I'm putting together a gaming PC with a budget of around £500 and I'm deciding between the Ryzen 5 5500 and Ryzen 5 5600. The 5600 costs about £50 more. Is the performance increase worth that extra money, or would I see a bigger improvement by putting the £50 toward another component, such as the graphics card?
3 Answers
With a £500 gaming build, I’d generally save money on the CPU and put it toward the graphics card. A used Ryzen 5 3600 or Ryzen 5 5500 can handle gaming reasonably well, while a faster GPU will usually make a more noticeable difference to frame rates.
If the 5500 is already being bought used, there’s no need to switch to a used Ryzen 5 3600 unless it saves you a meaningful amount. The 3600 has more cache than the 5500, but it’s an older processor, so compare the prices and condition. In most budget builds, keep whichever CPU is cheaper and use the savings on the GPU.
The Ryzen 5 5600 is noticeably better for gaming than the 5500. It has twice the L3 cache and supports PCIe 4.0, whereas the 5500 is limited to PCIe 3.0. The 5600 is the better choice if you can afford it, especially if you plan to use a faster graphics card or NVMe SSD later.
I’d still prioritize the GPU in a £500 build unless you’re pairing it with a fairly powerful card or aiming for high refresh-rate gaming. The 5500 isn’t ideal, but the money may have more impact elsewhere.