In a surprising turn of events, AMD has announced a new processor for its aging AM4 platform. The Ryzen 5 5600X3D brings the company’s to a six-core, 12-thread processor. Moreover, AMD plans to sell the CPU for a modest $229, but there’s a catch. The company will only offer the new processor through , a US retailer that, as , doesn’t ship most of what it sells to online shoppers. What’s more, stock of the 5600X3D will be limited, with sales of the CPU to end once Micro Center runs out of supplies.
All of that is a shame because the 5600X3D could be a great upgrade for those looking to extend the life of their AM4 motherboard and get a bit of extra gaming performance. Like the , the 5600X3D trades slower clock speeds and more power consumption for a 96MB L3 cache. With the 5800X3D, that’s a combination of features that makes for a processor that is slower at some tasks, but generally great for gaming. The expanded L3 cache frequently translates to less bottlenecking in games, meaning you can get the most performance possible from your GPU. Moreover, the fact that it’s an AM4 processor means you can save on a new build since you won’t need to go buy DDR5 RAM.
The 5600X3D will go on sale on July 7th.
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