If you’re out there building yourself your first gaming PC, let me just say it’s not as hard as it looks. Once you find all the parts you need for the budget you want to spend, it is just a matter of putting them all together. And there and plenty of YouTube videos that will show you exactly what to do if you are nervous on that front.
No, the hard part is actually that first bit—finding the parts your need for the budget you want to spend. There are a lot of options out there with hard-to-decipher specs if you’re not sure what you’re looking at. Well, maybe start by considering this. The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X 6-core processor is down 34% on Amazon, bringing it to just $185. That makes for nearly a $100 discount.
The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X processor came out just last year. It’s got decent performance. You shouldn’t have any trouble running most new releases without issue. Will you be playing the new Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 in 4K at ultra settings with 300 frames per second? No. But you should still be able to play the game without any issue with some minor tweaking. And if you’re mostly and indie gamer, you’ll unlikely feel any discernable difference.
Specs? Let’s Talk Specs
The CPU has a core count of six, a thread count of 12, and base clock frequency of 3.9 GHz. It’s unlocked for overclocking so you could feasibly boots it up to 5.4 GHz for even better performance in games and encoding high-resolution video for high-quality streams.
The main problem with the Ryzen 5 at launch was its price point, clocking in much slower than Intel options of its class. Well, with the near $100 discount, it’s now exactly where it should be.
You can also install the AMD Ryzen Master utility to get real time access to temperatures, fan speeds, memory timings, core voltage, and CPU frequencies. You can even set up different profiles that are easy to switch between and optimized for the task at hand.
And it wouldn’t be a tech product in 2025 without all the AI language all over its marketing material. This thing is “AI-ready” with “enhanced AI capabilities.” Woo!
When the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X processor first released, it was priced at $280. Right now, Amazon has it for just $185, so save 34% and build yourself a perfectly serviceable gaming PC today. I makes for a good budget option for your journey PC gaming build.
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