AMD RYZEN 5 3500X 6-Core 3.6 GHz (4.1 GHz Turbo) Socket AM4
AMD’s Ryzen 5 3500X, a processor that AMD designed specifically for the Chinese OEM and system integrator (SI) market, is for testing to determine if it can compete with the best CPUs for gaming or best CPUs for desktop applications. With six cores and threads, the Ryzen 5 3500X stands out among AMD’s third-gen Ryzen stack as the only model without simultaneous multithreading (SMT).
AMD’s third-gen Ryzen series has proven to be a potent force in the retail market with its healthy serving of cores and threads, and the modular design affords opportunities for specialized designs to tackle various market segments. That makes lopping off SMT an easy option to tackle Intel’s advantage in OEM markets, but pricing and access to integrated graphics are typically key to securing lucrative high-volume orders.
The AMD Ryzen 5 3500X comes without an integrated graphics engine, meaning its market is limited to systems with a discrete graphics card. That makes Intel’s new graphics-less F-series processors it’s a natural competitor. Even with a similar number of cores and threads, the AMD Ryzen 5 3500X offers better overall performance in both gaming and productivity apps than Intel’s Core i5-9400F. However, we could say the same about AMD’s other Ryzen 3000 series models that come with threading and offer a higher amount of performance. Unless you’re looking for a neat collector’s item, AMD’s existing retail chips, or the looming Ryzen 3 series processors, are almost certainly the better option.