Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsA Fine CPU - AMD Ryzen 5 5600G 6-Core 12-Thread Desktop Processor /w Radeon Graphics
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 5, 2021
Five Star Review of - AMD Ryzen 5 5600G 6-Core 12-Thread Desktop Processor with Radeon Graphics
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I was able to purchase the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G CPU on the first day it became available for sale on the amazon website, available for sale by amazon itself, at msrp pricing. Amazon delivered the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G overnight! I have been able to install the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G as soon as the processor arrived, putting it into a computer build I had ready to go for it. So far, I am quite satisfied with the performance to value proposition that the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G CPU provides, especially during the current discrete GPU shortage, and its related near total retail msrp price GPU unavailability crisis/catastrophe.
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This five star rating for the - 6 Core 12-Thread AMD Ryzen 5 5600G CPU - is based upon computing experiences within the first day or so of having it installed in a new computer build I had ready and waiting for this new purchase.
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I used the Asus BIOS flashback utility to prepare my Asus x570 motherboard with an updated Asus BIOS even before the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G CPU was delivered via Amazon Prime delivery. I'm running the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G on an Asus ROG Strix x570-e motherboard. Before CPU install and check out, I also performed a - clear CMOS - on the motherboard to be absolutely certain every uefi bios setting was at "stock"/"default". The only uefi bios settings I changed after that were adjustments in the bios to the case fan speed curves. After CPU install, using the latest version of the Asus Armoury Crate utility, with its dashboard information panel, it is possible to see the individual AMD Ryzen 5 5600G CPU core speeds fluctuate from 3553Mhz, to 3867Mhz, to as high as 4441Mhz, all while operating the CPU running at stock/default x570 chip motherboard settings (See attached screenshot). The default base clock for the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G is 3900mhz.
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I have not yet tried out any software applications the would demonstrate the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G CPU's performance boundaries, such as the Davinci Resolve video editor. However, applications such as Adobe Lightroom certainly are more than snappy enough, as are software utility tools like 7zip (note this is relative since 7zip has multi-core support with performance that scales with CPU core count). Other "every day" business/office applications exhibit quite crisp performance, with CPU loads that are downright negligible, between 1% and 5% according to HWINFO64 (See attached screenshot).
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The AMD Ryzen 5 5600G runs quite cool while engaged in business/workplace/office tasks, with its CPU temps varying from the low 30C range to temporary high temps of around 50C or so under load, also according to the stats maintained by the HWINFO64 software utility. It also seems useful to take note the cores in a Ryzen 5 5600G are the same as the cores in a Ryzen 9 5950X, which means that single core/thread software applications are likely to perform nearly as quickly on a Ryzen 5 5600G system they are on a 5950X, all other factors being equal. In this instance, the speed of the Ryzen 5 5600G is apparent, compared to previous generation AMD CPUs. From this perspective, the Ryzen 5 5600G seems to provide excellent value for money, IMO.
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The AMD Ryzen 5 5600G seems great as a business/workplace/office computer CPU, providing elevated performance for most business/workplace/office computing tasks, with the exception of CPU/GPU intensive computing tasks such as video editing, and large project computer program source code compilation (although compilation would only require more time). Surely video editing will be "possible", with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G, at least to 1080p, although render times using the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G integrated graphics are not going to be as speedy as is possible with additional cores and with a dedicated GPU card. Given the fact that dedicated GPUs are essentially unavailable at retail to civilian consumers at msrp at the moment, current circumstances necessitate getting by with less than totally "ideal" equipment. The AMD Ryzen 5 5600G CPU seems currently like one of the most viable stop gap measures. For everyday business/workplace/office computing, this processor is sure to provide an excellent balance between price and performance.
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I can only provide subjective observations about the integrated graphics performance. However, with a motherboard that has an onboard Displayport socket and a 1440p or 2160p display, it is clear that the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G CPU integrated graphics can drive 1440p or 2160p displays at 60hz and even 75hz easily.
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Note also that the integrated graphics in the Ryzen 5 5600G CPU behave differently from the integrated graphics in the older generation Ryzen 5 3400G. The Ryzen 3400G pre-allocates a fixed 2GB from system DRAM at startup for graphics, while the Ryzen 5 5600G uses share system DRAM dynamically as needed. From within the Windows 10 Settings application it is possible to see that Windows lists the maximum usable integrated graphics DRAM as 16GB on my system running 32GB of DRAM. It would be interesting to perform some tests to see how much system DRAM the 5600G is capable of sharing with lots of DRAM installed.
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As a side note about DRAM, the behavior of the way in Windows 10 allocates DRAM on a system with 32GB or more of DRAM versus 16GB of DRAM or less is very noticeable, with better performance on the higher DRAM system because Windows keeps the ratio between actual in use DRAM and the DRAM "commit charge" much lower. The Windows DRAM "commit charge" represents DRAM that Windows pages out to the system disc drive. A lower "commit charge" to "in use" DRAM memory ratio, closer to a 1 to 1 ratio, makes a system with more DRAM perform better. When the Ryzen 5 5600G is combined with a system drive, such as the PCIe 3.0 x 4 Crucial P5 nvme system SSD I'm using, and the 32GBs of DRAM I'm using, the performance results are noticeable.
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One of the important limitations of the Ryzen 5 5600G CPU that should be noted and highlighted is that the PCIe support on the AMD Ryzen 5x00G processors is only PCIe 3.0, in contrast to the AMD Ryzen 5x00x processors which provide PCIe 4.0 support for both the latest generation discrete GPUs and for PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD drives which can operate at up to 7000MBs. However, PCIe 3.0 NVME drives, such as the Crucial P5 that I am using provide quite adequate (up to 3500MBs), and notably helpful performance uplift. In fact, in my experience with every day computing, top quality NVMe SSDs that can maintain sustained write performance (with NVMe DRAM cache) dramatically increase the performance of many "every day" computing tasks.
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One of my personal criticisms of AMD CPUs is that they have a notoriously high failure rate. Anyone who researches information about AMD CPU failure rates online will discover a high percentage of AMD CPU failures not long after installation, even running entirely at "stock" settings, using "default" / "factory" uefi bios motherboard settings. It seems like every AMD CPU buyer ought to be prepared for this possibility. This is a significant consideration with AMD CPU products, that there is something about AMD CPU design that is very fragile, and prone to early failure. If your processor gets past the 3 or 4 month threshold, it probably won't fail, but up until that point, cross your fingers. We'll see how well the silicon I got holds up over time.
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Since amazon was able to make the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G available as a "sold by amazon, shipped by amazon" product on AMD's release date, I feel super lucky to have been able to so quickly get one of these CPUs for use in real world business/workplace/office and "home theater" oriented computing. Oddly amazon isn't showing this as a verified purchase review. However, the utility software screenshots I've included demonstrate that I'm indeed running this processor. Thankfully, it looks like AMD was able to produce adequate stock, with this product continuing to be able for order at msrp pricing (it looks like 3rd party seller scalpers have "gamed" the amazon price placement algorithm to get their scalper priced wares at the top even though amazon itself still has this cpu available at msrp if you look carefully).
