If you're working on a parts list for a budget PC build (opens in new tab), you might want to consider AMD's first-gen Ryzen 1500X CPU, as it is now available on Amazon for just $69 (opens in new tab). It's this CPU's lowest price yet and one of the best after-Christmas tech sales (opens in new tab) right now. It was about time too because according to PCPartPicker (opens in new tab), the chip was retailing for $145 up until today, which is far too expensive for what it is.
(opens in new tab)This is a quad-core (opens in new tab)chip, which could be considered low by today's standards but is perfectly adequate for entry-level gaming systems. Many games still can't use the heavy core counts of today's most powerful chips, and you'll still be dependent on your graphics card's (opens in new tab) performance capabilities anyway.
In our AMD Ryzen 5 1500X review (opens in new tab) in 2017, we noted that if you're willing to do some tuning you can get comparable performance to Intel Core i5 CPUs. We also praised how it performs with multi-threaded applications and its unlocked ratio multiplier.
The four CPU cores run at a 3.5 GHz clock speed (opens in new tab) and can boost up to 3.7 GHz, although with enough CPU cooling (opens in new tab) capacity the chip can boost further up to 3.9 GHz. The 1500X has a 65 TDP and comes with a free Wraith Spire cooler.
For other CPU recommendations, check out our Best CPUs (opens in new tab) ranking.
