Did AMD overplay its hand with XT? The cheaper Comet Lake S i5-10400 bests the AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT in leaked gaming benchmarks

Leaked benchmarks indicate that the Ryzen 5 3600XT might make a poor choice for midrange gamers (Image source: AMD)

Leaked benchmarks for the AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT indicate that AMD might have overplayed its hand with its Zen 2 refresh: The US$249 3600XT is bested in gaming benchmarks by Intel’s cheaper Comet Lake S i5-10400.

Arjun Krishna Lal, 06/30/2020 🇪🇸

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According to leaked gaming benchmarks, Intel’s cheaper Comet Lake S i5-10400 handily bests the upcoming AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT in a number of gaming benchmarks. While the margins are fairly slim (a 1-3 FPS advantage in general), the results are eye-opening considering that the Ryzen 5 3600XT is set to release for US$67 higher than the i5-10400’s launch price.

Due to its unlocked clock multiplier and overall higher clocks, we do expect the Ryzen 5 3600XT to deliver at least marginally better performance in synthetic and productivity workloads relative to Comet Lake i5-10400. However, the performance differential isn’t likely to justify the substantial price difference between the two 6-core, 12-thread parts.

The Comet Lake S and Ryzen 3000 story has been characterised by AMD parts delivering more (or equal) performance for less money. However, considering that the Ryzen 5 3600XT is little more than a better-binned Ryzen 5 3600, it isn’t surprising to see Intel’s Comet Lake part besting it in gaming.

This may only come as a short-term relief for Intel, though, with AMD planning on launching its next-gen Ryzen 4000 series later this year, promising IPC and clock speed gains.