AMD Ryzen 5 5600X & Ryzen 9 5900X Review

AMD has been on a long road to redemption. Back in the day, I remember sporting some of their classics, such as the 955 Black Edition. A beastly overclocking CPU that was a big slap in the face to many Intel rivals. Well, AMD has been fighting fit against Intel for a few years now and with every launch, they’ve been setting new records for multi-core performance, while being pretty competitive with single-core performance and gaming at a lower price… often a LOT lower price. Now AMD is ready to take it to the next level, improve gaming performance, and improve single-core performance, but have they done it?

AMD Ryzen 5000

For this launch, everything is updated. The new CPUs are promising a wider range of frequencies, full PCIe Gen4 support, and ready to deliver their best performance on the latest motherboards. AMD are confident they can beat Intel this time around in both gaming and single-core performance. I’m not even fussed if they beat them everywhere, as very close or as good is always welcome. Then again, even just a nice improvement on previous AMD chips is always welcome too. We’ve seen promising rumours about it all over the last few weeks, but now it’s time to fire up our own test bench.

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X

• 6 Cores
• 12 Threads
• 3.7 GHz Base Clock
• 4.6GHz Boost Clock
• Unlocked
• PCIe Gen 4.0
• TDP: 65W

For in-depth specifications, please visit the official AMD Ryzen 5 5600X product page here.

AMD Ryzen 9 5900X

• 12 Cores
• 24 Threads
• 3.7 GHz Base Clock
• 4.8GHz Boost Clock
• Unlocked
• PCIe Gen 4.0
• TDP: 105W

For in-depth specifications, please visit the official AMD Ryzen 9 5900X product page here.

What AMD Had to Say

“When you have the world’s most advanced processor architecture for gamers and content creators, the possibilities are endless. Whether you are playing the latest games, designing the next skyscraper, or crunching data, you need a powerful processor that can handle it all—and more. Hands down, the AMD Ryzen™ 5000 Series desktop processors set the bar for gamers and artists alike. AMD Ryzen™ 5000 Series processors power the next generation of demanding games, providing one of a kind immersive experiences and dominate any multithreaded task like 3D and video rendering2, and software compiling.“ – AMD