Conclusion

Final Words 

The six-core proc is quite outstanding in gaming in that mainstream market for just 199 USD, and perhaps cheaper street pricing. The Ryzen 5000 (Zen3) architecture remains pleasing. It's heartening to see AMD resurrect IPC by transitioning to a single 8-core design per die, addressing the remaining item of doubt, gaming performance. And, sure, all dies are identical, therefore two cores are just deactivated in this procedure. Which was Rzyen's Achilles heel in terms of CPU-limited game performance. AM4 has gone a long way. 

Price and value

Gaming performance

Last-generation Zen2 Matisse-based CPUs have already made up for many of Intel's gaming shortcomings. With ZEN3, that challenge is no longer present. We mention it in all of our Ryzen 5000 evaluations, but specific triumphs by brand and processor segmentation are important (mainstream, high-end, and enthusiast). Your gaming experience will be excellent even with six cores, however, we believe that eight cores are the norm these days for a truly fantastic gaming PC and overall PC desktop. Keep in mind though that we're making this statement based on a mainstream  to high-end graphics card, not an enthusiast class one.

DDR4 Memory

Short answer, with up to 4000 MHz DDR4 memory, you're good/optimal to go. Memory compatibility should not and likely will not be an issue as long as you stick to recently released DIMMs. I'll keep reiterating this, but there are some good Ryzen optimized kits out there. With ZEN3, you can go higher in DDR4 clock frequency if you want to. We stick to our advice that you are good to go with up to 3600 MHz and CL14 or CL16 or lower. If you want to go a notch higher, up to 4000 MHz is what you could do best. After that frequency, a 2:1 divider kicks on the interconnect that will affect the Infinity Fabric bandwidth; even then, the perf differential would be modest but optimal up-to 4000 MHz, the best bang for buck = 3600 MHz. Oh, and yes, lower latency memory is always better, e.g., CL14, but more expensive.

Energy efficiency

These processors are manufactured at 7nm; you may notice some great energy efficiency; the 105 Watts indicated for the 5800X, 5900X, and 5950X was not something we could test anywhere and therefore stays relative; of course, that is marvelous in and of itself. The Ryzen 5 5600(X), on the other hand, has a 65W TDP CPU. And, while TDP is a relatively fluent thing these days, it is still astounding.

Conclusion

The 5600X was a little too expensive at 50 USD per core, this non-X model cost 33 USD per core, and that does bring a smile to my face considering the game performance you can draw from this proc. Even this six-core component will be a feisty product in terms of general PC Desktop performance, but it will also perform admirably in PC gaming. You get your 12-threads, which most games appreciate. While we would want to push you toward an 8-core CPU, we appreciate that not everyone has the financial means to do so. With the price of $33 for each ZEN3 core, this is an interesting product.  If you don't need a many-core CPU for intensively threaded activities and workloads, the 5600 might be a good choice. This includes typical workloads from surfing Guru3D to editing in Photoshop as well as gaming. As a result, it's tough to argue against this processor family. We believe that a 6-core 5600 or a nice 8-core part are the better processors to acquire. Pick up a suitable B450  or B550 motherboard, and you can construct yourself a superb performing PC with enough gaming power for not too much money. Without a doubt, highly recommended.

• Sign up to receive a notification when we publish a new article
• Or go back to Guru3D's front page.