News AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Review: The Mainstream Knockout

Math Geek

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so let's see, better price/performance, better ipc, much lower power used, all chips unlocked. yup i can see why folks will go for intel chips right now.

oh wait, that's the AMD chip with those talking points. so why would anyone buy an intel chip right now at a much higher system cost???
 
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Arbie

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After frequently complaining that Tom's CPU reviews slighted AMD (and that's putting it politely), I have to really applaud this one. It is very thorough and seems completely objective on all points. An excellent review of an excellent product.
 
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Weird you didn't include the 3700X in your tests, since that is the competing previous gen AMD chip wrt to price. From what I gather, the 5600X is just as fast as the 3700X in multi-threaded workloads, despite having two less cores, and significantly faster in single-threaded tests (as expected). So going from an 8 core chip to a 6 core chip is an actual upgrade!
 

waltc3

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What I find amusing about Zen 3 is the fact that when we were looking at Zen 1 from AMD nobody thought it robbery to pay Intel the much higher prices it was asking for its CPUs then, as opposed to now...;) The refrain was always, "You have to pay more to get more performance" and the Intel zombies were happy to pay it. Now that AMD has the best/fastest CPUs, some people balk at a mere $50 difference over Zen 2, even though during Zen1 and especially before Zen 1, the same folks--some of them anyway--were cheerfully paying Intel a lot more for a lot less! The "Zen 2 was a bargain but Zen 3 is way overpriced" crowd seems like much ado about nothing. AMD has as much right as Intel to charge more for the best--and still, compared to Intel's halcyon days as the primo high-end x86 CPU monopolist--Zen 3 costs less than Intel was charging in those days. I can still remember the days a decade + back, when Intel was charging $600-$1k per CPU in lots of 1k for it's highest-end desktops--simply because the company had no x86 CPU competition. And today's low-end Zen2/3 CPUs butcher those in sheer performance at a mere fraction of the price. The performance of AMD CPUs today is a bargain, no matter how you slice it, imo.
 
Great review!, thank you for testing the bundle cooler. None of the reviews I read and watch so far did it.

Its amazing to witness how far AMD has come from Zen, and to even think that some reviewers were saying many years ago buy R5 i5 1600, instead of the Ci5 7400. I guess they were right after all.

My bro is running a Ryzen 5 1500X which paid for a ridiculous low price and hes very happy I told him buy that one, instead of the Core i5 7400.
 

PaulAlcorn

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Weird you didn't include the 3700X in your tests, since that is the competing previous gen AMD chip wrt to price. From what I gather, the 5600X is just as fast as the 3700X in multi-threaded workloads, despite having two less cores, and significantly faster in single-threaded tests (as expected). So going from an 8 core chip to a 6 core chip is an actual upgrade!

True, true. I'm limited to 18 processors in the charts, which does restrict selection a bit. I'll see what I can do about getting it in there.
 
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Why do you keep uploading these CPU/GPU reviews in the news section? Also this format is really horrible. The browser on my tablet keeps crashing multiple times and I need to scroll all the article (which is huge) in order to find the parts that I need over and over. Please bring the old format back where every part of the review gets a different page.
 
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What I find amusing about Zen 3 is the fact that when we were looking at Zen 1 from AMD nobody thought it robbery to pay Intel the much higher prices it was asking for its CPUs then, as opposed to now...;) The refrain was always, "You have to pay more to get more performance" and the Intel zombies were happy to pay it.
The way I remember it even the most hardcore AMD fans were all like wait for the revision because the first one is going to have issues.
Also single core was much higher on intel so paying more if you used that more was valid.
Now that AMD has the best/fastest CPUs, some people balk at a mere $50 difference over Zen 2, even though during Zen1 and especially before Zen 1, the same folks--some of them anyway--were cheerfully paying Intel a lot more for a lot less! The "Zen 2 was a bargain but Zen 3 is way overpriced" crowd seems like much ado about nothing.
Well everybody wished for a price war to get going but because AMD doesn't have enough volume to create a price war they settled on making more money per CPU.
Also on these benches if you go above 1080 intel is still faster with the 10600k being faster at 1440 and that (not quite) $50 cheaper, which is weird but if it were to be a mistake they would have corrected it already from the first benchmark they made.

And multithreaded is an argument only up to some point that a normal desktop user is going to use it.
 
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Phaaze88

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so why would anyone buy an intel chip right now at a much higher system cost???
1)It's what they know and are familiar with. Some folks are real adamant about change.
For some professionals, they're sacrificing time and money making a swap to an unfamiliar platform.

2)Reliability: the Core i platform has a much longer track record than Ryzen.

3)They've been stabbed in the back before with older AMD products and don't want to give it a second chance; Blue Team hasn't failed them yet.

4)Intel fanboys/girls; Intel pride.
 
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Conahl

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Also single core was much higher on intel so paying more if you used that more was valid.
the point he was making terrylaze, was the FACT that no one complained about intel charging what they did for their cpus when intel had the performance crown. now that AMD has that crown, no matter how much of a pro intel cherry picked spin you always put on it to make your beloved intel appear better, people are crying fowl left right and center that AMD is now asking a bit more for their cpus now that they have that crown.

bottom line, its perfectly ok for intel to have charged more, for what less then 10% performance increase over its previous gen, but if AMD is able to give more then 10% increase over its previous gen, specially in single thread, where they were behind, is now wrong ?? come on.
 

Conahl

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Well then that whole point is wrong because everybody was and still is complaining about the prices being too high.
whos prices being to high?
it was OK FOR INTEL to do it, but its NOT ok for AMD to do the SAME THING. compared to now, i rarely heard people crying about intels prices YOY pre zen. AMD raises theirs by 50 bucks, going from zen 2 to zen 3 and most are having a cow over it.
 

Specter0420

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"Most" are having a cow? Maybe according to you... I accept and respect their choice, but wouldn't have made the same.

You see, there are two approaches for AMD;

1. You have the stock and the production so you keep prices the same. This makes you the "no-brainer" choice for everyone. Your chips sell like wildfire and you start taking huge bites out of Intel's market share. This forces Intel to cut their own prices heavily AND they are FORCED to innovate to exist, consumers win and attribute it to you. You become the consumer's hero as price\performance accelerates everywhere! The money spent on last year's budget brand now buys you the performance brand, and there is a new, even cheaper budget brand.

2. You don't have the stock and production so you increase prices to match performance increase. You get to essentially "poke Intel in the eye" and run some public victory laps at the consumer's expense, you also forfeit large market share gains. Intel has the option to continue mediocrity as the "budget" option like AMD did for the last decade without even cutting prices. Both sides are able to relax competition on price AND performance. To make it even worse, this year's budget brand now costs nearly the same as last year's performance brand".

For all of human history (OK transistor history) price, over time, has not increased because performance has. It has actually been, far more often than not, the opposite. So watching AMD stifle that because they took the crown is a bit offputting.
 

Conahl

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"Most" are having a cow? Maybe according to you... I accept and respect their choice, but wouldn't have made the same.
have you not seen the comments for the reviews for Ryzen 5000 ? look at all the people complaining amd raised the prices for those chips. i sure dont recall any one doing the same with intels prices.
For all of human history (OK transistor history) price, over time, has not increased because performance has.
you sure ? look what intel was charging for their cpus before zen was released compared to what you got.
 
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Good to see AMD making progress. I would love to switch to AMD. As much as I hate Intel I feel trapped.

I have a need of more than 16 PCIe lanes. I have 10G nics, raid cards, additional sata ports, double/triple M.2 drives and more across several PCs. So I'm stuck with HEDT. My current system cost A$2300 with a 10940x ($1399) and Creator X299 mobo ($899). An upgrade to AMD's ThreadRipper is anywhere from A$3,000 to A$10,000 depending on which chip, which motherboard and whether my existing RAM will work.

AMD may have the performance crown on HEDT, but from a price perspective it's largely not affordable.

I do have a couple of mainstream systems too.

The 5600x is anywhere up to A$550. A decent X570 motherboard could set me back as much as A$1300. Although the middle of the range seems to be about A$700 - A$800. Taking the median pricing I'd be up for A$1300 per PC.

An Intel upgrade is going to cost me about $1200 and get me 10core/20 thread.

But the 5600x @ 6 cores "wrecks" the 10900K @ 10 cores for about A$100 more?

I think I'm going to start saving to upgrade the few mainstream PCs I do have to AMD :)

Good Review
 

usiname

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Good to see AMD making progress. I would love to switch to AMD. As much as I hate Intel I feel trapped.

I have a need of more than 16 PCIe lanes. I have 10G nics, raid cards, additional sata ports, double/triple M.2 drives and more across several PCs. So I'm stuck with HEDT. My current system cost A$2300 with a 10940x ($1399) and Creator X299 mobo ($899). An upgrade to AMD's ThreadRipper is anywhere from A$3,000 to A$10,000 depending on which chip, which motherboard and whether my existing RAM will work.

AMD may have the performance crown on HEDT, but from a price perspective it's largely not affordable.

I do have a couple of mainstream systems too.

The 5600x is anywhere up to A$550. A decent X570 motherboard could set me back as much as A$1300. Although the middle of the range seems to be about A$700 - A$800. Taking the median pricing I'd be up for A$1300 per PC.

An Intel upgrade is going to cost me about $1200 and get me 10core/20 thread.

But the 5600x @ 6 cores "wrecks" the 10900K @ 10 cores for about A$100 more?

I think I'm going to start saving to upgrade the few mainstream PCs I do have to AMD :)

Good Review
What are you smoking? 3000 to 10000? 3960x is $1399 on release and has 24 cores, compared to 14 for your 10940x. Zen 3 equivalent won't be that different, so how you calculated this 3000k starting price? You want 64 cores from amd on the price of 14 intel's cores?
 

usiname

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usiname, i think he may be referring to AUS $, hence the A in front of the prices, considering the 64 core TR is $ 5400 Cdn just for the cpu......
Yes my bad, now I checked the price of 10940x. I didn't read his post after first paragraph and I thought he talking for USD.
 
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What are you smoking? 3000 to 10000? 3960x is $1399 on release and has 24 cores, compared to 14 for your 10940x. Zen 3 equivalent won't be that different, so how you calculated this 3000k starting price? You want 64 cores from amd on the price of 14 intel's cores?

"She" did prefix the amount with 'A' meaning AUD. The release price of that was A$2499. They are still selling for A$2300 - A$2400. The 3990x was $7299 on release and is still selling for as much as A$6999. The sTRX40 motherboards are anywhere from A$750 to A$2500 depending on how extreme you want to go.

Since people want to keep beating me up about prices I quote, perhaps a visit to staticice.com.au and myshopping.com.au might be somewhat enlightening. Or other sites like Kotaku.com.au, shopbot.com.au and GetPrice.com.au

I can't buy a 14 core AMD threadripper. I don't expect 64 cores for the same price, or even 24, but you totally missed my point. Possibly because English is not my first language. I was NOT comparing cores. I was talking solely and only about the investment. AMD don't make HEDT CPUs with less than 24 cores, so if I want to change to AMD the minimum spend is around A$3000. That's the simple fact of life.

The 3990x is a very specific use case. I wouldn't be even looking at the 3970x let alone the 3990x but the fact remains the prices are the prices. Even if the per core price is lower, which was not my point, the investment is still the same. I need a minimum of A$3000 to get 48 PCIe lanes on AMD or less than A$2000 for Intel.

As desperate as I am to dump Intel (I am absolutely NOT a Intel fan), I just can't afford the cost. Whatever the core count the price is the price. Which is why I said "I feel trapped".
 
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Gurg

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AMD's Ryzen 5 5600X wrecks Intel's Comet Lake lineup in gaming and applications, but for only $300.

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Review: The Mainstream Knockout : Read more
@$300 I could drive to local Microcenter and buy a 9900K which humiliated the 5900x and thus by inference every AMD CPU in 13 game average in TH review of the 6800xt. Did I mention it would drop into my existing z390 motherboard which supports up to 4400 OC memory and would love my existing H115i AIO cooler.

Curiously the 9900k is was missing from this review even though it is still readily available.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/the-amd-radeon-rx-6800-xt-and-rx-6800-review
 
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