AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Processor Review

Ryzen 5 2600 The second generation of Ryzen CPUs is here at last! Following on from our launch of the 2700X and the 2600X, the lower TDP non-X parts are here now too! We've already reviewed the 8-core R7 2700 and were impressed with what it had to offer. Of course, today it's all about the 6-core Ryzen 5 2600, which looks set to be a superstar in the mid-range CPU market, with an affordable price, a low TDP of just 65W and it even comes bundled with the improved AMD Wraith Stealth Cooler; perfect for low profile systems. Features Equipped with the new AMD StoreMI technology, you can combine your HDD and SSD, and M.2 drives into one fast pool of storage. Furthermore, SenseMI and Ryzen Master Utility will help you unlock the best performance from your hardware with virtually no effort. Automatic frequency adjustment and boosts, easy configuration of your memory speeds, voltages and more. You don't have to dive into the BIOS and read the instruction book this time. Of course, the newer features of Ryzen Gen 2 are only supported on X470 motherboards, although the CPU will of course still work in any other AM4 motherboard. StoreMI Technology SenseMI Technology Ryzen™ Master Utility Specifications For in-depth specifications, please visit the official AMD product page here. What AMD Had to Say "The 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen™ Desktop Processors are here! With incredible performance and cutting-edge technologies, the 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen™ processors enable real people from all over the world to follow their passions. From extreme gaming experiences to high-end design and engineering, the 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen processors Bring Your Imagination to Life." - AMD Product Trailer https://youtu.be/w_KPFy6_uGc How We Test Testing Procedure Here at eTeknix, we endeavour to disclose vital information regarding the benchmarking process so that readers can quantify the results and attempt to replicate them using their hardware. When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of motherboard, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there's always a margin for error when using any software. Therefore, your experience may vary. Testing Your Own System Links are provided below, as well as the settings we use. We encourage you to not just look at how one product compares to any other, but how it compares to your own. If you're looking to build a new system, you should benchmark your current PC using our benchmarks and settings where possible. You should then look at the percentage improvement from your current hardware to the hardware we tested to give you a ballpark figure of how much an upgrade this will provide you with. Intel Testbenches Z370 Motherboard - Gigabyte AORUS Ultra Gaming RAM - Crucial DDR4 3000MHz Quad-Channel 32GB + Optane CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive - Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis - Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System - Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit X299 Motherboard - Gigabyte AORUS Gaming 9 RAM - Crucial DDR4 3000MHz Quad-Channel 32GB CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive - Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis - Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System - Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit AMD Testbenches X399 (Threadripper) Motherboard – MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon AC RAM – Crucial Ballistix 32GB (4x8GB) 2400MHz CPU Cooler – CM Master Liquid 120mm (will be retested with Noctua D15S with dual fans in coming weeks) Graphics Card – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply – BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit AM4 X470 (Pinnacle Ridge) Motherboard - Gigabyte X470 Gaming 7 RAM - GeIL DDR4 3200MHz Dual Channel 16GB CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive - Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis - Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System - Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit AM4 X370 (Raven Ridge) Motherboard - MSI XPower Titanium X370 RAM - GeIL DDR4 3200MHz Dual Channel 16GB CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive - Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis - Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System - Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit Games and Settings Used All games are tested on a 60 Hz display with V-Sync off for all tests. Rise of the Tomb Raider (Steam) DX12 Medium Preset Pure Hair Off Deus Ex (Steam) DX12 Medium Preset Ghost Recon: Wildlands (Uplay) Medium Preset Turf Effects Off Far Cry Primal (Uplay) Normal Preset Software Used 3DMark Fire Strike (download) FireStrike (1080p) Benchmark Unigine Superposition (download) 1080p Extreme Benchmark PCMark 10 Professional (download) Express Benchmark WPrime (download) 32M and 1024M Power usage recorded at 1024M 50% complete, thermals recorded at 75% complete CineBench R15 (download) CPU Multi CPU Single Handbrake (download) Custom MP4 to MKV 4K conversion (details below) AIDA64 Engineer (download) CPU-Z (download) HWMonitor (download) Handbrake To stress processors to their absolute limit and accurately judge their performance in video editing workloads, we transcode a 7.7GB compilation of gaming footage; this particular file is freely available from here. The captured footage is 22 minutes and 12 seconds long, it has a bit rate of 50.1 Mbps, and it uses the Advanced Video Codec. Additionally, the video runs at a constant 30 frames-per-second and opts for a 3820 x 2140 (4K) resolution. Once loaded into Handbrake, we then transcode the 4K MP4 to an MKV file using the "normal" profile. Other Notes A rest period of 2-5 minutes is observed between each piece of software allowing the system to return to its idle power usage and temperatures. Background services like Windows Update are checked to not be running during the testing period by setting WiFi to Metered Connection. Updates All games, graphics card drivers, BIOS, Windows and everything else is always kept up to date with the latest available. Older benchmarks may not be retested until stated otherwise. However, all hardware will be tested with the best and latest firmware and software available to that hardware at the time of review. As of 1st of May 2018, all hardware was retested on their latest drivers. Anything after this date will again be using their most recent versions available to them. Thanks Thank you to Noctua, Crucial, ASUS, Gigabyte, Lian-Li, be quiet!, OCZ, for providing the hardware that helps makes these tests possible! Synthetic Benchmarks 3DMark: 19483 Unigine: 5521 PCMark 10 (Express): 4909 WPrime: 4.831/136.886 CineBench R15: 160/1255 Handbrake: 49.2 The Ryzen 5 series was always a strong contender, offering some pretty damn impressive performance and it looks like that hasn't changed. Of course, the 2600X takes the lead, but given the drastically lower TDP and reduced clock speeds of the R5 2600, it's hardly slacking when it comes to great scores here. In 3DMark, it hit an impressive 19483, which is pretty much the same as the Intel Core i5 8400 which costs around the same too. Furthermore, Unigine performance is pretty tight too, showing that PCIe throughput isn't an issue here, and again very similar to the Intel 8400. The Intel chip did pull ahead in PCMark 10, although that benchmark always favours Intel heavily, likely based on single core performance; the R5 2600 still put up a great score of 4909. For the heavy duty testing of WPrime, CineBench and Handbrake, the extra core count of the Ryzen 5 did help a lot. With six cores and eight threads, it's able to keep an impressive pace. Interestingly, the WPrime score of 136 seconds was just 2 seconds off of the 2600X time of 134 seconds. It's also significantly faster than the Intel 7740X, 8600K and 8400 which are all 168 - 190 seconds. Cinibench shows that Intel still has the single core performance nailed down, but with a multi-core score of 1255, even the i5-8600K is left far behind at just 1035. That core count helps with 4K transcoding too, hitting an impressive 49.2 FPS, nicely ahead of the i5-8400 and 8600K which scored 42.6 and 45 FPS respectively. 3DMark Firestrike Unigine Superposition PCMark 10 Express WPrime Cinebench R15 Handbrake MP4 to MKV Conversion 4K Gaming Performance Rise of the Tomb Raider: 171.61 FPS Deus Ex Mankind Divided: 73.5/103.3 FPS Ghost Recon Wildlands: 109.67/122.86 FPS Far Cry Primal: 85/115 FPS The Ryzen 5 series is still a strong contender when it comes to gaming too. Of course, the higher clock speeds of the Ryzen 5 2600X gave it a big advantage, and the 2600 non-X did perform slower than that, but that's to be expected. However, it still delivered some fantastic performance figures that actually saw it ahead of the Ryzen 7 2700 in both Deus Ex and Tomb Raider. Rise of the Tomb Raider Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Ghost Recon: Wildlands Far Cry Primal Overclocking CPU-Z Overclocking on this CPU couldn't have been much easier. In the BIOS, a few simple changes were made to hit an impressive 4.1 GHz on all cores. I applied a CPU voltage of 1.4v and increased the SoC voltage to 1.14v to add stability. This took the power usage from 114 to 151 watts, but that's still very low down on our charts overall. Furthermore, temperatures increase from 42c at 100% to 57c at 100% load. That's still very managable, especially when you consider that Gen 1 Ryzen's hit 80c at similar clocks. Performance 3DMark: 19483 - 20259 WPrime: 4.831/136.886 - 4.31/125.755 CineBench R15: 160/1255 - 171/1399 Rise of the Tomb Raider: 171.61 - 184.17 3DMark Firestrike WPrime Cinebench R15 Power Consumption Stock Overclocked Temperatures Stock Overclocked Final Thoughts How Much Does it Cost? AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Processor 6-core 12-thread CPU with Wraith Stealth CPU cooler is priced at just £167 right now (£175 MSRP). The AMD Ryzen 7 2700 8-core 16-thread CPU with Wraith Spire RGB Cooler is £248.50 also, and for two fewer cores, the Ryzen 5 is a huge bargain. With the lower TDP, the stock cooler will be more than capable for most too, saving you even more money. Overview This is by far one of my favourite Ryzen CPUs ever, and for a good reason too. While it may not be clocked quite as high as the X series of CPUs, it comes with a drastically lowered max TDP. For those building compact gaming systems or slim workstations, HTPCs and more, less heat is a huge perk. You can easily survive with the stock cooler or other low-profile solutions that would be unsuitable for the higher TDP of the X processors. However, despite the much lower temperatures and TDP, the performance is still very competitive. Work, Play, Create When it comes to processor intensive applications, the 2600 is certainly no slacker. Yes, there are CPUs on our charts that are faster than it, many of them from AMD too, not just Intel. However, with 6 cores and 12 threads, it makes light work of video rendering and heavy-duty number crunching that would have been unthinkable in this price range just a few years ago. When it comes to gaming, it's not the fastest, but it's far from the slowest too, with enough left over for streaming and video capture software on top. Should I Buy One? I can see the Ryzen 5 2600 and the 2600X fast becoming the most popular chips of the second generation Ryzen launch. They're fast, they're affordable, and they're easy to keep cool and overclock. I mean, if you're just doing a massive amount of rendering and number crunching, then the Ryzen 7 series is going to be a real time saver. However, if you do a bit of gaming, a bit of streaming, a bit of video editing, etc., the Ryzen 5 is the best balance of price and performance for you. At just £167 it's a bargain and some of the most robust competition for the i5-8400 and 8600K we've seen.