AMD'south get-go-gen Ryzen fries continue to sell as budget alternatives to the newer generations and the Ryzen v 1600/2600 products in particular are very attractive for budget builds. Today we're checking out the 12nm version of the Ryzen five 1600 that despite the name, is a new CPU that's only been on the market for a few months.

To quickly recap, the Ryzen 5 1600 was released in April 2022 for $220, based on the original 14nm Zen architecture. It's a half-dozen-core, 12-thread part clocked at 3.2 GHz for the base of operations with an all-cadre boost clock of 3.4 GHz and cooled using the Wraith Spire.

About a yr later, AMD replaced it with the Ryzen 5 2600 at $200. It was too a 6-core processor, merely featuring updated 12nm Zen+ cores. It ran at a base clock of 3.4 GHz with an all-core of 3.7 GHz. Because the more than refined process was more efficient, AMD downgraded the libation to the Wraith Stealth.

After one more year, we got the current generation Zen 2 processors. Hither the replacement was the Ryzen 5 3600, some other (incredibly good) $200 part.

Just what is this Ryzen v 1600 AF?

Late last year a mysterious Ryzen 5 1600 refresh made it to market. Bizarrely, AMD released a really inexpensive version of the Ryzen 5 2600, but simply called information technology the Ryzen v 1600. Known as the "Ryzen 5 1600 AF" because of the box identification, it's very different to the original Ryzen 5 1600 AE model.

Forget almost the name, this is a 2nd-gen Ryzen part. Essentially information technology's an R5 2600 with a slight decrease in clock speed. Apparently AMD didn't take plenty 14nm wafers available to keep producing the R5 1600, so they merely shifted it to the 12nm process and now they're making a version of the R5 2600 that they call the R5 1600.

At this point you may be asking yourself, why do I care that AMD is making new products and selling them under one-time names? Seems counterproductive, but the reason you should care is price. These underclocked Ryzen v 2600 CPUs cost a mere $85. That's a Zen+ 6-core, 12-thread role for just $85 brand new.

The original 14nm Ryzen five 1600 was a great deal at a piddling over $100 and the Ryzen 5 2600 was killer at $120, but the Ryzen 5 1600 AF blows them both out of the h2o at just $85. That is, equally long as y'all tin can get it. The CPU seems to exist readily available in the United States, merely it's not sold everywhere.

Before we get into the blue bar graphs, here'south a wait at how the 1600 AF clocks compared to the original 1600 AE model, as well as the 2600: running a heavy Blender workload, the original 1600 operates at 3.four GHz, the new AF model maintained three.7 GHz and the 2600 runs at 3.viii GHz.

From this test alone, it would announced like the 1600 AF could exist upwardly to 3% slower than the 2600 out of the box, but it's fashion cheaper. Armed with that information, let'due south bound into our tests which we'll power through every bit the results aren't surprising and don't crave much caption.

For testing we're using the Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master with 16GB of M.Skill'southward FlareX DDR4-3200 retention and a RTX 2080 Ti GPU.

Benchmarks

Start upwardly we have the Cinebench R20 multi-core performance and hither the 1600 AF basically matched the 2600, less than a i% margin in it. This means out of the box the AF was 12% faster than the original 1600.

For unmarried core performance the 2600 was ane.5% faster than the 1600 AF and that makes the new 12nm 1600 is 10% faster than the original.

Running 7-null we see identical pinch operation. Once more, the AF is nigh ten% faster than the original 1600. For the decompression test the 2600 was 1.5% faster than the 1600 AF which was 9% faster than the original 1600.

The terminal application we bothered to run was Blender, here the 1600 AF was nigh a i% slower than the 2600. No surprises hither.

Gaming Benchmarks

Time for some gaming benchmarks and starting time up nosotros have Assassin's Creed Odyssey AND… the 1600 AF delivers basically the same performance as the R5 2600, making it a little faster than the original 1600. As expected the margins are very similar at 1440p.

Performance in Battleground 5 is very similar between the original 1600, the 1600 AF and the 2600. Of course, it'due south the same story at 1440p, so with a lesser graphics card you tin can expect to encounter no difference at all.

The 1600 AF matched the 2600 with identical functioning in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, making information technology a few frames faster than the original model and we encounter basically identical margins at 1440p.

We run into identical gaming performance from the 1600 AF when compared to the 2600 once over again, this time when testing with The Division 2.

The results at 1440p are no different and here nosotros see more show that the 1600 and 1600 AF will evangelize the aforementioned gaming experience with a lower tier GPU.

Side by side upwards we have Far Cry New Dawn and yes…. this is a familiar sight.

The 1600A basically matching the 2600 making it a piddling faster than the original, the true 1600. 1440p doesn't offering upwards whatever surprises, more of the same here.

We see a prissy 13% boost to the i% low functioning for the 1600 AF over the 1600 in Hitman 2 at 1080p and the refreshed 1600 was able to basically match the 2600. The ane% depression margin extends to 16% at 1440p, but overall the margins are much the same.

The 1600 AF likewise shows good 1% low improvements in Total War Three Kingdoms, beating the 1600 past a xvi% margin at 1080p to coming in 1-2 fps behind the 2600. The margins are reduced slightly at 1440p, but overall a like story.

Wrap Upwards: Incredible Upkeep CPU

That was our quick look at how the Ryzen 5 1600 AF performs and the results were as positive as nosotros expected. Information technology'due south a Ryzen five 2600 with very minor reduction in clock speed. Speaking of which, you can of course overclock the 1600 AF as it'southward fully unlocked. Our chip -- which we bought from retail -- hitting 4.2 GHz using ane.4v and that's the aforementioned overclock achieved by the R5 2600 retail office we have on hand.

Some chips might only do 4 GHz depending on silicon quality, some or rather few might exceed iv.2 GHz, merely based on reports we've seen 4.2 GHz seems like the upper end of the overclocking results. Our original R5 1600 bit also does 4 GHz and that seems to be about as adept as you tin realistically hope for with the older processor.

In other words, the Ryzen 5 1600 AF is not only cheaper than the original 1600 and faster out of the box, merely it should as well overclock amend. Power consumption is inline with the 2600, with a slight advantage out of the box due to the pocket-size decrease in clock speed, though this tin can vary depending on silicon quality.

For budget builders with admission to the 1600 AF at $85, there is only no better selection. As we said earlier, the Ryzen v 2600 was already amazing value at $120. Thus, the 1600 AF which is basically the same CPU for a further disbelieve is just an insane deal.

AMD is putting the injure on Intel with parts like this. Right now the Cadre i5-9600K costs $240 and the locked i5-9400F comes in at $165 (bank check out this performance comparison). We expect both of these 6-cadre/half-dozen-thread processors to exist slower than the 1600 AF for gaming within a few years. If the 1600 AF is not selling in your land, yous can however purchase the R5 2600 for less than any mod Core i5 processor, which is why we had picked information technology every bit the best budget CPU you tin can buy, well, until at present.

Shopping Shortcuts:
  • AMD Ryzen 5 1600 AF on Amazon
  • AMD Ryzen five 2600 on Amazon
  • AMD Ryzen five 3600 on Amazon
  • Intel Core i5-9400F on Amazon
  • AMD Radeon RX 5700 on Amazon
  • GeForce RTX 2060 Super on Amazon