(Image credit: Tom's Hardware / AMD)

AMD's nearly-forgotten refresh generation of Ryzen 5000 chips, called Ryzen 5000XT, is on a steep discount just before Prime Day ends. The Ryzen 9 5900XT is 38% off and is going for $218, the Ryzen 7 5800XT is 46% off, going for just $133. If you are looking for a CPU upgrade for your aging AM4 system, these CPUs represent some of the best non-gaming chips the AM4 platform is capable of running, and they're now cheaper than their standard "X" counterparts.

If you are willing to pay slightly more, Newegg has an even better deal on a Ryzen 7 5800XT combo featuring a free Team Group MP44L 1TB SSD. The whole package costs $159.

• Check out all the deals in Amazon's Prime Day Sale

The Ryzen 9 5900XT and Ryzen 7 5800XT are refreshed versions of AMD's Ryzen 5000 series CPUs, sporting better specs than their 5900X and 5800X counterparts. But they're largely overlooked because launch day pricing made the 5900XT and 5800XT very unattractive. Luckily, Prime Day discounts for both chips have completely changed that. Both CPUs are now cheaper than their already heavily discounted "X" series counterparts.

The Ryzen 9 5900XT is the most potent offering of the two, featuring a core count upgrade over the 5900X. The Ryzen 9 5900XT comes with 16 Zen 3 cores clocked at 3.3GHz base and 4.8GHz boost. The Ryzen 7 5800XT boasts the same eight Zen 3 cores as the 5800X, but features a slightly higher 4.8GHz boost clock. (The 5800X has a 4.7GHz boost clock.

Save $131

AMD Ryzen 9 5900XT: was $349 now $218 at Amazon

The Ryzen 9 5900XT is a 16-core Zen 3 processor that boosts up to 4.8GHz. It's 38% off for Prime Day performance equivalent to today's mid-range Ryzen 5, 7 and Core i5 chips for productivity.

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Save $116

AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT: was $249 now $133 at Amazon

The Ryzen 7 5800XT is a 8-core Zen 3 processor that boosts up to 4.8GHz. It's 46% off for Prime Day with gaming chops almost equivilant to AMD's Ryzen 5 7600X.

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Save 36%

AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT 3.8 GHz 8-Core Processor + Free 1TB SSD: was $249 now $159 at Newegg

The first component here is vital because, as you can see, it comes with a free 1TB SSD that will save us $57 on our build. The dynamite Ryzen 7 5800XT comes with 4.8GHz peak clock speeds and eight cores of Zen 3 power. The drive in question is a Team Group MP44L M2 NVME, which earned four stars in our review, where we called it "a budget drive done right." This CPU also comes with AMD's capable Wraith Prism cooler, saving us vital cents on our build. If you insist on a third-party cooler to keep things quieter, grab this $20 Thermalright Assassin Spirit that won't send us over the $800 mark.

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Zen 3 might be old, but it is still a capable architecture for mid-range and entry-level machines. The Ryzen 9 5900XT is virtually a clone of the Ryzen 9 5950X, albeit with a slightly slower stock speed. The 5900XT's base clock is noticeably worse than the 5950X's, but both chips boost to the same maximum turbo speed.

We didn't get a chance to review the Ryzen 9 5900XT or the Ryzen 7 5800XT, but the 5900XT will offer very similar performance to the 5950X, even in multi-threaded workloads. You can expect multi-core performance just shy of the Ryzen 9 7900X, and well above a Ryzen 7 9700X (AMD's latest 8-core chip). Based on our test results, the Ryzen 9 5950X performs about 7% worse than a Ryzen 9 7900X and is almost 13% faster than a Core i5-14600K in Cinebench R23's multi-core benchmark.

Gaming performance won't be as stellar for the Ryzen 9 5900XT and Ryzen 7 5800XT, with no 3D-VCache to back up either chip; these chips will have noticeably lower performance in games than the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, Ryzen 7 5700X3D, Ryzen 5 5600X3D, or Ryzen 5 5500X3D.

However, both CPUs can provide a good mid-range gaming experience with gaming performance approaching the Ryzen 5 7600X. The Ryzen 9 5900XT and Ryzen 7 5800XT are the fastest 8-core and 16-core options on the Zen 3 architecture, gaming or not, when not counting the 3D-VCache models. Both chips also boast the highest single-core clock speed of any Zen 3 chip with a boost clock of 4.8GHz, which will help offset the 3D-VCache disparity a little bit.

The Ryzen 9 5900XT and Ryzen 7 5800XT are some of the best AM4 CPU options on the market right now. Despite their lack of 3D-VCache, Prime Day's extremely aggressive pricing for both chips makes them the best all-around candidates if you are looking for a competitive AM4 CPU for gaming or productivity.

AMD's last remaining Zen 3 3D-VCache chip is still available worldwide; the Ryzen 7 5700X3D is priced at almost $300 currently, killing the chip's value in the modern CPU market. The Ryzen 5 5500X3D is the only other Zen 3 X3D chip on the market, but that chip is exclusive to Latin America.

The Ryzen 7 5800XT is a particularly strong option for gaming, either as an upgrade path or a new system build. The chip undercuts the Ryzen 5 7600X by roughly $30 yet should deliver a gaming experience comparable to AMD's newer six-core counterpart or better, especially in games that heavily utilize eight-core chips. Not all games benefit from 3D-VCache either, so in those niche titles, the 5800XT will have an edge against even the Ryzen 7 5800X3D thanks to its huge clock speed advantage.

We are working hard to find the best computer hardware deals for you this Amazon Prime Day. We cover the hottest deals in real-time at our Best Amazon Prime Day Deals Live page. If you're looking for more savings, check out our Amazon Prime Day deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages.