Micro Center's Exclusive AMD Ryzen 5 7600X3D: Benchmarks and Breakdown

The brand-new AMD Ryzen 5 7600X3D is the latest AMD exclusive at Micro Center, following last year’s Ryzen 5 5600X3D.  Available for $299 (or as part of a discounted bundle with RAM and a motherboard), the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X3D is a solid choice for anyone looking to build a powerful gaming PC on a budget. 

AMD’s line of X3D chips are well known for their gaming prowess and the 7600X3D is primed to be the next big budget gaming processor. With six cores and twelve threads, the 7600X3D offers a base clock speed of 4.1GHz and a boost clock speed of 4.7GHz; just a scant .1GHz and .3GHz, respectively, slower than its more powerful counterpart, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. The 7600X3D is also far less power-hungry than the 7800X3D, with a TDP of only 65W.

The big feature, of course, is the 3D V-Cache technology, which makes use of vertical space to increase the capacity of the L3 cache to a massive 96MB. For on-board cache space, 96MB is a lot of processing power that’ll help increase frame rates across all genres of games. But how does it actually perform? We compared it to the 7800X3D (a chip that costs $150 more than the 7600X3D) to see how it stacks up.

Most of our tests show the 7600X3D putting out frame rates that fall within 5% of the 7800X3D. There are even two tests -- F1 23 1080p Ultra and Cyberpunk 2077 RT Ultra Preset -- where the 7600X3D outperforms the 7800X3D, though only by a small margin. When it comes to gaming, the 7600X3D is a more than capable CPU.

Photo: Micro Center/Kevin Liu 

Stark differences between the two processors only start appearing in tests that push thread counts. Mind, the 7800X3D features two additional cores and four additional threads, giving it a distinct advantage in these tests. 

If you are looking to pick up a new processor, make sure to consider everything you’ll be using it for. If you need a processor for high-intensity, CPU-bound applications, the 7800X3D is still the champ. But if you’re just looking for a gaming chip, the Ryzen 5 7600X3D is a great way to save money on your build. Money that could go towards an even more powerful graphics card?

The AMD Ryzen 7600X3D is on sale starting September 5 for $299 as a standalone chip, but it can be purchased as part of a discounted bundle that includes RAM and a motherboard. The chip will be available at all 28 Micro Center locations, including the recently opened Miami and Charlotte stores.

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