AMD Ryzen 5 3600X 6-Core, 12-Thread Unlocked Desktop Processor with Wraith Spire Cooler

This CPU is amazing. It is great at everything. It can game, multitask, stream, productivity, and more. It’s priced good enough that even if you just want it for general computing it’s still great. This thing comes pushed to the limit straight out of the box pretty much. Traditionally I overclock every CPU I buy but with this one AMD have pretty much pushed them to the max for us. Which is great because it’s plug n play! Mine with PBO and Thermal Limits set to max stays around 4.250ghz on all cores gaming under full load with 1 of the 6 cores boosting to 4.35-4.15ghz. So in a game 5 cores will be at 4.250 ghz and one core will always be around 4.35-4.15ghz with that 1 core alternating so they take turns. This gives great ipc and single threaded performance as well as multithreaded. This gives high FPS in games due to the strong single core performance than a 4.3ghz all core overclock gets. You can basically set PBO to max and TBU to max and your motherboard and system will boost it as high as it can. It’s amazing it’s literally drop it in and your good to go this time around. No overclocking needed. I have this CPU in the Asus Prime X570-Pro motherboard if anyone was curious. It was 260 dollar board so it’s pretty nice imo. So your numbers may be different than mine. For cooling I’m using a simple Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo in Push/Pull with twin fans. Keeps my CPU in the mid 30sC idle, in the 50sC in gaming rather it’s an hour or all day long. Under Prime 95 stress test it topped out at 76C then dropped back to 74C and stayed there. For a 35 dollar cooler pretty insane. I have great case air flow so if you do not do not expect these results. The best way to get more performance from your Ryzen CPU since it’s basically pushed to the max out of the box is via memory. You can look it up if you wish. Memory speed significantly effects your cpus performance at least in gaming. It was shown going from 2666mhz to 3600mhz memory speed in games was giving huge FPS increases. In almost all games 10-20 FPS increase with some games increasing as much as 30-40fps. So if you buy a Ryzen CPU for the love of god buy 3600mhz memory with it. I have 32GB of G.Skill Ripjaws in mine all running at 3600mhz and that’s using all 4 dimm slots 4x8GB sticks in duel channel mode. Fast memory paired with this CPU in a good motherboard means you don’t have to overclock or touch anything this time around and you get amazing performance in all regards. I have my 3600x and 3600mhz memory paired with a RTX 2070 Super that is overclocked really well and I am playing any games I want at 1440P maxed out getting 100+ FPS in pretty much everything. If you want a nice CPU for gaming, streaming, content creation, or anything else well you’re looking at one. At this point in time the Ryzen 3600XT is out now which is basically this exact CPU except it runs around 4.6ghz in the boosting alternative core and probably around 4.4 on the other 5 core. So you gain roughly about 200mhz over this 3600x by going with the XT. Rather that’s worth it well that’s up to you. At most the difference in FPS between the two might be 5 FPS at max. So just get whichever is the best deal. Even the Ryzen 3600 non X or non XT does very very similar in performance to the X and XT and is 150 dollars right now. Everything I said pretty much applies to all 3 CPUs they are just an amazing gaming chip.

I will admit, I was hesitant to buy an AMD CPU. The benchmarks put it competing with Intel CPUs that cost nearly twice as much, so even though I've used Intel since my very first build I decided to try it out. And this CPU cannot be beat for the price. If you are planning on buying a CPU for a gaming rig, BUY THIS CPU. It blows the tits clean off any other Intel core at this price point, and every game I have thrown at it hits the 144 FPS mark. Before I upgraded (admittedly I was due for an upgrade, I'd been abusing the crap out of my i5 4690k with ridiculous overclocks) I had trouble reaching that 144fps on a couple games, namely warframe, GTA5, and Monster Hunter World. After this CPU, they all hit that cap across the board. Power consumption is relatively low for how much work it does, and the boost clock has run for about 2 weeks now without any instability or crashing. The only thing you should look at is buying a better heat sink. While the one they include is certainly better than any stock heat sink I've ever used, testing Monster Hunter World for an hour got the temps up to 78° at max with it installed, usually hovering around the high 60s. While that's still technically a safe temperature... it's still a bit high for my tastes, especially since I'm tired of constantly keeping an eye on coretemp. Plus, the fan isn't the quietest thing in the world, and the settings I used had the fan hit full power at 67° which meant it was almost always running at full whack. So I threw an old coolermaster on and the same tests maxed out at 69° averaging about 60°, which is much better. My mantra used to be Intel for CPUs and AMD for GPUs, but I'm an AMD man across the board now. I planned on buying the i9 9900k, but a friend told me to look into this CPU instead. I think I owe my friend a drink or two now since he saved me $200+! Bear in mind, the computer I use this on is used almost exclusively for gaming. The fact that this CPU is only 6 cores for a newer model makes me think it was specifically designed with gaming in mind. I cannot speak for other applications that are CPU intensive, especially those that benefit greatly from multiple cores. But for every current gen game, even crappy ports like Monster Hunter, this CPU is top-notch quality for a mainstream price.

I'm coming from an i7-4790K which I had set to a 4.6GHz all-core boost. This Ryzen chip gives me much smoother framerates in games, Windows boots faster, and the stock cooler is actually pretty solid. I have basically no complaints about the chip. If your primary use is games, then there's actually little reason to get the 8-core or 12-core versions. At $200 and $250, the 3600 and 3600X are fantastic values. You're getting really good performance at prices that Intel can't even get close to without losing its shirt. My problem is the older motherboards that are getting updated to recognize this new generation of AMD CPUs. In short, it's a crapshoot. If you're trying to save money by getting a B450 motherboard that can update, you may find it difficult for your PC to even boot. So if you do want one of these chips, I recommend going with an X570 board instead. Not only can they reliably boot, but you'll also be able to upgrade all the way to the 16-core chip without having to worry about your board overheating. Most of the older boards can't go that far. The thing is, the newer boards are not cheap. A solid choice like the ASUS X570-Plus or the Gigabyte Aorus Elite will cost you $200. A decent choice like the Gigabyte Gaming X or ASUS Prime X570-P will still cost you $170. That's quite a jump from the widely recommended MSI B450 Tomahawk that was recently going for about $100. That's the price difference between my 6-core 3600X CPU and the 8-core 3700X. You shouldn't have to sacrifice core count just to get a motherboard that works reliably. Alternatively, you can wait for MSI to release the "Max" versions of its older motherboards, which are claimed to be getting a few updates to their physical components to make them boot as reliably as the X570 boards. But there's no ETA on that, and no announced prices. So 5 stars for the CPUs, but 2 stars for how the motherboard makers have been handling them. AMD may also have waited a long time to send test chips to the makers, because they're notorious for leaking information to generate hype. Given how different these CPUs are from the previous gen, such a chain of events would explain the issues that we've been seeing.

It’s great for what those times were like, and it came without any issues.

Worked like a charm for 6 years, unfortunately, in the past year I noticed it was bottlenecking my GPU more and more, so had to change it, still got it stored away, it works perfectly, after all

I recently became bond to my chair, and was looking to replace an old Intel processor to occupy my days. About the same time I started looking for computer equipment, AMD announced their new lineup of CPU's. I admit, I was pretty excited, and made almost every mistake the YouTubers warned us to avoid. Let's just say that I was ready to build a new PC way before AMD was ready for me to build what I wanted. I generally build a new machine every 5 years, and that was my plan this year. But, to get to 5 years, I felt I needed an X570 mobo, a Ryzen 9 3900X, 16 gigs of fast Ram, three M.2 drives, and an RTX 2080TI. Reality set in when I could not find a Ryzen 9 3900X, and the price of an RTX 2080TI, damnnnnnn. So, I changed my direction, and went with a Ryzen 5 3600X and a Vega 56 (which I found new for $270 - PowerColor Red Dragon). My thought was I could start with the 3600X, and resell it when the 3900X's were readily available. I had heard a lot about the Vega 56 (most of the information was to stay away for the card), but I decided it would be as much fun to play around with the Vega 56 as it would be to game with it. I think I made a good decision. My 3600X clock speed is always over 4300+MHz, and usually bounces between 4366MHz and 4399MHz. I am using an AIO and run the pump at full speed most of the time. The Vega 56 has been a wonderful GPU. Ok, no ray tracing, but I personally find Global WattMan incredibly easy to use, and I have no problem keeping the clock speed at 1643MHz. I have not put the Vega 64 bios on my Vega 56 yet, but I plan to soon. I did save some money with my current build. But, I still hope my wife will get me a Ryzen 9 3900X (I have no interest in the 3950X) for Christmas. If that does not happen, I will stick with my current CPU, and wait for a RX 5800 XT or RX 5900 XT if they ever come out; otherwise, will wait for the next AM5/6 CPU's when they come out. I really like my rig (highly Frankenstein'd case, with a Gigabyte X570 Aorus Pro Wifi - you can read my mobo review - I like the card very much). The PC will certainly last for 5 years, but not with me. I expect that once an AMD GPU with ray tracing becomes available, I will pick one up and sell the Vega 56. I will also sell my 3600X in a couple of years. The 3600X will hold its value I expect. It is hard to go wrong with whatever you decide to buy. Dont over spend and have fun is my only advice. I may have over spent, but I had a heck of a lot of fun.

~4 stars, since its performance is so close to the 3600. Would be 5 stars if the difference with 3600 was under $20 or if it came bundled with a Wraith Prism cooler. Still waiting for my Xbox Pass after 2 weeks and several phone calls. May be a problem due to international shipping. Here's my experience with upgrading from a Ryzen 2600 with an Asus Strix B450. Quick take: Be ready to reset your CMOS on last-gen motherboards since any problem with memory, cpu fans, etc can result in total refusal to POST. Check your fabric speed to make sure it is matched 1:1 with your ram (fclk in BIOS). Overall, has taken a little more monkeying around than I expected, but still an exciting upgrade to my 2600. BIOS The BIOS on my Asus motherboard is pretty touchy about POSTing with the 3600x. It will often power on the components but stay stuck with the red standby light. This happens when I try to set the XMP profile for my RAM, overclock the RAM too aggressively, or have any problem with the CPU fans. If you run into this problem just reset the CMOS and try again. I was able to avoid the problem with XMP settings by just manually entering the RAM speed and timings, which work fine at XMP settings and even a little faster. I would start with the low auto memory settings for the first boot and then reset and readjust manually after it is booting smoothly. Make sure you double-check for newer BIOS, chipset drivers and windows updates before upgrading. I forgot to do this and had some instability while updating this stuff through Asus Grid. Infinity Fabric clock and RAM AMD recommends Ram at 3600 mhz because it will run 1:1 with the infinity fabric. In Ryzen Master this is called "coupled mode" under the memory settings. After I set my RAM to 3600mhz I the fabric clock did not couple automatically and was still running at 1600 . There is an option to couple in Ryzen Master, but it crashed. The solution is to manually set the fabric clock with the fClk setting in BIOS. The infinity fabric should be set at 1/2 the frequency of your ram (3600 RAM =1800 IF). This dropped memory latency in AIDA from 82 to about 72. I was able to further raise the fabric to 1833 coupled with the Ram at 3066, which may be the limit for my chip's fabric. With tightened timings my latency is about 69. Temperature, voltage, precision boost The idle voltage is quite high, bouncing around 4.2 to 4.5 and the idle temperatures are around 50-55. The cpu regularly hits 4400 mhz or just under on a single core at a time. Nzxt's CAM software isn't able to read the temperature so I set the pump and fan speeds to a fixed 100% for now. I may use the mbo AIO header to bypass CAM completely if there isn't a fix soon. I tried the "Gaming" preset in Ryzen Master and got a couple more points in the single thread score in Userbench. Precision Boost Overdrive and +200 mhz Auto Overclocking do not work through Ryzen Master but are possible to enable in the BIOS advanced settings. After quickly running a few benchmarks and games I haven't noticed any boost in performance or observed the processor ever surpassing 4400mhz. I'm not sure if this is a compatibility issue with the b450 mbo or just the limited overclocking ability of Ryzen 3000. Sytem: Ryzen 3600X (Upgraded from 2600) Asus B450-I Strix Gaming Viper RGB 3600 CL16 (2 x 8gb) 16-17-17-34 1.35v Zotac Amp RTX 2080 Kraken X42 (push-pull) Adata SX8200 Pro 1tb Define Nano S case (tested in a warm climate)

*** FIRST BUILD, COMPLETE SUCCESS, w/ ASUS PRIME x470 PRO MOBO*** ABSTRACT: Its alive! First hand qualified source CONFIRMING this AMD Ryzen 5 3600X 6-Core, 12-Thread Unlocked processor IS OUT OF THE BOX FULLY COMPATIBLE with the ASUS Prime x470 Pro motherboards having a bios number of 5204. NO OLDER PROCESSOR OR MOBO BIOS UPDATE REQUIRED. Details: So for my first ever attempt at a custom build, I decided to create a gaming computer for my nearly 11 year old son. Yes a gaming pc for a 5th grader, lol! So of cource clock speed and graphics capability were the most relevant aspects for prospective hardware. The sum total of which had to meet the requirements I imposed due to my sons age: Cost containmemt and long term viability. The respective parameters for which were ~$1000 budget (tower components only) and 5-6 year prospective upgradability and relative viability lifespan. Oh and the pesky little detail being that when the power switch is on pressing the power button actually makes the computer begin the boot process. However, COMPATIBILITY was the inherent OVERRIDING REQUIREMENT that concerned me the most. I quickly discovered the significant challenge posed to me, by using the most contemporary Hardware and desiring absolute confidence regarding integration and compatibility between all system components. I suspect this concern is not something unique to me or first time builders. Though its degree is likely relative to one's experience. None the less, there is a constant rule regardless of experience: the the amount of existing information about component integration is inversely proportional how recently it was released. More recent, less info. Less recent, more info. Something that a fairly intelligent mammal shoukd intuitively realize. Yet escaps me until this endeavor. Duh. But with the resesrch and 24 hours strait spent on assembling the parts, I achieved what I sought, (save the two hours of panick that occured subsequent the first time I pressed THE POWER BUTTON!!!) Just a loose connection. A good thing. Otherwise its likely Id have spent Christmas on a 3 day mandatory "BAKER HOLD" in a psych unit, lol! Components: Tower/Case- Corsair Carbide Series SPEC-DELTA RGB LIGHTED, 3 FRONT 1 REAR FAN, BLACK W CLEAR SIDE PANEL ATX ENCLOSURE SYSTEM COMPONENTS/GUTS- Ryzen 5 3600X 6-Core, 12-Thread Unlocked processor, YES "X". ASUS Prime x470 Pro motherboard with BIOS 5204 MSI GeForce GTX TI VENTUS XS OC EDITION 6G G6 DUAL FAN HDMI graphics card Samsung EVO Plus 500GB V-NAND SSD, NVMe M.2 Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200 MHz DDR4 8GB (x2); 16 GM total RAM Corsair CX550M MODULAR ATX POWER SUPPLY Peace