AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D review: an unexpected triumph that we should have gotten sooner

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D: Two-minute review

So this here AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D review isn't going to be a normal processor review, since this is not a normal chip. 

It's a limited edition chip exclusively sold through Micro Center in the US, so a lot of folks won't even be able to get their hands on it. That's a hell of a shame, because this chip really makes the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D pretty irrelevant for gamers, and it's easily the best cheap processor for gaming you're going to find — if you can find it.

According to Micro Center, AMD agreed to let Micro Center sell its stock of the unreleased Ryzen 5 5600X3D exclusively through its stores for $229 (about £195/AU$330) as long as stock remains, although there's no sense yet of how much stock there is.

Being a Ryzen 5, the chip comes loaded with six Zen 3 cores (with 12 threads), but those cores are a somewhat slower 3.3GHz base and 4.4GHz boost clock (as opposed to the 3.7GHz base and 4.6GHz boost clock of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X). It has the same TDP as the Ryzen 7 5800X3D (105W), which is also a lot higher than the base Ryzen 5 5600X (65W).

The 3D V-Cache on this chip also gives it a substantially larger cache pool (3MB+96MB L2+L3 cache) than the non-3D version. In total, the 5600X3D has just 1MB less than the 100MB combined cache of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D.

And boy howdy, does it show.

In terms of performance, the Ryzen 5 5600X3D runs about 16% slower than the Ryzen 7 5800X3D in terms of synthetic benchmarks, which makes sense, since it has slower clocks and two fewer cores. Its single core score is more or less the same though though.

Where this chip shines though is in its gaming performance. Thanks to its effectively identical cache pool compared to the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, the 5600X3D's gaming chops are so exceptional it actually manages to squeeze out some solid wins in our gaming tests, and any losses might at this point come down to what apps I had running in the background.

The only outlier here is the minimum framerate on Returnal, which was about half what it is for the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Its average FPS is still about 3-4% higher though.

These benefits will obviously diminish at higher quality settings where the frame rate will become entirely GPU-locked, and since I have an RTX 4090 on the test bench, you can expect slower GPUs to hit that limit much faster, but it's fair to say that this is the same level of gaming performance for roughly 33% less, even considering the recent 5800X3D price cut to $349.

What's more, the chip runs slightly cooler and uses about 22% less power than the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. 

In short, if you're looking for a budget midrange chip to power a 1080p or 1440p gaming rig and you have an AM4 board, just stop what you're doing and buy this chip - if and while you can.

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D: Price & availability

• How much does it cost? $229 (about £195/AU$330)
• When is it available? Available starting July 7, 2023
• Where can you get it? Available in the US at Micro Center stores

So the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D is only available in the US through Micro Center stores, at an MSRP of $229, while supplies last. AMD only made so many of these chips, and they aren't planning on making more, so if you want to head over to your local Micro Center location and pick one up, you'll have to move somewhat fast I imagine. I don't think anyone knows how many of these chips are going to be available or for how long.

If there is a knock on this chip, it is that AMD never seemed to want to release it, which makes business sense at least. These chips are so good that they pretty much blow up any reason to buy the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, and naturally, AMD would want to sell the chip that's going to make it the most money.

There's no getting around the fact though that gamers who did buy the Ryzen 7 5800X3D could have gotten the same performance for cheaper, but didn't. I can't hold that against this chip per se, but I do wish that this was the chip offered last year rather than the 5800X3D - and that gamers outside the US could get their hands on it.

Should you buy the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

How I tested the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D

• I spent about a week testing it
• Primarily gaming, but also some productivity and creative work

I put this chip through our standard battery of tests, but given the limited availability and the fact that this is a last-gen chip, I only compared it to the best AM4 chip of the last-gen (and the one I'd still broadly recommend to those who can't find the Ryzen 5 5600X3D), the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D.

Primarily, this is a gaming-focused chip, so I spent the most time looking at its gaming performance. In this case, I played several games on it, as well as using my standard battery of built-in benchmark tests to get comparable numbers.

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First reviewed July 2023