Product Showcase - Ryzen processor

Product Showcase

Alright, it's time for some photos. We received the Ryzen 5 1600 processor. Once you have one in your hand you realize these are a little heavy. They should be with eight (physical) cores.
  

The Ryzen 5 1600 processor clocks in at a base-clock of 3.2 GHz, yet can Turbo to 3.6 GHz depending on load levels versus active threads; this six-core processor will be threaded to twelve threads.
 

 
Given it's an 8-core architecture (with 2 cores disabled), AMD is really nicely managing that clock frequency. Not bad for 219 USD. 

For this review we'll be using the new MSI X370 KRAIT edition motherboard. The new BIOs update allows you to run your memory at 2933/3200 MHz (of compatible), you have your full speed M.2 slot, USB 3.1 ports and good proper audio.

You could also match this CPU with a cheapo B350 motherboard really, that should cost you like €120,- / USD and that offers massive value.
 

 
By the way, as you can see, today we'll be using the Wraith Max LED, a redesign of the Wraith. Yes, that’s RGB lighting fading to different colors, on a stock cooler. These stock coolers are 'reasonably' silent. Inside a closed PC chassis you might hear a bit of airflow under load. The RGB LED functionality is nice and rotates / fades from color to color. Once you start to seriously overclock these puppies it runs out of air quite fast, so we do stick to our recommendation: use a proper cooler like a nice Noctua for air-cooling, or an LCS / proper liquid cooling kit once you start to tweak and overclock with added CPU voltages.