AMD Ryzen R5 1600X 6-Core AM4 Processor Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

At just $249/£200, the AMD Ryzen R5 1600X is one of the most disruptive hardware releases in recent years. Not only does it offer more cores and threads than similarly priced Intel solutions, it manages to give some of Intel’s much more expensive solutions a thrashing too. It keeps a good pace against some of the R7 series solutions too, and given the Ryzen 7 1700 comes in at £332.60, that’s a lot of performance for a lot less money. Of course, if you’re rendering, or doing other heavy workloads beside gaming, then the £360.57 1700X or the £488.99 1800X may be best for you, but that’s a big step up in terms of cost for most consumers. The 1600X represents the best balance between price and performance for AMD right now.

Overview

The Ryzen 5 may not be the most hyped of the Ryzen range, andI’m sure many are more excited about the 8-core R7 series. However, we shouldn’t dismiss these more affordable chips just yet. At just £200, the R5 1600X is an absolute bargain, given the cheapest Intel unlocked quad-core is the i5-7600K for around £220, and the R5-1600X thrashed it in almost every benchmark. Even the £300 i7- 7700K had trouble keeping up at times. There’s only one way this can go now, Intel is going to have to drop prices by quite a bit to level the playing field, and that’s a win-win for consumers.

Without a doubt, this chip is one of the best Ryzen offerings so far. It offers impressive multi-tasking capabilities thanks to the 6-core 12-thread design, which will bring tangible benefits to those who not only play their games but who also need the extra CPU cores to deal with streaming their games, chat applications and much more. A comparable Intel chip that’s well suited for high-end gaming and streaming can mean digging very deep into your wallet.

Since they have lower power requirements than the R7 series, the R5’s tend to run much cooler than the rather toasty R7’s. This means you don’t really have to go shopping for a flagship AIO cooler to get the best performance. Of course, if you are planning to overclock, just remember that you must have a B350 or X370 motherboard to unlock that feature, despite the fact all Ryzen chips are actually unlocked.

Now that AMD has launched their AM4 hardware, which introduced features; DDR4 memory, M.2 storage support, improved overclocking, more cores, more threads, and fiercely competitive prices. I can safely say that the CPU market is being dragged out of a long and rather boring slump of pitiful performance improvements and high prices.

Pros

• Best price vs performance Ryzen chip to date
• 6-Core w/ 12 Threads
• AM4 Platform and features
• XFR overclocking
• Easy to manually overclock
• Beats out many more expensive Intel products
• Great for gaming/streaming

Cons

• None

Neutral

• Memory latency is still a little high but it has improved since Ryzen launched

“If you’re eager to invest in Ryzen but don’t need the more expensive 8-Core R7 chips, then the 1600X is the best that R5 has to offer. It’s perfectly suited to those building a new high-performance gaming rig, and you won’t have to spend a small fortune.