Intel's Core i5-9600K is cheaper than a Ryzen 5 3600X with this deal
Best Buy cuts $60 off
One big advantage AMD's latest Ryzen 3000-series CPUs had over Intel was lower prices for the performance they offered. But, this early Black Friday deal on Intel's Core i5-9600K brings the price of this capable mid-range CPU below the price of a Ryzen 5 3600X and slightly above the Ryzen 5 3600.
Intel Core i5-9600K: $279.99 $219.99 at Best Buy
The Core i5-9600K usually costs more than AMD's mid-range Ryzen chips, but this $60 discount turns up the competition between six-core CPUs.
The Intel Core i5-9600K is a six-core, six-thread CPU with plenty of performance for gamers to get behind. It offers a base clock frequency of 3.7GHz, but can boost up to 4.6GHz.
That's all just the starting point, though. For Intel chips, the "K" in the name indicates the model is unlocked for overclocking. It'll require proper cooling, and overclocking capabilities can vary from chip to chip, but it does offer the option to get more power. The Core i5-9600K already starts at a 95-watt TDP, though, so a strong coolor is a must for overclocking.
This deal, which cuts $60 off the price, helps bring the Core i5-9600K to a competitive level with AMD's offerings. Without the deal, AMD's Ryzen 5 3000-series chips offered lower prices while having the same number of cores, double the threads, more cache, a lower TDP, and a capable cooler included in the package. All that, and the Ryzen options had commendable performance that have made them a favorite of ours.
Intel chips have generally showed strong single-core performance, which can be valuable in gaming. And that remains true for the Intel Core i5-9600K, as our sister site Tom's Hardware saw in their Cinebench R15 benchmarks for their review. The single-core performance before any overclock edged out our own in-house results for the Ryzen 3600 and 3600X in the same benchmark.
At this price, it definitely makes the choice between Intel and AMD a lot tougher.
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Over the last several years, Mark has been tasked as a writer, an editor, and a manager, interacting with published content from all angles. He is intimately familiar with the editorial process from the inception of an article idea, through the iterative process, past publishing, and down the road into performance analysis.