Part Recommendations

[BigAl01]

I personally bought the 5600X3D from Micro Center last fall and it's a great CPU for gaming.  I am very happy with it.  Now, if you're not near a Micro Center, you should be able to get the 5500X3D and up your game on an AM4 gaming computer!

AMD might be dropping a V-Cache CPU into the "budget gamer" market for AM4 motherboards soon.

Details:

AMD is quickly earning the reputation of a company that launches a new CPU socket, then looks at its previous socket and declares, "I wish I knew how to quit you." The company is amazingly still launching new CPUs for its previous AM4 socket here in 2024, but its most recent AM4 CPUs were Zen 4 chips. Now, the company is reportedly planning a new Zen 3 CPU with V-Cache, which is a surprising development because Zen 3 launched in 2020. If it comes to market, it will be the most affordable V-Cache CPU yet.

A new listing has appeared on the website for the European Economic Community (EEC) that shows a previously unknown AMD CPU called the Ryzen 5 5500X3D. The mysterious CPU is listed among other AMD CPUs that we already know about, such as the incoming Ryzen 9 9950X and 9900X. It seems to indicate that this CPU does exist and will be a true budget V-Cache offering from AMD for folks still using an AM4 motherboard.

Before this CPU appeared out of the ether, the company launched a similar Zen 3 V-Cache CPU in 2023 with the Ryzen 5 5600X3D, but it was a Micro Center exclusive. That was a six-core CPU that is still hard to find, so it's expected the 5500X3D will offer similar specs but have general retail availability like its predecessors.

According to Wccftech, the only difference between the 5600X3D and the newer 5500X3D will be slightly lower clock speeds. The site is reporting both chips are six-core, 12-thread CPUs, with the 5500X3D featuring a 300Mhz lower base clock (3.3GHz vs. 3GHz) and a 400MHz lower boost clock (4.4GHz vs. 4Ghz). Both CPUs feature a 105W TDP and 64MB of L3 cache to boost gaming performance in titles that can take advantage of it. With the 5600X3D selling for $199 at Micro Center, it's expected the 5500X3D will sell for $149, making it an excellent value for gamers on a strict budget.

[cpurpe91]

I might have to recommend this to my brother in law. He has my old 2600X.

[BigAl01]

As long as his motherboard has a BIOS update that supports the 5000 series, I would tell him to go for it.

[cpurpe91]

I might do that. I just hope the Wraith cooler from my 2600X is enough. 

[GreatnessRD]

If the price is right, I'll definitely look into this to upgrade the 3700x in my living room PC. My father's PC is in dire need of upgrading. (Shoutout to the FX series though!)

[FunkZ]

Not worth the downgrade in core count and frequency from my 5700X to a 5500X3D but for those upgrading from a 2000 or 3000 series Ryzen processor it's a viable option.

Crazy that AMD is still releasing 5000 series processors while at the same time trying to convince us the upgrade from 7000 series to 9000 series is worth it.