Get a Ryzen 5600X for $176 w/ code JULYSAVINGS
The Ryzen 5 5600X is a processor that I’ve recommended on these pages many times before - and it features on our best CPU lists - but let’s quickly recap why this CPU is worth considering. First, it offers an incredible uptick in single-core performance compared to Ryzen 3000 chips, normally around 20 percent, which translates well into frame-rate in many games. If you’re comparing to earlier Ryzen 1000 or 2000 processors, then you get an even bigger uplift - one that can really be quite transformative for gaming, especially at 1080p or at higher refresh rates. Next, it’s a highly efficient processor. Intel’s latest 12th-gen processors to be equal or faster than their Ryzen 5000 counterparts, but AMD’s consume vastly less power. This means you don’t need as big of a CPU cooler, as big of a PSU, and you aren’t spending as much on electricity. AMD’s AM4 socket is also a very mature platform at this stage, so finding motherboards, CPU coolers, RAM and so on is easy and relatively inexpensive. You still get relatively recent tech - WiFi 6, PCIe 4.0 - but you are giving up the opportunity to get a system with PCIe 5.0 SSDs and DDR5 RAM. Neither of these are really sensible to invest into right now, but it might be nice to have the option down the road - so you’ll have to decide for yourself whether paying a lot more for your motherboard and processor (whether AMD or Intel) is worth it or whether this discounted 5600X is the ideal choice. For my money, I’d go with the known good part at a fair price!
