Final Thoughts
When the Ryzen 3000 Series was released the processor that was given the most praise was the Ryzen 9 3900X as it should. The 12-core, 24-thread monster pretty much destroyed the competition. While this processor is great, not everyone has $499 to spend on a processor and with the prices of X570 motherboards you are likely going to be spending around $700 on just your processor and motherboard. For those still looking for great performance the Ryzen 5 3600X is a great choice, and not the “cheap” choice either. Previously you would choose AMD’s Ryzen 5 series if you were looking to save money, but now it really is looking like the king of the mid-range!
At only $249 you are getting an completely unlocked 6-core, 12-thread part that has a base clock of 3.8 GHz and boosts up to 4.4 GHz. With these type of specifications you’ll not only see great multi-core, but also single-core performance. You can’t forget about AMD GameCache either, you get a total of 35 MB of cache, which is definitely going to help out in gaming. So whether you are pushing multi-core workloads in Adobe Premier or playing Apex Legends the Ryzen 5 3600X is going to be able to keep up no problem. We really commend AMD on improving performance over the previous generation, not only in productivity performance, but gaming. Intel still manages to beat AMD in gaming tests, but I think that most people are doing more than just gaming on their PCs. Many people are creating content, streaming, or just have 25 Chrome windows open! I would definitely take 12-threads over maybe 1-3 FPS difference in a game.
Another thing that you want to consider is the advantages of the X570 platform. While X570 motherboards are a little more expensive you are getting PCI-Express 4.0. Which you can take advantage of with super-fast PCI-Express 4.0 M.2 solid state drives. By all accounts Intel won’t have anything to counter this with till at least next year. If X570 motherboards don’t interest you, AMD still is supporting X470 boards and they are quite affordable.
Overclocking, just like on previous AMD processors is quite easy and AMD’s Ryzen Master software is great for overclocking within Windows. One thing we’ve noticed with AMD’s Ryzen 3000 processors is that you are not going to get a whole lot of headroom. We were able to get this chip 100% stable at 4.3 GHz on all six cores, but temperatures were a little high to run that as a 24/7 overclock. I would suggest 4.0 – 4.1 GHz for a 24/7 overclock.
I would totally recommend this CPU to anyone building a new PC in 2019, it really is the mid-range king! Overall ThinkComputers gives the AMD Ryzen 5 3600X Processor a 9 out of 10 score and our Recommended Award!
Pros:
– Great single and multi-core performance
– X570 motherboads offer PCIe 4.0
– Great value at $249 with CPU cooler included
– Vastly improved over the previous generation
– Backwards compatibility with X470 motherboards
Cons:
– Limited overclocking headroom
