You can now grab the 6-core/12-thread Ryzen 5 3600 for $160

[midian182]

Bargain hunter Yes, we’re all excited for Zen 3, but the upcoming arrival of AMD’s third-gen architecture also means its current crop of Zen 2 processors are seeing price drops. The latest of these is the Ryzen 5 3600, which we called the best all-round value CPU last year.

Amazon is currently selling the chip at the bargain price of $159.98. That’s around 20 percent off the MSRP of $199.

We love the Ryzen 5 3600; the 6-core/12-thread processors scored a perfect 100 in our review. It clocks between 3.6 GHz and 4.2 GHz, features a 32MB L3 cache, a 65-watt TDP, and comes with a Wraith Stealth cooler in the box.

Benchmark using an MSI Trio GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.

The Ryzen 5 3600 offered fantastic value at launch and is an even better buy following the price drop. Stick it into a X570 or B550 motherboard, and you’ll have all the benefits of PCIe 4.0, which means the money you save on a CPU could go (a little way) toward the $750 4TB Sabrant PCIe 4.0 SSD, which offers sequential read speeds of up to 4,900 MB/s and write speeds of up to 3,500 MB/s.

AMD’s executive vice president of Computing and Graphics, Rick Bergman, recently confirmed that the consumer Zen 3 processors—not just the Epyc Milan enterprise chips—will arrive in 2020. As such, the company is dropping the prices of some current products and offering incentives to buy, such as the ‘Equipped to Win’ promotion that gives purchasers of high-end Ryzen 3000 CPUs (and Ryzen-powered PCs) a free copy of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla when released.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/86108-you-can-now-grab-6-core12-thread-ryzen.html

 

[Shadowboxer]

Great CPU for a new buyer. But for someone upgrading from an older flagship not so much.

I’m waiting on those Zen 3 parts. All they need to do is be faster than Intel’s current stuff at gaming to get my buy. I don’t care about rendering or cinebench.

 

[Evernessince]

Great CPU for a new buyer. But for someone upgrading from an older flagship not so much.

I’m waiting on those Zen 3 parts. All they need to do is be faster than Intel’s current stuff at gaming to get my buy. I don’t care about rendering or cinebench.

Except that the 3600 is a better gaming CPU then even the 7700K.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1871-amd-ryzen-3600/

The only games the 7700K does better in are few and expected (Far Cry New Dawn).

It's double bad when you look at the 1% lows for many games on the 7700K. Even in a benchmark environment the 7700K is having trouble keeping up with modern games and those large dips in performance will cause an unenjoyable playing experience. Not imagine adding some basic background tasks like discord or windows update. Two things most games will encounter.

Anyone with a 7700K would be wise to sell it. You can still get $260 on eBay for the CPU and another $120 for the mobo. The 3600 is so cheap you've just more then covered the cost.

 

[Shadowboxer]

Except that the 3600 is a better gaming CPU then even the 7700K.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1871-amd-ryzen-3600/

The only games the 7700K does better in are few and expected (Far Cry New Dawn).

It's double bad when you look at the 1% lows for many games on the 7700K. Even in a benchmark environment the 7700K is having trouble keeping up with modern games and those large dips in performance will cause an unenjoyable playing experience. Not imagine adding some basic background tasks like discord or windows update. Two things most games will encounter.

Anyone with a 7700K would be wise to sell it. You can still get $260 on eBay for the CPU and another $120 for the mobo. The 3600 is so cheap you've just more then covered the cost.

Yeah the 3600 is better than a 7700K but not by enough to make it worth the outlay. I should know, I have a 4790K that isn’t really that much worse than a 7700K and I don’t think the 20 odd fps is worth the money or the hassle of upgrading to a 3600 and I want to upgrade! A 10600k/10700k would offer about 40fps more best case scenario so more worth it but they cost so much more than the 3600 and still just not worth it.

I don’t mind paying out a lot for a CPU, as long as it offers enough of an upgrade. In fact I wish I could go out and spend 10900K money and get a performance increase in games akin to the performance increase you would get in productivity. But that’s the problem, these companies are offering loads more productivity now but the cores themselves aren’t much stronger. If you only game, the performance hasn’t actually moved that much.

 

[Evernessince]

Yeah the 3600 is better than a 7700K but not by enough to make it worth the outlay. I should know, I have a 4790K that isn’t really that much worse than a 7700K and I don’t think the 20 odd fps is worth the money or the hassle of upgrading to a 3600 and I want to upgrade! A 10600k/10700k would offer about 40fps more best case scenario so more worth it but they cost so much more than the 3600 and still just not worth it.

I don’t mind paying out a lot for a CPU, as long as it offers enough of an upgrade. In fact I wish I could go out and spend 10900K money and get a performance increase in games akin to the performance increase you would get in productivity. But that’s the problem, these companies are offering loads more productivity now but the cores themselves aren’t much stronger. If you only game, the performance hasn’t actually moved that much.

That has a lot to do with how the CPU market stagnated for so long. Hopefully we will start seeing games requiring more CPU resources soon so that larger gains can be had.

 

[Shadowboxer]

That has a lot to do with how the CPU market stagnated for so long. Hopefully we will start seeing games requiring more CPU resources soon so that larger gains can be had.

You want games to use more resources? That’s like saying the gun you bought is too big so let’s hope something really big attacks you!

Anyway games aren’t going to start to need more compute power anytime soon. Games are games, they are only so complex and good performance is more about speed And latency rather than brute strength compute wise these days. As time goes on more and more gets offloaded to the GPU. DX12 saw a reduction in CPU overhead when it came along.

We need our silicon providers to make faster cores!

 

[kiwigraeme]

You want games to use more resources? That’s like saying the gun you bought is too big so let’s hope something really big attacks you!

Anyway games aren’t going to start to need more compute power anytime soon. Games are games, they are only so complex and good performance is more about speed And latency rather than brute strength compute wise these days. As time goes on more and more gets offloaded to the GPU. DX12 saw a reduction in CPU overhead when it came along.

We need our silicon providers to make faster cores!

Well if they use the extra cores for NPC/Monsters A.I. or having a more realistic environment then Solo games would get a needed boost - I don't play online - but I believe in some games the AI enemies are becoming smarter - due to studios have large cloud processing - well if that can trickle down to your home PC well and good. Eg and extra core could be playing NPC in background and handle realtime collisions between them eg sending 2 NPCs to the same place and time who hate each other - or a NPC rival intercepting an NPC you gave a mission to and offering a better deal to . If done now this stuff is probably cheating and just using encounter tables or linear enforcement

 

[Evernessince]

You want games to use more resources? That’s like saying the gun you bought is too big so let’s hope something really big attacks you!

Anyway games aren’t going to start to need more compute power anytime soon. Games are games, they are only so complex and good performance is more about speed And latency rather than brute strength compute wise these days. As time goes on more and more gets offloaded to the GPU. DX12 saw a reduction in CPU overhead when it came along.

We need our silicon providers to make faster cores!

I would like to have games for once that don't have brain dead AI.

 

[p51d007]

Boy, I'm glad that I gave up on games over a decade ago. Deal with "tech" all day at work and when I get home, just browse. I'm still using an i5-4460 that's just now slowing down for me. Last couple of photoshop updates...she's about time to be retired.

 

[Morphine Child]

As an 3600 owner I can only say - go and buy it. Good enough for 99% of people.

 

[Nobina]

That has a lot to do with how the CPU market stagnated for so long. Hopefully we will start seeing games requiring more CPU resources soon so that larger gains can be had.

Wouldn't it be better to have games rely mostly on GPU so we don't have to buy 2 expensive parts instead of just 1?

 

[Nobina]

Boy, I'm glad that I gave up on games over a decade ago. Deal with "tech" all day at work and when I get home, just browse. I'm still using an i5-4460 that's just now slowing down for me. Last couple of photoshop updates...she's about time to be retired.

I have the exact same CPU, don't really "need" a better one except for CSGO which heavily relies on CPU. Ryzen 5 3600 is my first choice.

 

[neeyik]

Wouldn't it be better to have games rely mostly on GPU so we don't have to buy 2 expensive parts instead of just 1?

They do already - everything that the GPU can do better than a CPU can, in a way that the game’s performance will be improved, is already done.

 

[candle_86]

When peoe mean older flagships I think they are more speaking to the x58/x79/p55/p68/z67/z77 crowd, and I'd gladly sell my x79 for ryzen.

 

[Evernessince]

Wouldn't it be better to have games rely mostly on GPU so we don't have to buy 2 expensive parts instead of just 1?

Except there are things GPUs do not do well. If you haven't noticed, GPU prices have gotten to the point where they are more expensive then a good GPU + CPU together used to cost. It makes sense to use the CPU to it's advantages. GPU die sizes have a limit as does thermal density.

 

[nnguy2]

Except there are things GPUs do not do well. If you haven't noticed, GPU prices have gotten to the point where they are more expensive then a good GPU + CPU together used to cost. It makes sense to use the CPU to it's advantages. GPU die sizes have a limit as does thermal density.

2013 when premium was last available for $500

 

[sorten]

We're only 2 or 3 months out for Zen 3. I want to see the 4600 review, and then I'll decide between it and the 3600.

 

[isamuelson]

Great CPU for a new buyer. But for someone upgrading from an older flagship not so much.

I’m waiting on those Zen 3 parts. All they need to do is be faster than Intel’s current stuff at gaming to get my buy. I don’t care about rendering or cinebench.

I'll disagree there. Not sure if my AMD Phenom II X3 720BE was flagship, but 10 years ago, it was a great buy, especially if you got a motherboard that allowed you to unlock the 4th core in it, which I was able to.

Going to the Ryzen 5 3600 was a bargain for me. I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder, but I would say that this chip is a bargain. Now, going from say an AMD 2600 to this is NOT a good thing, but it's never good to upgrade from a previous generation to one step above it. But for those of us that came from an old platform, and want to save money but yet still be able to play the latest games at ultra settings, then yes, this coupled with a good GPU is a good bargain.