Is the 5800X good for streaming?

Is the 5800X good for streaming? We aim to answer that question today.

Table of Contents Table of Contents

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X is the mid-range option from AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series based on the Zen 3 architecture. Released in November 2020, the Ryzen 5000 series brought a huge architectural change that catapulted AMD to the top of the gaming charts.

AMD really struck hard with the Zen 3 architecture as a whole. They prioritized gaming performance over general productivity performance for the first time in Ryzen’s lifetime, and it really worked. Thanks to the overall improvements in latency and single-threaded performance, the Ryzen 5000 series CPUs took a lead over the competition’s top offerings for the first time.

Despite the launch of the Ryzen 7000 series CPUs, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X is still one of the fastest gaming processors on the market at the time of writing.

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X

Speed

3.8GHz/ 4.7GHz

Core (Threads)

8/16

Socket

AM4

TDP

105W

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Ryzen 7 5800X Specs

Of course, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X follows the traditional AMD nomenclature that has been prevalent for a couple of generations now. With 8 cores and 16 threads, you can strike a decent balance of gaming and productivity performance, while keeping the piggy bank intact.

The Ryzen 7 5800X puts up some fairly decent numbers on the spec sheet.

Ryzen 7 5800X

What makes the Ryzen 7 5800X such a well-rounded CPU is the balance of core count and clock speed. Usually, we find that Ryzen CPUs generally have slower cores as you increase their number in a particular CPU, but that’s not the case with the 5800X. The cores can boost up to 4.7 GHz if they have an adequate thermal and power budget, which is a very high clock speed for a Zen 3 CPU.

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Is the Ryzen 7 5800X good for streaming?

Traditional streaming is still heavily reliant on CPU horsepower, even though GPU encoding is becoming more and more powerful in recent times. The Ryzen 7 5800X is an interesting choice when it comes to streaming using conventional CPU encoders like h.264.

Thanks to its 16 threads and relatively high clock speed, the Ryzen 7 5800X offers more than satisfactory performance in streaming at 1080p, while running the game on the same system. It can handle most streaming scenarios perfectly at high settings without any appreciable loss in quality.

It struggles a bit when you crank up the stream settings to the maximum, but that is an unrealistic use case in real life. Moreover, the performance loss due to streaming on the same system is also usually within a reasonable margin.

You can think of the Ryzen 7 5800X as an all-rounder when it comes to gaming and streaming. Sure, it is not the most powerful at either of those tasks, but it can definitely get the job done better than most other CPUs out there. The streaming performance can be labeled as a solid B+ in most scenarios.

X570 vs. B550 Motherboards

ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Hero

Intended Build

AMD – High-end

Form Factor

ATX

Overclocking Support

Yes

Socket

AM4

Chipset

X570

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Although the Ryzen 7 5800X is officially supported on X570, B550, X470, B450, and A520 chipsets, it makes sense to pair this CPU with either an X570 or B550 motherboard. This is due to the fact that the Ryzen 7 5800X supports PCIe 4.0 functionality, and that protocol is only supported on X570 and B550 motherboards.

The X570 platform is the flagship chipset for the AMD Ryzen series. It offers full PCIe 4.0 functionality, more USB ports, better general connectivity, and motherboards with better power delivery systems. However, X570 motherboards are rather expensive, and many of them use active cooling on the chipset which can be a nuisance.

B550 motherboards are value-oriented options that strike a balance between price and performance. You only get PCIe 4.0 functionality in one M.2 slot, and the overall connectivity is also not as great as X570 motherboards. However, B550 motherboards are quite affordable and they also support overclocking, which is a nice touch.

Both choices have their strengths and weaknesses, so you can choose either an X570 or B550 motherboard for your Ryzen 7 5800X, depending on your budget. 

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Final Word

Streaming is becoming more and more important in the modern gaming scene, and the average gamer now has all the tools they need to start streaming. Thankfully, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X is an excellent option for streaming on a mid-range price budget. It is not the best and brightest at this particular task, but it certainly punches above its weight when it comes to value for money.