AMD Ryzen 7 5700X vs Ryzen 7 3700X

Last Updated: March 25th, 2022

5700X vs 3700X which is better? AMD has released some of the best CPUs on the market in recent years, and the two in the spotlight today are certainly no exception. These two CPUs differ vastly on paper, and the Ryzen 7 5700X is designed to be the predecessor of the 3700X. But how do they both fare stacked up against each other? Is the all-new 5700X worth the upgrade?

If you’d like to know more about AM5 or Zen 4, we have articles on those.

5700X vs 3700X: specifications 

AMD Ryzen 7 3700X

Pros

Solid for gaming and excellent for multi tasking

Cons

Intel equivalent is slightly better for gaming

(We’ll add the 5700X when it releases)

When comparing PC components of any kind, it’s important to get an understanding of how they perform and, just as importantly, their on-paper specifications. Some examples of CPU specifications are core speed, boost speed, core count, and cache size. 

5700X

The Ryzen 7 5700X is one of the processors that will be released on April 4 2022. This CPU is designed to replace the Ryzen 7 3700X and offer a big step up in performance, although we won’t actually know by how much until release. 

The specifications for the Ryzen 7 5700X are as follows: 

3700X

The Ryzen 7 3700X was one of the best value CPUs back when it was released on July 7 2019. It was leaps and bounds above the 2700X in terms of performance, power efficiency and value for money. 

The specifications for the Ryzen 7 3700X are as follows: 

5700X vs 3700X: Specs comparison 

In this Ryzen 7 5700X vs Ryzen 7 3700X article, we will examine the specifications of each CPU to see how they stack up against each other. We will then discuss price and any features either CPU brings to the table. This should help you make an informed decision as to what CPU may fit best into your use case. 

Core count 

Both CPUs on the list have the same count of 8 cores and 16 threads. 

Higher core counts mean your CPU is better at multitasking natively, as more instructions from multiple sources can be handled at once, reducing bottlenecks. Not only that, but your entire PC has more resources at its disposal, which is better for running programs that support multithreaded processing. Some older programs however do not, and these programs rely on your CPU’s single-core performance. Programs like this are very few and far between these days. 

Thread count

Both CPUs have the same number of threads. 

A higher thread count, much like core count, means your CPU will be much better at multitasking. Threads are the names given to the secondary instructions each CPU core is able to process simultaneously, alongside the primary instruction. This is a process called multithreading and is named SMT or (Simultaneous Multithreading) on AMD CPUs. 

Having a CPU core that can process two instructions at once means the CPU doubles its output potential – almost. Operating systems see this accumulation of cores and threads and bundles them together as ‘logical processors’ meaning they can process information. 

Cores and threads were not created equally, however. As threads are virtual, they don’t exist or occupy space on the CPU die, meaning they have no real CPU resource allocations. The way threads circumvent this is they share the resources of the CPU cores, making threads slightly slower as a result. This is because CPU cores always have priority over resources. 

In general terms, a higher number of both cores and threads is considered better, but there are examples where this isn’t the case. Especially when comparing much older CPUs to newer ones. 

SMT is complicated and that’s why we wrote an in-depth look at what SMT is. There’s also a summarised snippet in our 5800X vs 5900X article. 

Core speed. 

The Ryxen 7 5700X has a higher core boost speed of 4.6GHz. 

A CPU’s clock or core speed is a measure of how many times per second a CPU can perform what’s known as an instruction cycle. An instruction cycle is comprised of three actions: fetch, decode and execute. It’s these actions that make up the fundamentals of computing as we know it. 

The faster the clock speed, then generally the faster the CPU as the CPU can perform more cycles per second. Simple, right? Well, it gets complicated fast. 

Having a lot of cycles per second is great, but if you have a low IPC it doesn’t mean all that much. IPC stands for ‘instructions per clock’ and is the measure of how many instructions a CPU can process per clock cycle. This statistic is tied directly to a CPU’s ‘nm process’ and the number of transistors per CPU. 

This topic gets complicated very fast but we explain it in some detail in our 5800X vs 5800X3D article. 

Generally, a higher clock speed is better. 

Cache

The 5700X has a slightly higher cache capacity at 36MB 

A CPU’s cache is storage built into a CPU, located very close to CPU cores for much faster access speeds compared to standard RAM. Only instructions with elevated priority make it into higher levels of cache, so speed and accessibility is the name of the game. CPU cache is split into three levels and is structured as follows. 

Level one cache is the cache located closest to the CPU cores and has the fastest access speeds but also the lowest capacity. This is reserved for extremely vital data.. 

Level two cache is a middle ground, with median capacity and speed, reserved for less vital data.

Level three cache is where most of your frequently accessed data is stored such as programs and file paths. This has a very large capacity in comparison to the other levels but is also slower. 

It’s normal to see CPUs with larger numbers of cores and threads have more cache. It’s needed to serve the extra cores. In general, it’s best to have more cache to store more vital instructions simultaneously.

TDP 

Both of our CPUs have a TDP of 65W. 

TDP stands for thermal design power, and is the maximum amount of thermal energy a component can output at any given time under proper operating conditions. 

You should always get a CPU cooler that is rated to dissipate a higher TDP than your CPU to ensure your CPU won’t be thermally limited. This is good practice, even when considering other components. This is especially true if you are considering overclocking your CPU, as overclocking drastically increases the TDP due to the higher voltages present.  

A higher TDP is sometimes indicative of a more powerful CPU. 

Socket 

Both CPUs fit into the AM4 socket. 

A socket can be thought of as a simple shape, only a CPU matching that socket will fit it. 

AMD has kept the AM4 socket in use for over five years now, and with the release of AM5 around the corner, AM4 is starting to show all of its technical limitations.

Benchmarks 

We’ll cover this section when we get a hold of the 5700X. 

Results

The Ryxen 7 5700X is the clear winner for us here, with its higher cache and core speed making it the ideal CPU of choice, and it will be well worth the upgrade. This CPU is targeted at gamers and you may want to upgrade to a CPU with a few more cores and threads if you want to get into content creation. But for light video editing and rendering, the 5700X will do the trick. 

Price

The 3700X is showing its age now and there are much better options out there. This means there’s always a deal to be found somewhere online. Whereas, the 5700X is much newer – not even released yet at the time this article was written. As a result of the 5700X being brand new, the price probably wouldn’t drop very much for a while. The price of both and cost per core is as follows.

• The Ryzen 7 5700X can be had for $299, that’s $37 per core. 
• The Ryzen 7 3700X can be found for around $210, that’s $26 per core. 

The 3700X is about $80 cheaper, which is substantial, but we feel the 5700X is worth the extra investment.  

AMD Ryzen 7 3700X

Pros

Solid for gaming and excellent for multi tasking

Cons

Intel equivalent is slightly better for gaming

(We’ll add the 5700X as soon as it releases)

Final word 

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X is certainly one to beat – just not by the 3700X. The extra cache and boost speed gives the 5700X a competitive edge in most heavy gaming and light workstation tasks. A full eight cores supporting SMT to equal 16 logical processors is the ultimate gaming sweet spot. This was our 5700X vs 3700X article.  

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