AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series CPUs have arrived, easily outperforming competing Intel chips and delivering a new level of performance for desktop PCs with the flagship Ryzen 9 5950X and 5900X. With the full disruption of already existing high-end Intel chipsets, AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600X offers $300 amazing hit similar to Intel’s mid-range lineup and slots in like The A gaming flagship – As you can see in our CPU benchmarks hierarchy, it beats Intel’s $488 Core i9-10900K in 1080p gaming.
The Ryzen 5 5600X takes the mid-range by storm with six cores and twelve threads powered by Zen 3 architecture built on the 7nm process. This efficient combination equates to an approximately 19% improvement in instructions per cycle (IPC), making the 5600X an easy choice for our list of top CPUs. Other subtle improvements, such as a greatly improved boost algorithm, improved memory overclocking, and a reworked cache topology erase the last traces of Intel’s performance benefits while introducing a new level of power efficiency. In fact, as we’ll detail below, the Ryzen 5 5600X is the most power-efficient desktop chipset we’ve ever tested.
But with changing protections on the performance front, AMD has also changed its pricing as it assumes the position of being the undisputed premium brand. The company has raised prices by $50 on all of its new chips, and for enthusiasts, that’s a disproportionate impact on the Ryzen 5 5600X: To the chagrin of AMD fans, the entry-level price for the new Zen 3 processor is an uncomfortably high $300. However, despite the poor reception for AMD’s increasing pricing, the Ryzen 5 5600X offers more than enough performance to justify its price.
Much of Ryzen’s early success stemmed from industry-leading core counts and plenty of freebies for enthusiasts, like bundled coolers and unrestricted overclocking paired with broad compatibility. AMD still offers many of the same benefits, like unrestricted overclocking on all SKUs and most motherboards (the A-series being the only exception), but they’ve ditched the bundled coolers for Ryzen 9 and 7. Fortunately for entry-level buyers, the 65W Ryzen 5 5600X is the only Ryzen model that comes with an assembly cooler, suitable for most users.
| Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 Series Processors | RCP (MSRP) | Cores/Threads | Base/batch iteration. | TDP | L3 cache |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryzen 9 5950X | $799 | 16/32 | 3.4 / 4.9 GHz | 105 W | 64 MB (2 x 32) |
| Ryzen 9 5900X | $549 | 12/24 | 3.7 / 4.8 GHz | 105 W | 64 MB (2 x 32) |
| Ryzen 7 5800X | $449 | 8/16 | 3.8 / 4.7 GHz | 105 W | 32MB (1 x 32) |
| Ryzen 5 5600X | $299 | 6/12 | 3.7 / 4.6 GHz | 65 watts | 32MB (1 x 32) |
AMD also left a noticeable gap in its lineup of products — you’d have to move up the pricing ladder by $150 to get past the entry-level six-core Ryzen 5 5600X. AMD’s premium pricing could be a disadvantage against Intel in the event of a price war, but AMD’s suggested selling prices rarely appear at retail, and persistent shortages have found chips to sell well above recommended prices. This makes it difficult to predict how much prices will change over the coming months.
According to our tests, the Ryzen 5600X, though, beats Intel on nearly all important metrics, including performance, power consumption, and heat, and largely removes key Intel performance after overclocking. In fact, this $300 chip outperforms even the expensive Intel Core i9-10900K processor in most single-threaded workloads, after Intel’s silicon overclock. And yes, the 5600X over the 10900K includes 1080p gaming. You can take a broader look at how the full Zen 3 family stacks up against Comet Lake in the CPU benchmarks hierarchy.
Meanwhile, Intel was left unresponsive until the first quarter of 2021 when its Rocket Lake chips took off, providing a new back-port Cypress Cove architecture that gives a “double-digit” IPC boost paired with Intel’s never-ending 14nm process. In the meantime, we can expect more deep price cuts from Intel in response, particularly as Zen 3 availability becomes more plentiful.
Currently, the Ryzen 5 5600X leverages AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series to be the undisputed leader in performance in every price range it competes in. Let’s take a closer look.
Ryzen 5 5600X Specifications and Pricing
Ryzen 5000 series processors come in four models spanning from six cores and twelve threads up to 16 cores and 32 threads. AMD has increased its Precision Boost clock rates across the board, with a peak of 4.9 GHz for the Ryzen 9 5950X.
Our sample Ryzen 9 5950X peaked at 5GHz at stock settings, albeit intermittently, and hit 5.125GHz after overclocking. We didn’t have as much luck with the Ryzen 5 5600X sample as we did with the 5950X, but the 5600X often beat the advertised 4.6GHz boost clock with a 4.65GHz boost on a single core.
AMD increased boost clock speeds, but also lowered core frequencies compared to previous generation processors. AMD says that if you install the chip with an appropriate coolant, it rarely (if ever) drops to the base frequency. We scored several instances of boosting 4.55GHz for all cores with the Ryzen 5 5600X, which certainly wasn’t possible with previous generation chips. We’ll cover that in more detail below.
| Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 Series Processors | RCP (MSRP) | Cores/Threads | Base/batch iteration. | TDP | L3 cache |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryzen 9 5950X | $799 | 16/32 | 3.4 / 4.9 | 105 W | 64 MB (2 x 32) |
| Core i9-10980XE | $815 (retail) | 18/36 | 3.0 / 4.8 | 165 watts | 24.75 MB |
| Ryzen 9 3950X | $749 | 16/32 | 3.5 / 4.7 | 105 W | 64 MB (4×16) |
| Ryzen 9 5900X | $549 | 12/24 | 3.7 / 4.8 | 105 W | 64 MB (2 x 32) |
| Core i9-10900K / F | $488 – $472 | 10/20 | 3.7 / 5.3 | 125 watts | 20 MB |
| Ryzen 9 3900XT | $499 | 12/24 | 3.9 / 4.7 | 105 W | 64 MB (4×16) |
| Ryzen 7 5800X | $449 | 8/16 | 3.8 / 4.7 | 105 W | 32 MB (2 x 16) |
| Core i9-10850K | $453 | 10/20 | 3.6 / 5.2 | 95 watts | 20 MB |
| Core i7-10700K/F. | $374 – $349 | 8/16 | 3.8 / 5.1 | 125 watts | 16 MB |
| Ryzen 7 3800XT | $399 | 8/16 | 3.9 / 4.7 | 105 W | 32 MB (2 x 16) |
| Ryzen 5 5600X | $299 | 6/12 | 3.7 / 4.6 | 65 watts | 32MB (1 x 32) |
| Core i5-10600K/F. | $262 – $237 | 6/12 | 4.1 / 4.8 | 125 watts | 12 megabytes |
| Ryzen 5 3600XT | $249 | 6/12 | 3.8 / 4.5 | 95 watts | 32MB (1 x 32) |
The $299 hexa-core 12-thread Ryzen 5 5600X clocks in at 100MHz lower than the previous generation 3600XT, while boosts are 100MHz higher at 4.6GHz. The AMD 6C/12T Ryzen 5 3600XT had a 95W TDP, but AMD dialed it back at 65W with the 5600X, showing that the Zen 3’s improved IPC offers plenty of advantage. Despite its low TDP rating, the 5600X delivers explosive performance gains.
The Ryzen 5 5600X’s $300 price tag sets a new price range for the mainstream processor, so Intel doesn’t have nearly identical priced chips; Core i5-10600K is the closest Intel processor can be compared. This chip costs $262 for the full-featured model, while the 10,600KB graphics card is $237.
Also, Intel’s Core i7-10700K isn’t nearly as fast as the 5600X in gaming and light work, and the overclocking doesn’t change the story in any meaningful way. It has two additional cores that might make it a compellingly valuable alternative for content creation-focused tasks, but its $375 price tag makes that an underrated proposition. You better go up another Ryzen class.
But AMD has a glaring gap in its product lineup: You’ll have to pay an extra $150 to go from a $300 6C/12T Ryzen 5 5600X to a $450 8C/16T Ryzen 7 5800X, which is a sharp jump. Based on the product naming alone, there appears to be a Ryzen 7 5700X missing in the stack, but it remains to be seen if AMD will actually bring such a product to the market.
As before, AMD guarantees its boost frequencies to only one core, and the entire core boosts will vary based on the motherboard’s cooling, power delivery, and BIOS solution. The Ryzen 5 5600X is the only Ryzen 5000 chip that comes with an inline cooler, and we’ve found that the Wraith Spire provides enough thermal space for most workloads, but you’ll get a boost from better cooling in highly threaded workloads. You also shouldn’t expect any spare overclocking with the Wraith Spire coolant. More on that below.
Ryzen chips continue to expose 20 lanes of PCIe 4.0 to the user and stick to DDR4-3200 memory as the base spec. However, if the silicon lottery shines on you, we’ve found that the chips offer better memory overclocking due to improved fabric overclocking capabilities.
These chipsets fall into current AM4 motherboards with the 500 chipset, such as the X570, B550, and A520 models. AMD says it will also add support for 400 series motherboards starting in the first quarter of 2021, but that comes with some limitations. Regardless, some motherboard vendors are moving forward and are already providing support on 400-series motherboards, so this initiative is well underway. Just remember that you will lose support for the PCIe 4.0 interface on those older motherboards.
We covered the AMD Zen 3 micro architecture in more depth in our Ryzen 9 5950X and 5900X review. The catch-all is that AMD has consolidated its L3 cache into a single 32MB contiguous cluster, which significantly reduces memory latency, thus boosting performance in latency-sensitive workloads, such as gaming.
AMD is making use of the existing Ryzen SoC for its 5000 series chips. The Zen 3 uses the same 12nm I/O Die (IOD) paired with one or two octa-core (CCD) chiplets in an MCM (multi-chip unit) configuration. For the Ryzen 5 5600X, the chip comes with a single CCD with six cores enabled, while CPUs with 12 or 16 cores come with two chiplets.
IOD still has the same memory controllers, PCIe, and other interfaces that connect the SoC to the outside world. Just as with Matisse chips, the IOD measures about 125 mm^2 and contains 2.09 billion transistors.
However, the microchips have been redesigned, now they measure about 80.7 mm2 and have 4.15 billion transistors. That’s slightly larger than the Zen 2’s CCDs with ~74 mm2 of silicon and 3.9 billion transistors. For more details on the magic behind the 19% increase in IPC, head here.