As Prime Day comes to a close, the sale still has plenty of delectable deals to offer. Case in point, Amazon’s discounts have led to Ryzen 5 9600X not only hitting its lowest ever price, but actually proving more affordable than its predecessor. Now, there’s no other processor I’d recommend picking up for those looking for an inexpensive, high-value route to an AM5 system.
Ryzen 5 9600X
“Foundational microarchitecture grants Ryzen 5 9600X incredible efficiency, making it well-suited to gaming.” Read our review.
Amazon US is listing Ryzen 5 9600X for an extraordinarily low $156. That’s an enormous 44% ($123) off the processor’s list price. Meanwhile, Amazon UK has slashed the cost of the same chip to £161.99, making for a 35% (£88) saving. This is the most-affordable the CPU has ever been in either region.
Ryzen 5 9600X maintains traditional core and thread counts for AMD and this class of product, rocking six cores and 12 threads. However, thanks to the processor’s underlying Zen 5 architecture, both IPC (instructions per clock) and efficiency each receive a healthy boost which translate into welcome gen-on-gen performance.
As the Cinebench charts above illustrate, Ryzen 5 9600X handily pulls ahead of its forebear despite rocking the same core and thread configuration. Higher clock speeds are also playing their part, as frequencies rise to 5.4GHz.
You can expect such performance using the processor’s stock 65W TDP. However, post-launch, AMD has since made it possible to run Ryzen 5 9600X with a higher 105W power limit. More watts should translate to better overclocking headroom, providing you can temper the higher temperatures that come part and parcel.
Note that Ryzen 5 9600X doesn’t come with a stock cooler, like all X SKUs. Of course, if you already have an AM5 compatible solution then it’ll slip right on top of the CPU with no issue.
The only other point of preparation you should be aware of for Ryzen 5 9600X concerns motherboard compatibility. AMD 800 Series chipsets will work with the processor just fine, but older 600 Series models may require a BIOS update prior to installation.
Alongside Ryzen 5 9600X, we’ve highlighted many other Prime Day choice cuts. You’ll find them all by heading to our Deals section, but the Club386 Google News feed is another great way to catch up on all the team’s content.
