AMD Refuses To Quit On Socket AM4 With Yet Aother Ryzen 5000 CPU Launch
AMD is writing the book on socket longevity and it's doing it with AM4, which is approaching a decade of service. Just when you thought we'd seen the last hurrah for the aging platform when AMD released a new Ryzen 5 5500X3D with 3D V-Cache earlier this summer, it's went and quietly launched yet another socket AM4 processor, the Ryzen 5 5600F. It's one of four new chip releases, and the only one of the bunch that is based on AMD's Zen 3 architecture.
Of course, socket AM4 predates Zen 3. AMD introduced the AM4 platform in September 2016 for its original Zen processors. Multiple chipsets have extended support to Zen+, Zen 2, and Zen 3 before AMD finally moved on to socket AM5 for Zen 4 and and Zen 5.
It's a little more nuanced than that, but chipsets aside, it's nice to see AMD embracing long life cycles for its CPU sockets.
That said, the Ryzen 5 5600F is not going to light the world on fire. It's a 6-core/12-thread chip with a 3GHz base clock, up to a 4GHz boost clock, 3MB of L2 cache, and 32MB of L3 cache. It also features a 65W TDP and, as denoted by the "F" designation in the model name, it lacks integrated graphics.
Most Ryzen 5000 series CPUs don't have integrated graphics anyway, save for its G-series APUs, so the "F" designation is a bit odd and/or redundant. The implication is that you need to add a discrete graphics card to the mix.
Here are the other CPUs that AMD quietly added to its portfolio...
- Ryzen 7 9700F (Zen 5): 8C/16T, 3.8GHz to 5.5GHz, 32MB L3 cache
- Ryzen 5 9500F (Zen 5): 6C/12T, 3.8GHz to 5GHz, 32MB L3 cache
- Ryzen 5 7400 (Zen 4): 6C/12T, 3.3GHz to 4.3GHz, 16MB L3 cache
All of the above CPUs have a 65W TDP. Each of the above are also socket AM5 processors. The Ryzen 5 9500F and Ryzen 5 7400 both come with a Wraith Stealth cooler, whereas the Ryzen 7 9700F requires that you add your own. Same goes for the Ryzen 5 9500F (as spotted by @momomo_us on X)—it doesn't ship with a cooler.
