Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days period may have passed, but in the UK you there’s still a limited-time offer that means you can pick up a 6-core AMD Ryzen 5 9600X CPU for just £139.99 at Amazon UK. That’s a cracking deal for this fully-fledged Zen 5 chip, which launched for £270 in August 2024.
AMD Ryzen 5 9600X
“Zen 5 is a foundational microarchitecture that’s adept at gaming.” Read our review.
Of course, this chip should never have been priced at £270 in the first place, and we said as much in our original 9600X review. However, steady price drops since launch have made this chip the top budget offering on our best CPU guide, and at £139.99 it now makes a great foundation for a budget gaming rig.
It might only have six cores, but that’s actually plenty for most people’s needs, particularly when it comes to games. Indeed, as you can see in the Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail graph below from our 9600X vs 14600K feature, AMD’s 6-core AMD chip is quicker than Intel’s 14-core one, especially at 1920×1080. The 14600K is quicker in heavily multi-threaded tests, naturally, but it’s also more expensive.
Importantly, unlike the 14600K, and the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus for that matter, the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X’s supporting platform still has plenty of life left in it. AMD has stuck with the same AM5 socket for its Zen 4 and Zen 5 lineups, and its forthcoming Zen 6 and even Zen 7 desktop CPUs look set to use it too.
You will, however, need some DDR5 memory to go with this CPU, which is a big stumbling block in today’s market. If you already have some DDR5 RAM, though, at this price, a Ryzen 5 9600X makes for a great route into AMD’s AM5 ecosystem.
Unlike its predecessor, the Ryzen 5 7600X, the new chip has a much lower thermal design power (TDP) of 65W, rather than 105W. This holds it back a little in heavily multi-threaded work, but has a minimal impact on games. Crucially, it means you can keep your 9600X’s temperature under control without needing a large AIO liquid cooling system. As you can see in the graph below, in our test rig setup, the 9600X ran a massive 22.8°C cooler than the 14600K under load.
This means you can easily get away with using a sub-£20 cooler, such as the Arctic Freezer 36-S, on top of a Ryzen 5 9600X, and still enjoy cool and quiet operation. You can check out our guide to buying the best CPU cooler if you’re looking for recommendations here.
Basically, if you want to build an AM5 PC on a tight budget, this Ryzen 5 9600X CPU deal offers a great starting point, as long as you have a way to get some DDR5 RAM for it. You’ll need to be quick, though. This deal ends on 10 October, or while promotional stock lasts.
