AMD Ryzen 5 5600X | $157 | Amazon
Alright, I’m going to give you a moment to wrap up your hooting and hollering and all the high fives after you read that headline before I continue on about the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X processor. I know you’ve been waiting with bated breath for it to finally beat the $157 sale, well, here it is folks! This 6-core, 12-thread processor has blasted past that price so hard you’ll be thankful for its Wraith Stealth Cooler because it shot down to—wait for it—$157. That’s right, the Ryzen 5 5600X is three dollars cheaper than it was last time it went on sale. Imagine what you could do with that three dollars! Ha ha, just kidding. Three dollars, in this economy? It costs four dollars just to pay for something with three dollars! Sometimes if you try to pay for something with three dollars, they call security and walk you out of the store for theft! Woof, what an inconsistent tone for an article, am I right?
Okay, enough lollygagging, let’s get down to business. So, first, this deal isn’t quite as good as it was just a few hours ago, when it was $260—apparently they decided that sale price was a little too good. As for the processor itself, the Ryzen 5 5600x was the darling of the mainstream when it released in 2020, and has continued to be a great choice for gamers looking for a great value when selecting a gaming card on more of a budget. It’s a 3.7GHz processor that boosts to 4.6GHz, and it sips power at 65 watts, making it significantly less power-hungry than others in its class. The 5600x is a little long in the tooth now, but still a good card, considering the similarly-to-cheaper-priced, more powerful Core i5 CPUs it finds itself in direct competition with since last year. According to Tom’s Hardware, it’s close enough in performance to those Intel CPUs that the type of game you play can still influence whether you want to choose AMD instead, so if you really want to make an informed choice, don’t listen to me, as I’m just a conduit for deals—they’re the real experts.
This deal was originally published by Wes Davis on 1/28/22 and updated with new information by Se Jeong Bae on 9/15/23.