AMD launched its non-X Ryzen 5000 CPUs pretty late into the cycle. Many will argue that it was a delayed response to the budget Alder Lake offerings, and it probably was. Regardless, the Ryzen 5 5600, with its $199 price tag (now $150), is a solid option for gamers with 60Hz displays. It’s essentially a 5600X with slightly nerfed boost clocks and a 65W TDP, and as such, the gaming performance is largely identical. Let’s get to it.
Test Bench
- Motherboard: ASUS B550-F Gaming
- GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti OC
- Memory: DDR4-3600 CL16
- Games were tested at 1080p High/Very High
AMD Ryzen 5 5600 1080p Gaming Benchmarks
Kicking off the testing with Far Cry 6, we can see that the Ryzen 5 5600 and 5600X perform within a few percent of one another. The Intel Core i5-12400 is 5-6% faster than both while costing roughly the same, although a pricey platform upgrade may stand in the way.
Hitman 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 produce identical results, as the Core i5-12400 leads by a slim margin but roughly the same lows.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider favors the Core i5-12400 more than usual, as its lead over the Ryzen 5 5600 grows to 10%. This is offset by their showing in F1 2022, where all three SKUs perform nearly the same. Interestingly, the 5600X exhibits the best lows, followed by the 12400 and the 5600.
Overall, the Ryzen 5 5600 is a solid upgrade for someone running an older AM4 processor and a limited budget. Of course, we’d recommend going with the 5800X3D as it’s significantly faster and doesn’t require fast memory. Either way, the 5600 is a decent option for Ryzen 3000 users in the sub-$200 market.
