AMD Ryzen 5 5600 Review - Fantastic Choice for Upgrades from Older Ryzens

W1zzard

on Jun 17th, 2022,

in Processors.

Manufacturer: AMD

(78 Comments) »

Introduction

We have with us the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 "Zen 3" 6-core/12-thread desktop processor. The 5600 is a surprisingly late addition to the company's desktop processor lineup given its predecessors, the Ryzen 5 3600, 2600, and 1600, were the SKUs that sold the most volumes and made the Ryzen 5 brand popular with gamers, as they gave you a 6-core/12-thread processor at typically $199. AMD's "Zen 3" based Ryzen 5 series has had a strange journey to the sub-$200 segment.

It started out as a premium brand with the Ryzen 5 5600X, which launched at $299 in November 2020, with no successor to the popular 3600 (non-X). In Summer 2021, AMD launched the 5700G and 5600G APUs, claiming they succeed the 3700X and 3600 respectively. It's only ten months later that the company got around to launching the 5600 (non-X, non-G).

The Ryzen 5 5600 is based on the same "Vermeer" multi-chip module as the 5600X, which makes it better endowed than the 5600G even though it lacks integrated graphics. The "Zen 3" CCD (chiplet) comes with six out of eight CPU cores enabled, which share the full 32 MB L3 cache available; unlike the 5600G, which is based on the "Cezanne" monolithic silicon with just 16 MB of on-die L3 cache. Also, the Ryzen 5600 features PCI-Express Gen 4 support for the x16 graphics and a CPU-attached M.2 NVMe slot, while "Cezanne" is limited to PCIe Gen 3.

The Ryzen 5 5600 comes with clock speeds of 3.50 GHz base and 4.40 GHz boost, compared to the 3.70 GHz base and 4.60 GHz boost frequencies of the 5600X, so you lose 200 MHz on average. Much like the 5600X, its TDP is rated at 65 W, and you get a cooling solution in the box, like the 5600X and 12400F and unlike the higher-end Zen 3 processors. AMD launched the Ryzen 5 5600 at $199—the historic USP of the 3600 and 2600, which made them sell like hot-cakes. At this time, the Ryzen 5 5600 retails for $180, probably due to serious competition from Intel's 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" processors, which has caused the 5600X to drop in price to only $200 right now. Competition from the Intel lineup comes from the Core i5-12400F and i5-12500.

Ryzen 5 5600 Market Segment Analysis
	Price	Cores / Threads	Base Clock	Max. Boost	L3 Cache	TDP	Architecture	Process	Socket
Ryzen 3 3300X	$240	4 / 8	3.8 GHz	4.3 GHz	16 MB	65 W	Zen 2	7 nm	AM4
Core i3-10300	$175	4 / 8	3.7 GHz	4.4 GHz	8 MB	65 W	Comet Lake	14 nm	LGA 1200
Core i3-12300	$155	4 / 8	3.5 GHz	4.4 GHz	12 MB	60 W	Alder Lake	10 nm	LGA 1700
Core i5-9400F	$145	6 / 6	2.9 GHz	4.1 GHz	9 MB	65 W	Coffee Lake	14 nm	LGA 1151
Core i5-10400F	$125	6 / 12	2.9 GHz	4.3 GHz	12 MB	65 W	Comet Lake	14 nm	LGA 1200
Core i5-11400F	$150	6 / 12	2.6 GHz	4.4 GHz	12 MB	65 W	Rocket Lake	14 nm	LGA 1200
Core i5-12400F	$170	6 / 12	2.5 GHz	4.4 GHz	18 MB	65 W	Alder Lake	10 nm	LGA 1700
Core i5-10500	$205	6 / 12	3.1 GHz	4.5 GHz	12 MB	65 W	Comet Lake	14 nm	LGA 1200
Ryzen 5 3600	$230	6 / 12	3.6 GHz	4.2 GHz	32 MB	65 W	Zen 2	7 nm	AM4
Core i5-9600K	$220	6 / 6	3.7 GHz	4.6 GHz	9 MB	95 W	Coffee Lake	14 nm	LGA 1151
Core i5-10600K	$205	6 / 12	4.1 GHz	4.8 GHz	12 MB	125 W	Comet Lake	14 nm	LGA 1200
Core i5-11600K	$215	6 / 12	3.9 GHz	4.9 GHz	12 MB	125 W	Rocket Lake	14 nm	LGA 1200
Ryzen 5 3600X	$210	6 / 12	3.8 GHz	4.4 GHz	32 MB	95 W	Zen 2	7 nm	AM4
Ryzen 5 5600	$180	6 / 12	3.5 GHz	4.4 GHz	32 MB	65 W	Zen 3	7 nm	AM4
Ryzen 5 5600G	$180	6 / 12	3.9 GHz	4.4 GHz	16 MB	65 W	Zen 3 + Vega	7 nm	AM4
Ryzen 5 5600X	$200	6 / 12	3.7 GHz	4.6 GHz	32 MB	65 W	Zen 3	7 nm	AM4
Core i5-12600	$240	6 / 12	3.3 GHz	4.8 GHz	18 MB	65 W	Alder Lake	10 nm	LGA 1700
Core i5-12600K	$265	6+4 / 16	3.7 / 2.8 GHz	4.9 / 3.6 GHz	20 MB	125 W	Alder Lake	10 nm	LGA 1700
Core i7-9700K	$310	8 / 8	3.6 GHz	4.9 GHz	12 MB	95 W	Coffee Lake	14 nm	LGA 1151
Core i7-10700K	$325	8 / 16	3.8 GHz	5.1 GHz	16 MB	125 W	Comet Lake	14 nm	LGA 1200
Core i7-11700K	$300	8 / 16	3.6 GHz	5.0 GHz	16 MB	125 W	Rocket Lake	14 nm	LGA 1200
Ryzen 7 3700X	$290	8 / 16	3.6 GHz	4.4 GHz	32 MB	65 W	Zen 2	7 nm	AM4
Ryzen 7 5700G	$280	8 / 16	3.8 GHz	4.6 GHz	16 MB	65 W	Zen 3 + Vega	7 nm	AM4
Core i7-12700K	$395	8+4 / 20	3.6 / 2.7 GHz	5.0 / 3.8 GHz	25 MB	125 W	Alder Lake	10 nm	LGA 1700

Unboxing and Photography

The Ryzen 5 5600 comes in a compact paperboard box featuring the same brushed metal look we saw on other Ryzen 5000 processors. A small cutout on the side shows the actual processor inside the package.

Unlike many other Zen 3 processors, the Ryzen 5 5600 includes a heatsink in the box. The Wraith Stealth cooling solution is suitable for the 65 W TDP of the Ryzen 5 5600.

The processor looks like any conventional AMD CPU with a large IHS dominating the top and a 1,331-pin micro-PGA as the bottom. The whole processor die is made in Taiwan at TSMC.

The Ryzen 5 5600 uses the same Socket AM4 as other Ryzens, so there's a huge selection of compatible coolers.

Test Setup

All applications, games, and processors are tested with the drivers and hardware listed below—no performance results were recycled between test systems.
All games and applications are tested using the same version.
All games are set to their highest quality setting unless indicated otherwise.

Test System "Zen 3"
Processor:	All AMD Ryzen 5000
Motherboard:	MSI MPG X570 Gaming Plus BIOS 7C37vAG2, AGESA 1.2.0.6c (5600 & 5800X3D) BIOS 7C37vAF3, AGESA 1.2.0.3c (All other Zen 3)
Memory:	2x 16 GB DDR4-3600 16-20-20-34 1T Infinity Fabric @ 1800 MHz 1:1
Graphics:	EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra
Storage:	Neo Forza NFP065 1 TB M.2 NVMe SSD
Air Cooling:	Noctua NH-U14S
Water Cooling:	Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360 mm
Thermal Paste:	Arctic MX-5
Power Supply:	Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 1200 W
Software:	Windows 11 Professional 64-bit Build 10.0.22000.282 Includes AMD L3 latency fix Ryzen Chipset Drivers 4.03.03.431
Drivers:	NVIDIA GeForce 496.49 WHQL

Test System "Alder Lake"
Processor:	All Intel 12th Generation processors
Motherboard:	ASUS Z690 Maximus Hero / BIOS 0702 i9-12900KS: BIOS 1403 with 0x1F Microcode
Memory:	2x 16 GB G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB DDR5-6000 36-36-36-76 2T / Gear 2
All other specifications same as above

Test System "Rocket Lake"
Processor:	All Intel 11th Generation processors
Motherboard:	ASUS Z590 Maximus XIII Hero BIOS 1007
Memory:	2x 16 GB DDR4-3600 16-20-20-34 1T Gear 1
All other specifications same as above

Test System "Comet Lake"
Processor:	All Intel 10th Generation processors
Motherboard:	ASUS Z490 Maximus XII Extreme BIOS 2301
Memory:	2x 16 GB DDR4-3600 16-20-20-34 1T
All other specifications same as above

Super Pi

SuperPi is one of the most popular benchmarks with overclockers and tweakers. It has been used in world-record competitions since forever. It is a purely single-threaded CPU test that calculates Pi to a large number of digits—32 million for our testing. Released in 1995, it only supports x86 floating-point instructions and thus makes for a good test for single-threaded legacy application performance.

wPrime

While SuperPi focuses on calculating Pi, wPrime tackles another mathematical problem: finding prime numbers. It uses Newton's Method for that. One of the design goals for wPrime was to engineer it so that it can make the best use of all cores and threads available on a processor.

On Alder Lake, wPrime runs on the E-cores due to an issue with the scheduler/Thread Director. That's why the scores are so low.

Rendering — Cinebench

Cinebench is one of the most popular modern CPU benchmarks because it is built around the renderer of Maxon's Cinema 4D software. Both AMD and Intel have been showing this performance test at various public events, making it almost an industry standard. Using Cinebench R23, we test both single-threaded and multi-threaded performance.