 maybe?) With 6gb ram and a gtx460. He quickly upgraded to a gtx 1050 and now it easily stomps his PS4 (and probably the PS4pro).I'm with one of the previous posters about chipset accessories. It won't be CPU speed that causes me to up upgrade, it will be me wanting access to new features (pcie4, usb-c, usb3.1/3.2, NVMe, Intels ddr/ssd hybrid memory interface, etc etc).
I also expect Intel to respond, at least in the ryzen7 market. I really hope it means Intel will finnally start offering 6-8 core CPUs in non-silly price points.
mmegibb - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
The choice of software hardly matters when what you are looking for is a collection of software that exercises the entire CPU subsystem: the cores, caches, memory, etc. As th3ron mentions, what matters is finding the deltas between CPUs.And yes, in spite of your snobbery, probably 50% of people reading this want to size their system for gaming. Gaming is the limiting case for my home builds.
psychobriggsy - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
Indeed gaming is important for many people.What the reviews show is that for a mixed-use system, the gaming aspect is not significantly behind Intel alternatives (obviously a couple of outliers, but that applies in both directions). However for the other uses, Ryzen is a complete win. It's good enough, rather than the pile of fail that Bulldozer core CPUs were. And indications are that games are getting more multithreaded over time, so buying a 4C product is limiting future gaming.
It's clear that Intel will have to enable SMT in their i5 refreshes this year now, as that should let them claw something back in the 'partial multithreaded' use cases (apps that can't scale indefinitely with extra cores but top out at 4-8 threads).
IanHagen - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
I completely agree on that. I'd love to see more compiling benchmarks too. It's coming to the point where people who are buying a CPU for productivity are taking decisions drawn upon conclusions heavily influenced by gaming performance.RafaelHerschel - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
50% of people use a fast CPU for gaming is a very conservative estimate. For regular office work or for media consumption an inexpensive CPU is fast enough. The current Intel Celeron and Pentium CPUs (or the AMD equivalent) offer much better value for most people. Because of marketing i3 and i5 CPUs sell well.And there are more gamers than professionals who use software that benefits from fast CPUs.
ddriver - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
Dunno about that, of all the people I know who have powerful machines, all do professional work, even those who game. Then again, the selection of my acquaintances has to do with their skills, and I do have to admit I have zero interest in interacting with someone who only plays games.I also know that is 99% of the games on the market cannot utilize 66.66% of that chip.
So you end up putting 50% of the review emphasis on tests that can only utilize 1/3 of the chip.
It is like... testing a sports car and putting 50% of the emphasis on its use as a hearse that will never be used at nowhere near its potential.
mmegibb - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
Man, ddriver, you are an elitist jerk. "I have zero interest in interacting with someone who only plays games". Also, "People who use winrar most likely do not make logical considerations, because if they did, they wouldn't be using garbage like winrar".Why are you like that?
vladx - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
Don't mind ddriver, he's just a pathetic troll who tries too hard.Meteor2 - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
I imagine the proportion of PCs containing higher than i5-7400s bought by consumers used for gaming is much higher than 50%.*Not* talking about business buys here, I'm talking about people spending their own money.
Meteor2 - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
D'oh, I just replied to ddriver. What was I thinking.