AMD Ryzen 5 9600 Looks Strong Compared To 9600X In Early Benchmarks

Ever since at least the Ryzen 3000 series, AMD's release schedule for its Ryzen desktop processors has been to launch the enthusiast-focused "X" processors first, followed by the very-slightly neutered "non-X" versions after. The standard model Ryzen chips usually differ from their "X"-branded brethren only in that they have a lower power limit and, accordingly, slightly lower clock rates, but this usually results in a minimal performance loss, and that seems to be the case with the upcoming Ryzen 5 9600.


We can say that because of this result for the processor in the Passmark database over at CPUBenchmark.net, which was spotted by "X86 is dead&back" on Xwitter. There's nothing surprising in the data, right down to the benchmark results; this CPU only differs from the Ryzen 5 9600X (which we tested last August) by 100 MHz of base clock and 200 MHz of boost clock, so the 3.2% single-threaded loss and 2.2% multi-threaded drop are right in line with expectations.

Even with those losses, it's still a monstrously fast CPU, at least in Passmark. Passmark's CPU tests are purely synthetic workloads that focus on testing CPU-bound compute with tasks like integer and floating-point math, prime number generation, vectorized instructions, compression, encryption, string sorting, and physics simulations. As a result, they don't necessarily translate well to real-world applications and particularly gaming, which is usually bound on memory latency even when "CPU-limited."


So saying, just as the Ryzen 5 5600 and Ryzen 5 7600 have been the budget gaming kings of their respective generations, the Ryzen 5 9600 looks like it will be the best value among the Ryzen 9000 CPUs—at least, if you can find one. Three months after appearing on AMD's website, the chip is still completely MIA at US e-tail. We asked AMD about this and were told unofficially that the chip was primarily intended for OEMs and system integrators to use in pre-builts, but that it does also exist in boxed form.

Where those boxed chips are is anyone's guess at this moment in time. A report from WCCFTech back in February noted that the chips had appeared in pre-release form (for about $20 less than a 9600X) at a couple of retailers across the Atlantic, but nothing has showed up on this side of the pond yet. Hopefully AMD can get these parts into the hands of gamers, because they could bring down the cost of entry for Zen 5 gaming machines thanks to the included cooler.