At the time of writing this CPU has only been 'available' for about 2 weeks and I'll admit I got very lucky in getting one on launch day. Most will probably find this hard to find until demand/supply stabilize but if you're fortunate like me here are some things I have found so far:
This CPU is a top performer at it's tier. There's a plethora of data at this point in benchmarks about the Ryzen 5000 series and they seem to outscore most of the Intel competitors easily, as well as against the previous Ryzen 3000 series line. Personally I don't think this alone is a great reason to buy this product currently but I will expand later on value, my previous setup was an 8700K and I felt this 'worth' the upgrade for me personally. I use it on a near exclusive gaming PC, with some occasional video rendering and I can see improvement across the board. I play most games at 1440p however, and vs my old 8700k I can tell you the performance gain on average is probably less than 5%. In rendering and workstation benchmarks its much more, to be expected with core count increase.
This CPU in my system tends to run HOT. At least hotter than I expected @ 105W TDP. I'm on a MSI Tomahawk x570 with an Arctic Liquid Cooler 2 280mm AIO, and with stock settings stress testing I'm reaching 75 C quickly, sometimes maxing at 85 C depending on the task. I've checked my mounting and I don't think there is an issue. My system is using a Phanteks P500A with high airflow as well. I've found examples of others reporting this as well online, and it seems exclusive to the 5800x currently. I've done some extended stress testing and it doesn't seem to thermal throttle so I'm not too worried, while gaming it peaks around 68 C.
Overall I've had zero stability problems or crashes so far which is better than expected as AMD has been known in recent years as a problematic launch platform with driver/BIOS issues. Hopefully this stays the same!
In terms of value this is probably not worth it to most who are interested. The 5600x is (for now) the value/performance king of the new series and the 5900x has notable advantages for only $100 more. I think there is still fantastic value in the R5 3600 as well, especially since it can be occasionally had for around $175. If the price of the 5800x drops to $400 or less in the future it will be become a much more compelling purchase. Consider that this is also the end of the line (supposedly) for the AM4 platform. I think you can make a reasonable argument for 10th Gen Intel due to a potential next gen upgrade capability but who knows if it will be worth the wait.
TL;DR: Top performer, value questionable, warm running Ryzen CPU. I'm an enthusiast who wanted to buy into this series before we even knew it was capable, most will find this unnecessary for mid-high tier 1440/4k gaming.
*EDIT #1* - For those who are interested, I've done more temperature and benchmark and found that enabling ECO Mode in AMD Ryzen Master software is a fantastic way to mitigate high temps. It seems to drop the total power draw from 145w (PBO/OC mode enabled) to about 88w, maintains the same Single-Core score in Cinebench and has virtually no effect on gaming. Heavy multi-core workloads suffer to the tune of about 10% i.e. Cinebench, Handbrake encoding, etc. This is now my default setting, I've noticed CPU intense games dip a little, but still higher performing than my old 8700K and temps on average are 20% less. This is now my default setting as odd as that sounds, maintains my fan/pump speeds much lower and therefore quieter and for 90% of the 1440p gaming I see no performance effect. Maybe this will be improved with further BIOS updates but for now this seems to be the safest option.
*EDIT #2* At time of writing now I have been using this CPU for about 9 months and I have spent a pretty silly amount of time tinkering with settings, optimizing and looking for possible improvements in my cooling/performance solutions. I am no longer running Eco Mode via Ryzen Master. My BEST CASE results are as follows, YMMV:
In my MXI X570 BIOS I'm utilizing the following settings found in Advanced AMD Overclocking:
Power limits are Manually set:
PPT - 142w
TDC - 95A
EDC - 120
Boost Override - 50mhz
Curve Optimizer:
Best two Cores NEGATIVE 10 (for me this happens to be core 1 and 7, check in Ryzen Master)
All other cores NEGATIVE 25
This gives me my best undervolted temps via the new PBO2 update, 30 minutes of Cinebench R23 Multi peaking @ 78C. Average gaming temps are usually 55C-60C depending on the title. With these settings I'm able to come to within 2-3% of my highest overclock scores while not breaching 80C. I've tested with hours of runs in game with perfect stability as well.
One last update - if you happen to be using the Arctic Freezer 2 280mm AIO - check which revision you have and if its not Rev. 4 then contact Arctic customer support. They will send you an 'offset' mounting bracket for the cold plate block that positions it about 1 CM lower on the IHS. Sounds pretty useless but I found with the 5800x this resulted in a much slower heat buildup and better overall temps to about 4-5C. It seems like this gets it more centered on the actual heat producing component of the CPU and also happens to make the cooler mount in general much easier. Thanks ARCTIC!
| Processor | 4.7 GHz amd_ryzen_7 |
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