AMD’s Ryzen 5 3500X processor was launched exclusively for the Chinese market, but now it’s available to purchase in the US and UK.
As Tom’s Hardware flagged up, the spin on the Ryzen 5 3500 (itself an OEM-only model) is now on sale at some big retailers. Namely Amazon in both the US ($245, but it was $220 previous to that, Tom's reports) and the UK (£169 or another listing has it at £195), plus Newegg ($173, albeit that’s a third-party seller shipping from Hong Kong, with some poor customer feedback – so we’d be very careful about taking that particular chance). Also in the UK, Scan has the 3500X available for £168.
- Check out all the best graphics cards
- And these are the best PC games
- We'll show you how to build a PC
So, particularly in the US, some of the prices are a little hard to stomach, at least if you compare to the pricing of Intel’s chips – and the likes of the Core i5-11400, which is a bit cheaper than this, providing very similar performance levels in games. But as AMD’s product range stands at the moment, the 3500X could be a tempting option for those planning on looking at the cheaper end of Team Red’s line-up.
SMT off
Indeed, the Ryzen 3500X is still a competitive piece of silicon – it’s pretty close to the 3600 or 3600X in terms of performance, the main difference being the lack of multithreading (the 3500X is a 6-core, 6-thread processor with no simultaneous multithreading or SMT, compared to the 6-core, 12-thread, 3600 models).
And considering the 3600 is pitched at about $250 in the US, the 3500X looks comparatively tempting (at least at its previous price on Amazon, which could well return).
As for the UK, the 3600 can be had for £170 at Overclockers right now – but it’s a bit more expensive elsewhere. And remember, as Tom’s points out in its review, the 3500X is actually a touch faster than the 3600 or 3600X in some games (that multithreading can actually hold back performance with some titles).
It never hurts to have more options on the table when it comes to CPUs (particularly these days), though it remains to be seen how much stock of the 3500X will be floating around.
- Intel vs AMD: which is best?
