Micro Center stores around the country are looking to get rid of their remaining AMD Ryzen 5 2600X stock. For a limited three-day sale, the retailer is selling the CPU for $79.99 for in-store purchases. This is a new all-time low, beating its previous lowest price of $120. If you can get to a Micro Center store (there are only 25 in the U.S.), you have a chance to snag one of the best tech deals ever.
Introduced in 2018, the Ryzen 5 2600X is a second-generation Ryzen desktop CPU that's based on AMD's Zen microarchitecture and GlobalFoundries' 12nm manufacturing process. The processor is packed with with six cores, 12 threads and 16MB of L3 cache.
The Ryzen 5 2600X arrives with a 3.6 GHz base clock and a respectable boost clock that tops out at 4.2 GHz. However, the Ryzen 5 2600X features an unlocked multiplier so there's headroom to squeeze even more performance out of the six-core chip. The processor fits into motherboards with AMD's AM4 CPU socket.
As far as other features go, the Ryzen 5 2600X comes with native support for dual-channel DDR4-2933 RAM kits and offers up to 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes for discrete graphics cards and four PCIe 3.0 lanes for NVMe storage.
The Ryzen 5 2600X has a 95W TDP (thermal design power). Therefore, you don't have to spend extra on a CPU cooler as AMD includes the Wraith Spire cooler with the processor. Still, we recommend investing in a decent aftermarket cooling solution if you plan to push the Ryzen 5 2600X to its limits.
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Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.
