AMD Ryzen 5 5500 is a budget-friendly, 6-core, 12-thread Zen 3 desktop CPU for the AM4 socket, offering solid performance for mainstream gaming and tasks with a 3.6GHz base clock (up to 4.2GHz boost) and 16MB L3 cache, making it a great value upgrade, though it's a step below the Ryzen 5 5600 due to PCIe 3.0 support and less cache. It's power-efficient (65W TDP) and includes the Wraith Stealth cooler, compatible with DDR4 memory, ideal for budget builds needing a graphics card. 

Core Specifications

• Performance: Base clock of 3.6 GHz with a maximum boost clock of 4.2 GHz.
• Cache: 16 MB of L3 cache and 3 MB of L2 cache.
• Power: Standard TDP of 65W, known for high power efficiency and running relatively cool.
• Memory: Supports DDR4-3200 RAM in dual-channel configuration.
• Connectivity: Uses PCIe 3.0 (not PCIe 4.0), which may slightly limit the bandwidth of high-end Gen4 NVMe SSDs or GPUs.
• Graphics: No integrated graphics; a dedicated discrete graphics card is required for display output.