AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Review: Why Is This Amazon's Best Selling CPU?
by Dr. Ian Cutress on May 18, 2020 9:00 AM ESTAMD Ryzen 5 3600 Conclusion
One of the major factors going into this review was the fact that the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 sits on top of the Amazon Best Sellers list in the US. Just to give you a sense of scale, here are the top 10 lists for each of the major Amazon regions:
Amazon CPU Best Sellers | ||||
AnandTech | US .com |
UK .co.uk |
EU .de |
AU .com.au |
#1 | Ryzen 5 3600 | Ryzen 5 3600 | Ryzen 5 3600 | Ryzen 7 3700X |
#2 | Ryzen 7 3700X | Ryzen 5 2600 | Ryzen 7 3700X | Ryzen 9 3900X |
#3 | Ryzen 5 3600X | Ryzen 7 3700X | Ryzen 5 2600 | Ryzen 5 3600 |
#4 | Ryzen 9 3900X | Ryzen 5 3600X | Ryzen 9 3900X | Ryzen 3 3200G |
#5 | Ryzen 3 3200G | Ryzen 9 3900X | Core i7-9700K | USB-C Hub |
#6 | Ryzen 5 2600 | Ryzen 7 3800X | Core i5-9600K | Pentium G4560 |
#7 | Core i7-9700K | Core i7-9700K | Ryzen 7 3800X | Pentium G5400 |
#8 | Core i5-9600K | Ryzen 3 3200G | CPU Cooler | Ryzen 5 2600 |
#9 | Ryzen 7 3800X | Ryzen 7 2700X | Ryzen 5 3600X | Ryzen 7 2700X |
#10 | Core i9-9900K | Core i5-9600K | Core i3-9100F | Ryzen 3 1200 |
As we can see, the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 comes #1 in the US, the UK, in Germany/EU, and third in Australia. In Australia the 3700X takes the top spot, and a USB-C hub takes the fifth spot. The highest spot on these charts for Intel is 5th in the European chart, and on three of the charts the top selling Intel processor is the i7-9700K.
It is worth noting here that these best seller charts don’t always tell the whole story. Sometimes some third party sellers post their hardware as completely new listings, which screws up the system, and it doesn’t take into account any pre-built machines or sales outside of Amazon. Where AMD’s Ryzen 5 3600 is the choice for system builders at home, businesses requiring pre-built systems is obviously a separate story.
We had earmarked the Core i5-9400F as the main competitor to the Ryzen 5 3600 due to the price banding, but none of the i5-9400F-like processors are even shown in the top 10, indicating just how popular the Ryzen 5 3600 is. Of course, with the Core i5-10500 on its way to be the main competition here, it will be interesting to see if it lands on this chart at all – not only for it to be competitive but for Intel to put enough stock into the market.
Having another flick through our benchmarks, it is clear why the Ryzen 5 3600 is a popular choice. It’s a great all-round chip that hits high marks in practically every benchmark, and can keep up with games at either low resolutions or high resolutions. Against some of the quad-core AMD parts it might be lacking a bit in single threaded performance, but that is part of the trade-off: having 6 cores and 12 threads helps everywhere where there is a threaded workload, such as transcoding or complex workflow. Compared to the similarly priced Intel chips, it’s not much of a contest.
The only critical element right now surrounding the Ryzen 5 3600 is the motherboard situation, and how users want to perceive their upgrade strategy. If the goal is to move up to a Ryzen 4000 CPU sometime next year, then users will either have to buy an expensive X570 motherboard or wait until the B550 motherboards come to market at some point in the future (date for on-shelf retail still not announced).
If users want a system today, then the B450 and X470 options are still available, and there is an upgrade path to the Ryzen 9 3950X. Moving from 6 cores to 16 cores isn’t anything to be sniffed at. Either that, or sell the motherboard and CPU as a combination when it is time to upgrade to Ryzen 4000.
There is no official word on Ryzen 4000 / Zen 3 launch yet. AMD has only said ‘Zen 3 by the end of the year’, which could be interpreted in a lot of ways. This means any Ryzen 5 3600 system built today is going to last for a long while to come.
114 Comments
View All Comments
Meteor2 - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
What a great site, thank you for posting it!tommythorn - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
Typo: ">>Unfortuantely<< AMD has stated ...""once in a while, a truly great CPU" The 300 (but really, 450) MHz Celeron C300 II was such a processor. It was a kludge (desperate to compete with AMD, Intel rushed out a chip that was essentially a P-II but much cheaper). It ended up being an amazing value and with a few hacks even become the introduction to SMP for many.
catavalon21 - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
I remember it well. Crazy to get a 50% overclock, but almost everyone's 300A would hit, and keep, 450.MDD1963 - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
The famous Celeron 300A@464 MHz for $79 was quite popular, and, gamed as well as the $450 PII-450...Spunjji - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link
Funny how Intel's best price/performance moments tend to be knee-jerk responses to AMD :DToTTenTranz - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
Does the USB-C Hub support AVX2?1_rick - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
I'm not sure. Do the chickens have large talons?mikato - Sunday, May 24, 2020 - link
Really, is that the only USB hub on sale in Australia to rank that high?yeeeeman - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
Cheap price and good performance. That is why.Flunk - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
$200 is the prime price for people building a fairly powerful computer, but with a budget. 3600 pairs well with pretty much any video card for gaming and is pretty powerful for anything else. Intel competition at this price point is weak, at least until Apollo Lake. 3600 is a obvious recommendation.