Ryzen 5 4500 6-Core, 12-Thread Unlocked Desktop Processor with Wraith Stealth Cooler

I can't believe the performance of this thing for $49. It pulls 36 watts so the included fan is plenty, which is amazing (most of my experience with AMD is pretty old, so I'm used to making the jokes about heat). This is the perfect processor for gaming at 1080p, pair it with an ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 and it beats the pants off the 5500 processor in most other motherboards. I don't know if this thing is a secret or what, although it's low adoption is likely due to the manufacturers being slow to optimize for this chip. It's optmized now, folks. Build your kid that cheap gaming computer with this and you won't be shorting them.

I found myself in need of upgrading a Core i5 2500K to allow my daughter to play Fortnite with my son and I. I paired this Ryzen 5 4500 with a Gigabyte B450M DS3H WIFI board and 16GB of TForce DDR4, and completed the build with an Antec 520W power supply, a 500GB SSD, and a Radeon RX 6600 that I had sitting in the parts bin. I already had Windows 11 installed on the drive and it booted right up. I installed the appropriate drivers and then used CPU-z to run a stress test. Under 100% load using the included Wraith Stealth cooler, the max temp I saw was 85C. Since I run a Ryzen 9 7900x on my main rig, I am more than comfortable with Ryzen's ability to handle heat, and 85C is perfectly acceptable in my book. Despite running hot, the fan was nice and quiet the entire time. This was under stock settings - no tuning to the fan curve. During the stress test, the max wattage use by the CPU was right around 58. Right now while idling it is pulling 10 watts and sitting at 40C. The only game I have installed right now is Fortnite. On Epic presets, 1080p, using the RX 6600, I was getting 40-55 FPS (which I consider perfectly playable on a budget-level system). On High presets I consistently pulled 60-70 FPS. I would get a little stuttering here and there, which I suspect is memory-bandwidth-related. In all fairness I haven't even opened the BIOS to tune any settings. GPU usage was at 100% and CPU was at maybe 75%-80%. I consider that a pretty efficient pairing, though you could possibly bump up to something like a 6750 XT to get a little more performance without the CPU becoming a bottleneck. In any case, this is sufficient performance for 1080p gaming on most modern titles running at higher settings (without raytracing of course). I'll be doing some additional benchmarks as I finish up the 100+GB downloads, and if there are any changes to my opinion I'll update this review. There are definitely faster processors, some of which don't cost a whole lot more than this. But since my goal was to build a viable system that paired well with my existing hardware, this really hit the sweet spot in terms of price and performance.

This review is a few years after using it. This thing is still running strong and I have had zero problems with it. I've been able to play any and all games without a "hitch" other then from the games that just aren't well optimized. It runs stable every time and the temps for it are always where they need to be. I have an NZXT Kraken AIO on it. Highly recommend this damn thing.

I mean it’ll do it’s job, only problem is that’s it’s a middle child of a series between the 3000 and the 5000 but ain’t bad

Works, I do have a complaint about the box having an extremely large amount of tape and the packaging from Amazon is lackluster. It runs at full speed gets 50fps on cyberpunk 2077 and it's in good condition and has great performance. And looks great. And the noise level from the fan are also relatively quiet.

Got a case and Gigabyte X579 Gaming X motherboard. Checked supported processors and the Ryzen 5 4500 was listed. It is not as good as the 5600 but real happy with performance. Requires a video card added to computer. Not a gaming computer so perfect at a great price.

The Ryzen 5 4500 is a solid budget/ mid-entry CPU. For what it costs, you get more than enough bang for many typical users. It delivers good multi-core performance, decent clocks, and comes with cooling. Just be aware of its architectural and feature limitations going

Been using it for flight sim and it’s good.