A few weeks ago, we saw that AMD was going to respond to the Core i3-12100F and the rest of Intel’s lower and midrange processors with the new Ryzen processors. based on Zen 3 architectureand also with some lower models that would be based on the Zen 2 architecture, such as the Ryzen 3 4100.

The Ryzen 5 5500 has proven to be an interesting option because it is a Zen 3 based processor that has 6 cores and 12 threads. However, in this chip, AMD used a different design than the Ryzen 5 5600, because although it has the same number of cores and threads as the one, is limited to 16 MB L3 cache, that is, it has only half the L3 cache. Obviously, this will affect his performance in applications that rely on him a lot, including games.

In Spain, Ryzen 5 5,500 has a price of 193.60 euros, which is a number that as a direct rival to the Intel Core i5-12400Fand this contrasts sharply with the Intel Core i3-12100F processor, which has only four cores and eight threads and costs 118.95 euros. It’s been a bit more expensive since I last looked, but it still offers a very good price / performance ratio, as we’ll see below.

Tom’s Hardware has published an analysis of where test Ryzen 5 5500and pits it against other midrange and lower class processors. The result is very interesting because The Intel Core i3-12100F works better in games than that processor, even though it has fewer cores and threads and costs much less money.

Intel Core i3-12100F shows Ryzen 5 5500: AMD needs to adjust prices

That a processor with four cores and eight threads, such as the Core i3-12100F, can outperform another with six cores and twelve threads he tells us many things. The first is that video games are still not well optimized to use high-core processors, the second is that they continue to favor IPC, and the third is that AMD has not been able to adjust the price of its Ryzen processors well.5000 after the arrival of Alder Lake-S.

If our intention is to play, it’s much smarter to buy a Core i3-12100F and pay almost 75 euros, which we will save connect a larger SSD or add more RAM. We could also directly decide to mount the Core i5-12400F, which costs one euro less than the Ryzen 5 5500 and has a slightly higher performance than the Ryzen 5 5600X. The Core i3-12100F has proven that 4-core and 8-threaded processors are not dead.

Relative game performance. Source: Tom’s Hardware.

I find it very curious what has happened since the arrival of Zen 3 in the general consumer market. AMD used its superiority to increase prices, and Intel knew how to use the skyline to prove to be an excellent price-performance choice. Now, with the advent of Alder Lake-S, it seems to me that AMD is trying to reduce prices as much as possible and that it is launching new processors that they will not find their place in the market in the end.

I know everyone will have their favorites in this regard, but the truth is objective facts do not allow discussion. You can’t sell a product that has lower performance than another, at a more expensive price, it doesn’t make any sense and that’s exactly what we’ve been seeing for some time after the arrival of Alder Lake-S. The competition is good for everyone, but only when the big ones accept reality and decide to shift prices to offer a more attractive value, and that doesn’t happen with the Ryzen 5000.