AMD released several new Ryzen processors in early spring, but we only now found the time to test them. In this review, we're looking at the Ryzen 5 5600, which is now the most affordable Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 processor from AMD. But wait, how about the Ryzen 5 5500 and 5600G, which are more affordable? That's correct, but those are based on the monolithic APU silicon called "Cezanne," which has a smaller L3 cache and only supports PCI-Express 3.0. While both are certainly decent processors, you really want the "Vermeer" chip design, especially for gaming with a discrete graphics card. Vermeer is what powers all the Ryzen 5800 and 5900 processors.

Compared to the Ryzen 5 5600X, the Ryzen 5 5600 is very similar. It has the same chip design, same cache size, same number of cores and threads, and supports DDR4 on Socket AM4, with PCI-Express 4.0 and a 65 W TDP. The only difference is that 5600 non-X is clocked at 3.5 GHz base and 4.4 GHz boost, whereas the Ryzen 5600X is clocked at 3.7 GHz base and 4.6 GHz boost. Finally, there's the price difference, of course. The 5600X costs $200 while the 5600 only costs $180—not a huge difference, that is still roughly 10%.

Averaged over our whole application test suite, we find the Ryzen 5 5600X only 2.2% faster than the 5600, a difference you'd never notice in real life. Compared to Intel's Core i5-12400F, which is the 5600's strongest competitor and probably why AMD released the 5600 in the first place, we're seeing the Intel processor slightly ahead by 0.9%—guess we could call it "even." The Ryzen 7 5800X is 23% faster and the 5800X3D 20% ahead, both at much higher pricing, of course. From the Intel camp, the 12600K is 19% faster, yet 43% more expensive. While not included in this review, the uplifts to 1st gen Ryzen processors are pretty impressive: 33% over Ryzen 7 1800X, the flagship at that time, 50% faster than Ryzen 7 1700, 70% faster than Ryzen 5 1600, and more than twice as fast as Ryzen 5 1500X and below.

Thanks to the amazing power of Zen 3 paired with the large L3 cache of "Vermeer," gaming performance is great, too. At 1080p, the Ryzen 5 5600 is able to match the Core i5-12400F, beating the Ryzen 3 3900X by 13%. The Ryzen 5 5600X is only 2.1% faster—almost exactly the same number as in application performance tests. Even processors like the mighty Ryzen 5800X and 5900X are only 5% faster. On the Intel side, all 10th and 11th gen processors, even the most high-end ones, are only a few percentage points faster. The best Intel CPUs on their new Alder Lake platform can beat the Ryzen 5 5600 by 9 to 15%, at higher cost. AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X is 14% faster, at 250% the price. As always, as you dial up the resolution, the bottleneck shifts from the CPU to the GPU, which means differences are getting smaller and smaller. At 4K, differences are so small Ryzen 5 5600 will be a great choice because its low cost frees up budget that can go towards a faster graphics card, which will net you bigger FPS gains overall.

Just like other Ryzen 5000 processors, the Ryzen 5 5600 is very energy efficient, beating every single Intel CPU in single-threaded efficiency. In multi-threaded performance, only the Core i5-12400F and 12600K are a tiny bit more efficient. On the AMD side, the Ryzen 5 5600X is a bit more efficient, probably due to better binning of the silicon. Power supply requirements are minimal; except for gaming, we always measured less than 150 W overall system power draw. When gaming with a RTX 3080, you're looking at around 515 W, which is pretty nice considering the graphics card is responsible for around 350 W of that.

While Intel has a long history of locking features on lower-end models and requiring the "K" suffix for overclocking, AMD doesn't do such a thing. The Ryzen 5 5600 behaves exactly like a Ryzen 5 5600X when it comes to overclocking even though it lacks the "X." You can freely adjust the CPU multiplier, overclock as far as the silicon goes, try any DDR4 memory speed, and change the voltages. Manual overclocking yielded an all-core overclock of 4.6 GHz, which is a little bit higher than the maximum boost of 4.4 GHz. This comes at the cost of significant power increases. The better way to overclock is using Precision Boost Overclock (PBO). We did a full test run at "PBO Enabled, All limits removed, Overdrive Scalar x10, Max Boost Override +200 MHz, Curve Optimizer off." Activating this takes like 3 minutes and is guaranteed to give you a stable system. We gained 2% in applications and games without any meaningful increase in power consumption or heat. If you want to go beyond that you can use Curve Optimizer to further tweak things, but that's a bit more time consuming.

Priced at $180, the Ryzen 5 5600 "feels" only marginally cheaper than the 5600X, which costs $200. That's also why a lot of people are ignoring the 5600 with a big yawn—I felt the same way before this review, but the numbers speak for the 5600. The 5600X is 2% faster but costs 10% more. Of course, $15 is close to nothing, and the "X" suffix is tempting, but as mentioned before, it doesn't do anything for you—the 5600 non-X behaves exactly the same as the 5600X, it just runs slightly lower clocks. I'm not sure if some small silicon quality differences would be worth the cost increase for me. I usually lose the silicon lottery anyway. What could be something is that the 5600X might retain a higher resale value because other people could be willing to pay more for the "X" when you sell it at some point in the future.

While all the hype is about AMD Socket AM5 and Zen 4 right now, which are releasing this year, certainly with amazing performance and interesting new features, AMD confirmed that AM4 will not be abandoned. Since Socket AM5 uses DDR5 exclusively, which is more expensive than DDR4, I feel like AM4 will become the price/performance option in AMD's lineup for at least one or two more years.

Compared to Intel's Core i5-12400F offering, the Ryzen 5 5600 is slightly more expensive, but generally makes up for that with lower platform cost. It makes little sense to pair the 5600 with an X570 motherboard (we did so to keep a level playing field for the reviews), as a B550 motherboard won't be any slower, and you'll save around $50. Where the Ryzen 5 5600 shines even more is as an upgrade for older Ryzen systems. AMD recently released BIOS updates with support for Zen 3 for all older Socket AM4 motherboards. This means your 1st gen Ryzen system can be upgraded to a great gaming machine—just update the BIOS, plop in the Ryzen 5 5600, and you're done.