Matthew DeCarlo
Grab your wallet if you’ve been meaning to build a new budget gaming PC. Amazon and Newegg currently have the six-core Ryzen 5 2600 reduced all the way down to $119.99 and AMD will even throw in three free months of Xbox Game Pass for PC.
This is one of the best-selling chips in AMD’s Ryzen series and for a good reason: it launched in 2018 with a phenomenal value proposition for folks who are interested in playing games or getting work done on their PC. The Ryzen 5 2600 builds on the reputation established by AMD’s first-generation Ryzen 1600, which made a name for itself as the best value desktop processor for most system builders.
To avoid any confusion, note that the Ryzen 5 2600 is from 2018 and is not 2019’s Ryzen 5 3600, which brings additional performance and efficiency gains but is still going for around $200. The 2600 launched at that price and although it dropped to around $150 this summer, this is the cheapest we’ve seen the chip besides a super brief stint at $109 during the wild sales happening the last couple of weeks.
Along with having six cores, the Ryzen 5 2600 can handle 12 threads at once, making it all the better for those times when you have too many programs going at a time. Built on AMD’s 12 nm second-generation Zen+ architecture, the 2600 runs at 3.4 GHz with a maximum boost frequency of 3.9 GHz and it improves over the first-gen 1600 in performance, efficiency, and RAM frequency support.
The chip comes with AMD’s Wraith Stealth cooler at the sale price of $119.99, so you won’t even have to shop for a separate heatsink, though that might not be the worst idea if you plan to do heavy overclocking and want the best thermal performance possible.
Along with a cooler, Newegg and AMD will throw in three months of free access to Xbox Game Pass for PC, which normally costs $4.99 a month. This is a pretty sweet bonus when you consider the fact that you can play games like The Outer Worlds and Halo: Reach on Game Pass.
If you’re looking for a no-brainer budget AM4 motherboard to pair up with the Ryzen 5 2600 and you don’t need a full-size ATX solution, this Micro ATX ASRock B450M Steel Legend is only $79.99 ($69.99 if you can be bothered with a mail-in rebate) and it has a lot going for it.
For starters, reviewers praise the fact that the PCIe slots aren’t blocked by other components like you find with many smaller motherboards. Noteworthy features include support for USB Type-C as well as M.2 and Ultra M.2 devices, the capacitors and power phase components are of premium quality unlike many budget boards, and there’s even some RGB lighting if that’s your thing. It’s also ready for third-gen Ryzen chips in the event that you ever decide to upgrade.
