I'm a little surprised this was ranked as just a "Great Value". Aside from the underwhelming OCing and flaky memory support, what is there to not recommend about this? It is objectively the best-valued Ryzen CPU, and considering the performance-per-dollar of the 1800X (the worst-valued Ryzen) it is probably has the best value of high-performance desktop CPUs in general. I understand value doesn't correlate to quality, but I don't think the 1600 lacks in quality.

You mention that 2 cores are disabled. Soft or hardware disabled ? Would some gurus re-enable those two cores ? I totally assume my ignorance on this matter :lurk:

Doesn't really matter which way was done - it doesn't seem AMD or any motherboard manufacturers are willing to unlock cores. Even if you could, it seems doing so would be a bad idea.

I'm a little surprised this was ranked as just a "Great Value". Aside from the underwhelming OCing and flaky memory support, what is there to not recommend about this? It is objectively the best-valued Ryzen CPU, and considering the performance-per-dollar of the 1800X (the worst-valued Ryzen) it is probably has the best value of high-performance desktop CPUs in general. I understand value doesn't correlate to quality, but I don't think the 1600 lacks in quality.

"Supah-Dupah Great Quality & Value and all that stuffz" didn't fit in the award logo, but also isn't my lingo. Mate, it's a great value CPU, period. If memory support was 100% out of the box supported on all popular DIMMs and if it would beat Intel in tweaking overall, it would/could have been a best hardware award. Among all things considered the 1600 shines in its fantastic value, hence this award. I understand your comment though, so i am adding a recommended award as well..

"Supah-Dupah Great Quality & Value and all that stuffz" didn't fit in the award logo...

That was funny 😀

"Supah-Dupah Great Quality & Value and all that stuffz" didn't fit in the award logo, but also isn't my lingo. Mate, it's a great value CPU, period. If memory support was 100% out of the box supported on all popular DIMMs and if it would beat Intel in tweaking overall, it would/could have been a best hardware award. Among all things considered the 1600 shines in its fantastic value, hence this award. I understand your comment though, so i am adding a recommended award as well..

I think you're finding my comment a lot more whiny than I intended... I wasn't expecting you to change your stance, but rather to clarify it. There was a reason your first instinct wasn't to declare it as "recommended"; perhaps you were looking at it in a purely high-end enthusiast perspective (in which case yes, it is just a "great value"). But, that'd be a little too niche, hence my comment.

I agree. Ryzen 5 seems like a very good option. Only a mad man would choose i5 over Ryzen 5 at this time.

Not really . If You play 1080p , i5 is better option (or similar ? ) Price here is EXACTLY the same and just test them i5 at minimum 4.8Ghz ( which you do just basically changing the multi). Alot of people play at 1080p, i'm one of them and still not planing to hit higher rest untill some very good monitors show up (OLEDs?). My VA Ezio has better black than any of " modern " IPS screens. It's a great chip tho , it seems it maybe more future proof than i5/i7. It's bad that we can't find any review of overclocked i5 vs overclocked ryzen , which matters a lot considering how high they clock now. Most chips of i5 clock 4.8Ghz without changing the volts just changing the multi. I really like to see benchamrk like this ...

Not really . If You play 1080p , i5 is better option (or similar ? ) Price here is EXACTLY the same and just test them i5 at minimum 4.8Ghz ( which you do just basically changing the multi). Alot of people play at 1080p, i'm one of them and still not planing to hit higher rest untill some very good monitors show up (OLEDs?). My VA Ezio has better black than any of " modern " IPS screens.

Literally speaking, yes, the i5 better for 1080p gaming in terms of pure numbers. Realistically, the difference is non-perceivable. A 1600 would do you more good in the long run compared to an i5. However, an i5 would make for a better choice if you want 120Hz+ displays or VR.

It's a great chip tho , it seems it maybe more future proof than i5/i7. It's bad that we can't find any review of overclocked i5 vs overclocked ryzen , which matters a lot considering how high they clock now. Most chips of i5 clock 4.8Ghz without changing the volts just changing the multi. I really like to see benchamrk like this ...

I know there´s a site that shows results of cpus both in stock and overclocked, lots of them at the same time but i can´t find it right now...:bang: It uses yellow and orange bars to show the results.

I confused about the NVME usage. I just installed a Corsair500 120gb M.2, and my 4k write times are horrible. I am using 5/6 of the Sata ports, do I need to drop that to 4 to get the full 4 lanes for M.2?

As much as I like the core count I just can't ignore the poor overclocking limits on these Ryzens and as such I'll be sticking with Intel until AMD can give me a Ryzen chip that can hit at least 4.5Ghz. I use too many things on my PC that rely on high IPC and high core frequency to consider switching. For now I'll wait and see whether the 6c 12t coffee lake chips turn up..best of both worlds then, same core count and better overclocking. ..more expensive no doubt but I'm willing to pay the extra for the performance.

Not me...;) I'd much rather throw money at my GPU get all the resolution I can. @ 2560x1440P and up there is literally no difference between Intel and AMD, except that AMD will allow you to get a much better GPU & monitor for the same money, more or less. It's a no-brainer for me...;) Also, the higher the IPC the lower the clock, generally speaking--but much depends on the process, FABs, cooling, etc. The Intel Core 2 architectures are many years old and fully mature in terms of bios and game optimization--the AMD Ryzen architecture is brand new so it *should* be much better. Already in some things Ryzen is faster than Intel even if you spend 2x-3x the money for the Intel processor! That's huge, imo. In a few short months the bios and game optimizations will be even better for Ryzen and they will continue to get better--but with Intel there's no headroom left in their current architecture...;) Expect to see a flurry of activity from Intel in the next few months as they struggle to compete *cough*--which is pretty much new territory on the high end for Intel as the company hasn't had do that since the A64 when it was forced to cancel the original Pentium architecture because it simply could not compete with the A64. AMD will be busy, too, continuing to ship newer multi-core designs into their next market strategy: servers. The cpu industry for the next five years will definitely not resemble what it has been like for that last five, for either company! And that's great for consumers, no matter what you decide to buy, 'cause Intel is going to have to lower prices across the board to catch up. Next stop for AMD: the server market, coming right up...;)

The 1600 and 1600x are really tempting upgrades from my 3570k. As soon as I find a game I can't maintain 60fps in, I'll probably jump on Ryzen.

Just waiting for a good m-itx AM4 board to pop up and this will be my next CPU to step in for the good old 2500k.

The RX 580 was clocked the same as a RX 480..

Which RX 480 is that??

Nice review --- also very nice to have that DDR4 compilation page at the end of it, that will be helpful for anyone looking to build a Ryzen system and/or looking to get that nice DDR4 3200 RAM speed working. 🤓

The 1600 and 1600x are really tempting upgrades from my 3570k. As soon as I find a game I can't maintain 60fps in, I'll probably jump on Ryzen.

In that case you might want to wait for the 2nd gen. By then there'll be better chipsets and most of the downsides of Ryzen ought to be fixed by then. I'd say your current CPU is definitely good enough for now.

Just waiting for a good m-itx AM4 board to pop up and this will be my next CPU to step in for the good old 2500k.

There is one (in my sig) though it currently seems to be sold out everywhere.

I confused about the NVME usage. I just installed a Corsair500 120gb M.2, and my 4k write times are horrible. I am using 5/6 of the Sata ports, do I need to drop that to 4 to get the full 4 lanes for M.2?

Your M.2 would be set to PCI mode with NVME not SATA.

Your M.2 would be set to PCI mode with NVME not SATA.

I'm still a bit confused....lol Sorry, but this is the first m.2 drive I've owned, and I was under the impression that there are 4 dedicated PCIE lanes provided by Ryzen for m.2. I've looked through every setting in the bios, nothing I can see really. In fact, the only place the drive shows up is in the boot options.

I'm still a bit confused....lol Sorry, but this is the first m.2 drive I've owned, and I was under the impression that there are 4 dedicated PCIE lanes provided by Ryzen for m.2. I've looked through every setting in the bios, nothing I can see really. In fact, the only place the drive shows up is in the boot options.

Your post made it sound like you were tying the M.2 to SATA 5 and 6. If you are there should be a option to run the M.2 in PCI. I'm not positive though I can't get your motherboard manual to load on my iPad. I will look around and see if I can find it in PDF form. Edit: Got it to open. Looks like it's only tied to pci and doesn't have a SATA mode. I'm not sure what your issue is then. Sorry I'm not of more help.

Your post made it sound like you were tying the M.2 to SATA 5 and 6. If you are there should be a option to run the M.2 in PCI. I'm not positive though I can't get your motherboard manual to load on my iPad. I will look around and see if I can find it in PDF form. Edit: Got it to open. Looks like it's only tied to pci and doesn't have a SATA mode. I'm not sure what your issue is then. Sorry I'm not of more help.

No problem. I at least have it more balanced now. I opened device manager and went to the drive's properties. Cache Writing was checked, but turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing wasn't. It increase the write time by quite a bit. It all looks OK now.

The 1600 and 1600x are really tempting upgrades from my 3570k. As soon as I find a game I can't maintain 60fps in, I'll probably jump on Ryzen.

Yea, it's really tempting. But I don't really think it's justifiable... I mean, I do have a 3440x1440 monitor, so I'd probably be better off spending the money on a GPU down the line. But atm, it's all a pretty fine system to game with at that resolution. And I doubt a better CPU will make any difference anyway with the GPU-bound status I'm in 😛

Not really . If You play 1080p , i5 is better option (or similar ? ) Price here is EXACTLY the same and just test them i5 at minimum 4.8Ghz ( which you do just basically changing the multi). Alot of people play at 1080p, i'm one of them and still not planing to hit higher rest untill some very good monitors show up (OLEDs?). My VA Ezio has better black than any of " modern " IPS screens. It's a great chip tho , it seems it maybe more future proof than i5/i7. It's bad that we can't find any review of overclocked i5 vs overclocked ryzen , which matters a lot considering how high they clock now. Most chips of i5 clock 4.8Ghz without changing the volts just changing the multi. I really like to see benchamrk like this ...

New i5, like yours is better if overclocked. but not for long. Older i5s are already choking on games... It is only question of time till all 4cored CPUs take same road. And that time is pretty close. Luckily they will still handle 60fps well. And therefore will remain good for most of users. But if one talks about 60fps, then i5 is not better than any Ryzen, because they are same or worse as Ryzen deals better with additional workloads like recording+encoding or preloading of data.