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.
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edzieba - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
The "faster ram" columns always get a good laugh: anyone here running their DIMMs and /not/ using the XMP profiles?WaltC - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
Right! What would be the point of that?...;) Intel isn't yet equal to AMD in architecture--still needs a bunch of vulnerability mitigation, and is still cranking out 14nm like there's no tomorrow...;) Intel's "high end" is in great demand, says Ian. Hmmm...I'll bet AMD's high end is even under higher demand--since Intel has very little if anything that can catch it. Zen 3 is going to fire another shot across Intel's bow...! Good times!PeachNCream - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
Yeah, but how many desktop CPUs are getting sold directly to consumers versus the numbers going into more portable form factors or to OEMs for mass market Optiplexes and ProDesks? Those admittedly yawn-fest systems are where the volume sales are landing, not here with Gamer Billy's RGB LED-sled full ATX tower where though there are higher margins on a per-unit basis, the numbers just aren't significant.Icehawk - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
Yeah, I’m not sure why they have a delusional disclaimer saying folks don’t use XML. Last time I checked this was a site for enthusiasts. Would really like them to test at stock and with a reasonable upgrade stick. A wider suite of benchmarks would be nice too.PeachNCream - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
While the 3600 is currently the best selling desktop CPU on Amazon and it is great to see a competitive CPU landscape right now, occupying that number 1 slot is not representative of the wider PC market as a whole. A vanishingly small number of people elect to operate a desktop PC of any sort these days and of those people the majority do not build their own systems from individual components. Most of the world uses a mobile phone or a laptop to accomplish day-to-day compute tasks and get whatever CPU happens to be included in that system. I'm happy to see 4000-series APUs becoming more available so there is competition FINALLY in the price segments that see large sales volumes. It would be great if Anandtech could get hands on more practical and common hardware that the average person puts to use so the next time I go out to grab a sub-$500 laptop, I know if the cooling is sufficient or if it has dual channel memory. Maybe find out if there is something quirky about the touchpad. I have to drop in at notebookcheck.net most of the time for information that is relevant to me and their reviews are not usually as complete at AT, but AT appears to be very much out of the mobile hardware review business except for halo gamer hardware that relevant to a pretty small audience.WaltC - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
Maybe it's just the difference in English, but why title the article "Why is the 3600 AMZN's best-selling CPU?" Almost sounds like Ian doesn't think it should be--but then the article itself corrects that misapprehension. Probably a better title would have been, "Here's why the 3600 is AMZN's best-selling CPU." Small change comment--nit picking, for sure...;) IMO, articles should never be titled as questions--a good article should inform, instead of leave unanswered questions. I was always taught that titling with questions instead of statements was second rate. A good article should include the answers--so instead of asking a question you let the reader know, "Herein lies the answer," etc.GreenReaper - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
It doesn't meet the expectation that any news piece titled with a question can be answered "no", either!Icehawk - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
One title is click bait, one is not. This is the world we live inflyingpants265 - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
Hello. 3600 is still too expensive. $290 CAD when I paid only $100 CAD for my used 2600. So for me to upgrade, I'd be paying an extra $200.1_rick - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
Comparing used prices to new isn't very useful.