AMD Spring CPU Refresh: Ryzen 7 5700X And An Affordable Ryzen 5 Trio Tested

Name: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X
Brand: AMD

by Marco Chiappetta — Monday, April 04, 2022, 11:59 AM EDT

Ryzen 7 5700X And Ryzen 5 4500, 5500, and 5600: AMD Expands Its Desktop CPU Line-Up

AMD has been riding high since the release of its first Ryzen 5000 Series desktop processors back in late in 2020. Although Intel recently shook things up in the enthusiast desktop processor space with its Alder Lake-based 12th Gen Core processors, the AMD Ryzen 5000 Series remains attractive up and down its stack. Still, save for some new APUs and PRO series parts, AMD hadn’t significantly refreshed its mainstream desktop processor line-up in over a year. So, with Intel’s 12th Gen processors out in the wild, it made sense for for the company to further flesh out its processors offerings on the desktop with an array of models that address a range of more affordable price points.

AMD officially announced the bulk of the new additions to its Ryzen 5000 and 4000 series a couple of weeks back, save for the upcoming Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which will be arriving in a few weeks. The processors we'll be showing you here today are more mainstream models that don't employ any new tech, like 3D V-Cache. Instead, these latest additions to the Ryzen 5000 and 4000 series have optimized core counts and frequencies, and are targeted at mainstream consumers.

First up, lets take a look at the newest Ryzen 5000 series processors...

At the top of the expanded stack is another 8-core/16-thread processor, the Ryzen 7 5700X. The Ryzen 7 5700X sports a 3.4GHz base clock, 4.6GHz max boost clock, 35MB of L2+L3 cache, and a 65W TDP. Pricing has been set at $299.

The other two are both 6-core/12-thread chips. They include the $199 Ryzen 5 5600 with a 3.5GHz base clock, 4.4GHz boost clock, 35MB of L2+L3 cache, and 65W TDP, and the $159 Ryzen 5 5500 with a 3.6GHz base clock, 4.2GHz boost clock, 19MB of L2+L3 cache, and the same 65W TDP.

With these new additions added to the family, here's what AMD's desktop Zen 3 lineup now looks like (note that AMD's slide above touts the combined L2 and L3 cache, whereas our rundown below sticks with the L3 cache allotment):

Ryzen 9 5950X: 16C/32T, 3.4GHz to 4.9GHz, 64MB L3 cache, 105W TDP
Ryzen 9 5900X: 12C/32T, 3.7GHz to 4.8GHz, 64MB L3 cache, 105W TDP
Ryzen 7 5800X3D (NEW): 8C/16T, 3.4GHz to 4.5GHz, 96MB L3 cache, 105W TDP
Ryzen 7 5800X: 8C/16T, 3.8GHz to 4.7GHz, 32MB L3 cache, 105W TDP
Ryzen 7 5700X (NEW): 8C/16T, 3.4GHz to 4.6GHz, 32MB L3 cache, 65W TDP
Ryzen 5 5600X: 6C/16T, 3.7GHz to 4.6GHz, 32MB L3 cache, 65W TDP
Ryzen 5 5600 (NEW): 6C/12T, 3.5GHz to 4.4GHz, 32MB L3 cache, 65W TDP
Ryzen 5 5500 (NEW): 6C/12T, 3.6GHz to 4.2GHz, 16MB L3 cache, 65W TDP
Ryzen 7 5700G: 8C/16T, 3.8GHz to 4.6GHz, 16MB L3 cache, 65W TDP
Ryzen 5 5600G: 6C/12T, 3.9GHz to 4.9GHz, 16MB L3 cache, 65W TDP

We'll have to see where actual street prices land once availability ramps up, but these are some interesting additions to AMD's Ryzen 5000 series which give system builders more options to balance their budget and performance considerations.

AMD is also expanding its Ryzen 4000 series with a couple of new CPU models, and an APU that DIY builders can now buy themselves (more on that in a moment). These are all based on AMD's previous generation Zen 2 architecture and carry relatively affordable price tags ranging from $99 to $154.

Starting at the top, the Ryzen 5 4600G is the sole APU of the bunch. It's a 6-core/12-thread processor with a 3.7GHz base clock, 4.2GHz boost clock, 11MB of L2+L3 cache, and a 65W TDP. While not listed, it features seven GPU cores clocked at up to 1.9GHz.

As for the regular processors, the Ryzen 5 4500 is a 6-core/12-thread part with a 3.6GHz base clock, 4.1GHz max boost clock, 11MB of L2+L3 cache, and 65W TPD. It carries a $129 MSRP. And then there's the Ryzen 3 4100, which is a 4-core/8-thread chip with a 3.8GHz base clock, 4GHz max boost clock, 6MB of L2+L3 cache, and 65W TDP, priced at $99.

The New AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Processors And Ryzen 5 4500

We've got four of the new chips on hand, the Zen 3-based Ryzen 5 5500 and 5600, the Ryzen 7 5700X and the Zen 2-based Ryzen 5 4500. Their branding tells much of the story and explain where each of the parts is positioned relative to existing processors, but we'll be putting them our gauntlet of benchmarks nonetheless.

AMD Ryzen 5 4500, 5500, 5600 and Ryzen 7 5700X CPU-Z Details

The CPU-Z screenshots above reveal a couple of interesting things. First are the obvious cache configuration differences between the AMD Ryzen 5 4500 and Ryzen 5000 series parts, which leverage a newer architecture with larger, unified L3 cache. But we should also point out that the Ryzen 5 5500 is based on AMD's Cezanne design, like the Ryzen 5000G series APUs, but with its iGPU disabled. The Ryzen 5 5600 and Ryzen 7 5700X are based on Vermeer, like the other standard Ryzen 5000 series desktop processors.