Test of the AMD CPU with the biggest price drop, the Ryzen 7 5800X

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X in detail

Why did we ignore the Ryzen 7 5800X for a long time and only add it to our tests now? Because it had a higher price, which made other models more attractive. However, thanks to AMD’s recent CPU price cuts, the R7 5800X will have its place in the market even after the release of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D with 3D V-Cache. That excellent price/raw (multi-threaded) performance ratio won’t be taken away from the 5800X.

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X in detail

The 8-core Vermeer, or Ryzen 7 5800X processor, came out already in late 2020. That, along with other Ryzen 5000s without an integrated graphics core. It even had the best availability initially. But that’s also to some extent because of the up to $120 higher recommended price than the one generation older Ryzen 7 3700X (also 8 cores/16 threads). That’s why we avoided this processor and left its analysis for “rainy days”, when there is nothing to test.

And although there’s definitely no rainy days coming for us when it comes to testing, we can’t put off testing the R7 5800X any longer. Firstly, because this processor has become significantly cheaper. Its Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) has been lowered from $449 to $300.The price cuts affected all Vermeer family processors from the Ryzen 5 5600 to the Ryzen 9 5950X, but it was the 5800X where AMD projected the most significant percentage drop.

The fact that AMD will soon release another, also 8-core processor, but with 3D V-Cache seems to play a part in the 5800X’s biggest price drop. However, this is to be no successor and in order for the two processors not to cannibalize each other’s sales, the processor with the “normal” cache is significantly cheaper. And that brings us to the second reason why those Ryzen 7 5800X tests couldn’t be put off any longer. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is coming out next week, and testing it without a direct confrontation with the 5800X wouldn’t be spicy enough.

The standard Ryzen 7 5800X has eight cores and sixteen threads (so it supports SMT technology). Compared to the six-core 5600X model, this processor is currently about a hundred euros more expensive, has an official 100 MHz higher base frequency of both all cores (3.8 GHz) and a single core in single-threaded applications. In practice, however, with favorable cooling and no power limits, the all-core boost of the Ryzen 7 5800X is 200-300 MHz higher. This is associated with significantly higher power draw. The 5800X’s PPT value is shared with Ryzen 9s, at 142W, while the Ryzen 5’s is only at 88W.

Before moving on to the measurements themselves (or our interpretation of the measurements’ conclusions), we have a comparison chart comparing the complete parameters of the Ryzen 7 5800X and Ryzen 5 5600X processors.

* After official discount by AMD. The suggested price at launch (strickenthrough value) was higher.

• Contents
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X in detail
• Methodology: performance tests
• Methodology: how we measure power draw
• Methodology: temperature and clock speed tests
• Test setup
• 3DMark
• Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
• Borderlands 3
• Counter-Strike: GO
• Cyberpunk 2077
• DOOM Eternal
• F1 2020
• Metro Exodus
• Microsoft Flight Simulator
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Total War Saga: Troy
• Overall gaming performance
• Gaming performance per euro
• PCMark and Geekbench
• Web performance
• 3D rendering: Cinebench, Blender, ...
• Video 1/2: Adobe Premiere Pro
• Video 1/2: DaVinci Resolve Studio
• Graphics effects: Adobe After Effects
• Video encoding
• Audio encoding
• Broadcasting (OBS and Xsplit)
• Photos 1/2: Adobe Photoshop a Lightroom
• Photos 2/2: Affinity Photo, Topaz Labs AI apps, ZPS X, ...
• (De)compression
• (De)cryption
• Numerical computing
• Simulations
• Memory and cache tests
• Processor power draw curve
• Average processor power draw
• Performance per watt
• Achieved CPU clock speed
• CPU temperature
• Evaluation