Ryzen 5 5600X

The Ryzen 5 5600X is both the entry-level and best value for money 5000 series CPU. The 5600X is a hex-core 12 thread processor with a base clock speed of 3.7 GHz boosting to 4.6 GHz. It has 35 MB of cache and a TDP rating of 65W. A cooler is included in the MSRP of $300 USD, but cheap after-market coolers (such as the $20 GAMMAXX 400) are far more effective and therefore worth the upgrade. Notably, AMD’s new Zen 3 architecture has vastly improved single-core performance and lower memory latency, which leads to a significant effective speed advantage over its predecessor, the 3600X. Last year, AMD’s marketers secured significant sales of the 3000 series CPUs despite a 15% performance deficit against lower priced Intel parts. The games, specific scenes, software/hardware settings and choice of competing hardware were often cherry picked, undisclosed, and inconsistent from one product to the next. Now that AMD have actually achieved both top tier performance and market share, their marketing machinery is focused on price hikes. Users that do not wish to pay a marketing premium should investigate Intel’s $190 USD i5-9600K, which, when paired with a 2060 Super, delivers higher EFps in four out of five of today’s most popular games. Allocating the savings to a higher tier GPU will result in an unquestionably superior gaming PC. ^{[Nov '20 CPUPro]}