News Amazing Budget CPU, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Now at its Lowest Price Ever: Real Deals

[Admin]

If you're looking to build a budget PC right now, then today is a great day to start. You can grab a Ryzen 5 5600X for just $260 at Best Buy — its lowest ever price.

Amazing Budget CPU, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Now at its Lowest Price Ever: Real Deals : Read more

 

[hotaru251]

...unless you are anywhere near a microcenter where it frequently hits $229

 

[King_V]

MicroCenter is in-store only, but has the 5600X for $229.99.

As recently as this past Monday, a $50 off for new customers, from the then $239.99, would let you get it for $189.99, which is when I got it, with my gf being the new customer.

MicroCenter $50 off select CPUs for new customers deal.

I wonder if they will credit us back the $10 for the price drop if we ask...

 

[Zescion]

Serious question, is the i5 12400 with B660/DDR4 a better deal right now for gaming?
Looking at reviews it's not just (slightly) faster, but also similarly efficient.
Am I missing anything?

 

[punkncat]

I am much of the mind that after this paywall crap they just pulled on GPU that they are going on the list of "don't deal with unless I have to" retailers.

 

[hotaru251]

Looking at reviews it's not just (slightly) faster, but also similarly efficient.

just look up some 12400 vs 5600x video comparisons.
this 1 is f verison cpu but should be basically same overall.

View: https://youtu.be/ugoYKwpAeBs

 

[King_V]

Serious question, is the i5 12400 with B660/DDR4 a better deal right now for gaming?
Looking at reviews it's not just (slightly) faster, but also similarly efficient.
Am I missing anything?

For the most part, you are correct. The CPUs are neck and neck, with the 12400 maybe having a bit of an edge.

Based on the pricing from Microcenter, WITH the new customer discount, it was almost a wash, with $5 in favor of the AMD for the board I chose.

The cheapest motherboard for Intel they had, which was the only H610 they had, was about $25 more than the A520 motherboard I got for the 5600X. That A520 was NOT the cheapest one, though, but still pretty inexpensive.

BUT, the 12400 was $20 less than the 5600X.

The memory is a wash, either could use the same DDR4.

If I went with the cheapest A520 board, that gap would've widened a bit in AMD's favor. But without the new customer discount bringing the 5600X's price down, the price/performance is in Intel's favor.

 

[Giroro]

...unless you are anywhere near a microcenter where it frequently hits $229

To be fair, nobody lives anywhere near a microcenter. There's like, what, 20 of them in the entire world?

I'm not sure why people online always act like Mircrocenter is some big national chain. It's tiny.

 

[hotaru251]

nobody lives anywhere near a microcenter

you know people can drive right? (heck can even take train for cheap)

I'm not sure why people online always act like Mircrocenter is some big national chain. It's tiny.

hence why i said if you anywhere near one.

an hour drive even is fair enough as the price of gas will still be cheaper than the price difference getting it somewhere else.

also there are 25 microcenters.

 

[watzupken]

Serious question, is the i5 12400 with B660/DDR4 a better deal right now for gaming?
Looking at reviews it's not just (slightly) faster, but also similarly efficient.
Am I missing anything?

I feel if you are buying a CPU + motherboard combo, the price between a Ryzen 5 5600X and Intel i5 12400 should not differ that much. The Ryzen chip will be very attractive if you have an existing AM4 motherboard that can support the newer Zen 3 chip. So it will be a drop in upgrade, without having to spend extra for a new motherboard. For gaming, it really depends on the resolution and graphic settings that you game on. At higher resolution, i.e. 1440p or higher, you likely won't see significant variation since we are mostly GPU limited here. There are some outliers like games from Microsoft, i.e. Flight Simulator and AOE 4, which don't utilize many cores. In both cases, Alder Lake beats all other processors due to its advantage when it comes to single core performance. But at least from my observations, such games are rare, and somehow only games from Microsoft of late have this problem.

 

[spongiemaster]

you know people can drive right? (heck can even take train for cheap)



hence why i said if you anywhere near one.

an hour drive even is fair enough as the price of gas will still be cheaper than the price difference getting it somewhere else.

also there are 25 microcenters.

5 are in the NYC area, so their are 20 stores for the entire planet outside of NYC. They're all in the US. I live in NC and the closest one to me is almost 6 hours. Giroro is right, statistically, almost no one lives near a Microcenter.

 

[King_V]

Really? Are we nitpicking now about the fact that there was a disclaimer of if one lives within a reasonable distance of MicroCenter?

But if one is going to play that game, then before going with the "almost no one lives near a Microcenter" claim, perhaps one should check out the population densities near where they're located. So, let's take the 10 biggest cities in the US by population, and note that they have MicroCenter locations

• NYC - 8.3 million people - with 5 MicroCenter locations.*
• Los Angeles - 3.9 million people - and the Tustin location is about a half hour from there
• Chicago - 2.7 million people - There's a Chicago store and a Westmont location, about a half hour from Chicago.
• Houston - 2.3 million people - with a MicroCenter
• Phoenix - 1.7 million people - no MicroCenter
• Philadelphia - 1.4 million people - and MicroCenter is in St. Davids, which is called the St. Davids/Philadelphia location, around 15-20 minutes from Philly (though Philadelphia covers a lot of area, so take that with a grain of salt)
• San Antonio - 1.5 million people - no MicroCenter
• San Diego - 1.4 million people - no MicroCenter
• Dallas - 1.3 million people - with a MicroCenter
• San Jose - 1 million people - no MicroCenter

And, really, being dismissive of 5 of the locations because they're in one city? And neglecting that this one city, oh, you know, just happens to be the most populous city in the US, having more than double the population of the second largest city.

I just picked the I am not familiar with what major cities the other locations of MicroCenter are near... though I am aware that Duluth and Marietta, GA are both near Atlanta, but only because I work with people in that area.

I imagine that, with the recent closing of Fry's, that MicroCenter has some potential for expansion.


So, let's see - just about 20 million people living near 10 of the MicroCenter locations. Yep, that's statistically no one.



But, seriously, before complaining, keep in mind that with MicroCenter, those of us who do live near one always say "If you live near a MicroCenter, you can get (whatever item)" - nobody who mentions MicroCenter deals ever acts as if its In-Store Only deals are as available to people as ordering from an online store.

 

[King_V]

That issue aside, and getting back to the issue as to whether one would go with the 12400 or the 5600X.... TL;DR - you can't go wrong with either one, when the MB+CPU price is close.

My more long-winded explanation:
The motherboards between the two platforms more or less start, price-wise, in the same area, give or take. Maybe there's a slight edge for the AMD platform being slightly cheaper.

The 12400/12400F, while the official prices are in the $170-200 range, seem to have been hovering in the $200-210 range (based on PCPartPicker), though I could've sworn I saw a 12400F in the $170-ish range yesterday. That said, even in the $200-210 range, it's got an advantage over the 5600X in price, that the lower MB prices for AMD don't completely make up for.

When I was poking around recently considering a budget system, I was looking at the 5600G, but then the 12400 came in. If it wasn't for the proximity of MicroCenter, and, the timing of their deals, coinciding when my searches on the 12400 and Intel motherboard resulted in higher prices, I might've gone the Intel route.

Today, for me, even though I lean in favor of AMD since Ryzen, and also did back in the days when Athlon ran over the Pentium 4 around the turn of the century, my purchase might've been the 12400. But, the fact that the 5600X and its platform beat it price-wise on that week, and the still better power efficiency of the AMD appealed to me.

The 12400 power efficiency isn't terrible, but it still can't touch AMD. So, I'd generally give AMD a few dollars leeway.

That said, right now, if the prices are close, the choice is almost a coin-toss. The problem is, the big online vendors aren't reducing the 5600X's price very much yet. They're going to have to, otherwise they'll be sitting on those CPUs. I suspect that where MicroCenter goes, Newegg, Amazon, etc., will have to follow, even if more slowly/begrudgingly. MicroCenter alone isn't going to move them, but MicroCenter, plus the pricing pressure from Alder Lake will.

 

[spongiemaster]

So, let's see - just about 20 million people living near 10 of the MicroCenter locations. Yep, that's statistically no one.

Are you aware there are people living outside the US? 20 million out of 8 billion is about 1/4 of 1% of the people. I stand by my original statement.

 

[Eximo]

I live relatively close to a Microcenter, and even then it is a break even sum for me. They offer a $20 or $30 discount on a single component, and it is simpler for me to pay the extra to get it shipped. (About 100 miles one way, or ~8 gallons of gasoline at $3 a gallon, $24...) Plus the 4 hours of driving and mileage. It would have to be a really big purchase to work in my favor and that is far closer than most people are likely to be to a Microcenter.

Population statistics are one thing, but then you have to take into account the number of people that actually build their own computers. Probably looking at 1% of the general population, if that. Physical computer component stores don't actually make a whole lot of sense outside of major population centers at all.

Trains, lol. Tell me you live in a big city without telling me you live in a big city.

 

[King_V]

Are you aware there are people living outside the US? 20 million out of 8 billion is about 1/4 of 1% of the people. I stand by my original statement.

20 million isn't even the entire population that MicroCenter readily serves.

And yet, you didn't complain about Best Buy, a US store. Oh, sure, they have 5 stores in Mexico, and over 100 in Canada, but that's excluding your ludicrous "8 billion people" market statement.

NewEgg doesn't offer products to the entire world population. Amazon doesn't offer products to the entire world population.

The PC market doesn't encompass the entire world, and of the PC market, the "build your own PCs" market is smaller still, and NOT proportionally distributed from one nation to the next.

The assertion of "statistically no one" falls apart under even the barest scrutiny.

And you ignored what I said outside of the population portion.

 

[spongiemaster]

20 million isn't even the entire population that MicroCenter readily serves.

And yet, you didn't complain about Best Buy, a US store. Oh, sure, they have 5 stores in Mexico, and over 100 in Canada, but that's excluding your ludicrous "8 billion people" market statement.

NewEgg doesn't offer products to the entire world population. Amazon doesn't offer products to the entire world population.

The PC market doesn't encompass the entire world, and of the PC market, the "build your own PCs" market is smaller still, and NOT proportionally distributed from one nation to the next.

The assertion of "statistically no one" falls apart under even the barest scrutiny.

And you ignored what I said outside of the population portion.

When was the last time you heard someone say, "if you live near an Amazon?" Exactly, because it doesn't make any sense. Microcenter is the only retailer that requires you to live within an acceptable driving distance, which eliminates most of the US, and 100% of the rest of the world.

 

[wifiburger]

still a garbage deal, 6 cores only in 2022... PASS

terrible for workloads & crap multitasking when you have a game running

 

[jefferzbooboo]

you know people can drive right? (heck can even take train for cheap)



hence why i said if you anywhere near one.

an hour drive even is fair enough as the price of gas will still be cheaper than the price difference getting it somewhere else.

also there are 25 microcenters.

How much do you value your time?

 

[hotaru251]

How much do you value your time?

how many hrs of work is the price difference?
if driving to get something physically is less still better deal.

 

[logainofhades]

how many hrs of work is the price difference?
if driving to get something physically is less still better deal.

My MC is about an hour and a half away. I just make a day of the trip, go out to eat, hit up MC, maybe take the 15min drive, and stop at Cabelas and Bass Pro. Also I would rather drive, than wait for something to show up, when I can. Time is money after all.