AMD Ryzen 5 3600 is a mid-range processor for desktop powered by 6 cores and 12 thread processor with a base clock of 3.6 GHz and a boost clock of 4.2 GHz. Based on the Zen 2 microarchitecture is manufactured on a 7nm FinFET process by TSMC with two CCX-clusters and 12 nm (I/O die) at GLobalfoundries. According to AMD the TDP of the Ryzen 5 3600 is 65 Watt and comes packed with a Wraith Stealth cooling solution. Other Key features include dual-channel memory support of up to 3200 MHz and 24 PCIe Gen 4 lanes. Ryzen 5 3600 will work with even the most basic B350 motherboard that being said it may need a bios update. On the other hand, if you are building a new system, we recommend going for a B450 Motherboard. AMD’s AM4 platform promises backward compatibility so futureproofing the system.

Compared with its intel counterpart i5 9600 the Ryzen 5 3600 is not only cheaper but also comes with a CPU cooler. Perhaps this might be the reason why the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 even in early 2021 is one of the most popular CPUs out there which was released in July of 2019.

Wraith Stealth Cooler | Good Enough for Ryzen 5 3600.

Wraith Stealth cooler is sufficient for the 65-watt TDP of the AMD Ryzen 5 3600. However, there are better cooling solutions out there such as the DeepCool Gammaxx PBO which can give you a performance boost of up to 15 percent in games such as GTA V.

Architecture

3rd Gen AMD Ryzen processors are based on Zen 2 microarchitecture with the goal of finally beating Intel in terms of IPC (Instructions per clock/Performance at a given clock speed). Intel has dominated AMD for the past 15 years in IPC and AMD tried to compete by adding more cores to stay competitive in multi-threaded performance. As the industry moves towards softwares that can take advantage of a higher thread count with  Zen 2 AMD is claiming a 15% IPC gain finally catching up to Intel and even surpassing them in several workflows. Zen 2 cores have five key components:

• Fetch
• Decode
• Integer
• Floating-point
• load-store

Here Fetch and Decode tells CPU core what to do and what data/instructions are required. Integer and Floating-Point execute mathematical models of what needs to be done depending on the data types and type of instructions. Load-Store is the I/O of the CPU core.

This is a multi-chip module (MCM) on the Ryzen 5 3600 has one Zen 2 chiplet with 6 cores per CCX and one I/O controller die based on the 12 nm process by global foundries. The components here that can benefit from the smaller 7 nm process (CPU cores) are built on the new 7 nm TSMC process, while the components that do not benefit from the 7nm process will stay on the 12 nm process (I/O controller die).

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 has a dual-channel DDR4 memory controller with 24-lane PCI-Express Gen 4.0 root-complex, and an integrated southbridge that allows for some connectivity directly via the AM4 socket. Infinity Fabric interconnects the three dies with 100 GB/s of data path between each CPU chiplet and the I/O controller and with the memory clock de-coupled from the Infinity Fabric clock, improves memory overclocking capabilities.

Now let’s look at the cache hierarchy, the “Zen 2” cores have a 32 KB of 8-way L1I cache and a 32KB of 8-way L1D cache, and 512 KB of 8-way Level 2 cache. AMD did double its shared Level 3 cache to 16 MB. Each of its CCX (quad-core compute complex) now has 16 MB of shared Level 3 cache.

Performance | How is AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (Good or Bad)

When it comes to gaming Ryzen 5 3600 however if are building a system exclusively for gaming Intel core i5 10600K is a better option. However, if gaming is just a hobby for you and you are dealing with multithreaded workloads then AMD Ryzen 5 3600 is the better option.