AMD Ryzen 5 1600 CPU Review

By Paul Alcorn
published

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Civilization VI & Dues Ex: Mankind Divided

Civilization VI AI Test

Civilization VI's demanding AI test isolates host processor performance, and historically responds better to high clock rates and IPC throughput than more cores.

Not surprisingly, then, Intel's Core i5-7600K leads in both its stock and overclocked configurations.

The overclocked Ryzen 5 1600 nearly matches the more expensive 1600X. However, AMD's 1500X beats the 1600 in a stock configuration due to its higher base and boost clock rates.

Civilization VI Graphics Test

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The stock Ryzen 5 1600 encounters some frame time turbulence during the graphics test, but once again, tuning helps smooth out the wrinkles.

Intel's Core i5-7500 falls to the bottom of the group, while its stock Core i5-7600K also struggles. Interestingly, the latter Core i5 still achieves a notably higher minimum frame rate than the stock 1500X and 1600. 

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

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Deus Ex continues to favor AMD's Ryzen processors, while the Intel CPUs hit a ceiling of some sort around 58 FPS. The average FPS chart reflects this dichotomy.

The game also doesn't respond well to overclocked Ryzen processors. Our 1600X and 1600 samples yield the same average FPS and frame time measurements in stock and overclocked configurations.


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Paul Alcorn
Paul Alcorn
Deputy Managing Editor

Paul Alcorn is the Deputy Managing Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage and enterprise hardware.

94 Comments Comment from the forums
  • AgentLozen
    I've been reading the reviews for the various Ryzen models including this one. I just have to say that it's soooo refreshing seeing AMD go toe to toe with Intel once again. We haven't seen a close race in years.
    Reply
  • DavidDisciple
    10-4. I was soooooo sick of hearing Intel fanboys brag and belittle AMD and now the tide has turned. It's great to see AMD providing some serious competition and a brand new architecture. It's also great to see an AMD 1st generation processor beat a 7th generation Intel processor.
    Reply
  • barryv88
    Finally! Took you guys very long to bring out this article - in what is described by many, the little champ of the Ryzen launch so far. The 1600.
    Can't wait to get mine!
    Reply
  • elbert
    Great review but the big gun was a no show. The 1600's stock cooler and can it do 3.7~3.8Ghz. How does that effect the game price effenciency if we add in cooler costs? How does streaming or just recording the game play for later upload effect performance? How about an older game like CSGO while recording? Can we have a part 2 to this review with these and other tests?
    Reply
  • barryv88
    19749170 said:
    Great review but the big gun was a no show. The 1600's stock cooler and can it do 3.7~3.8Ghz. How does that effect the game price effenciency if we add in cooler costs? How does streaming or just recording the game play for later upload effect performance? How about an older game like CSGO while recording? Can we have a part 2 to this review with these and other tests?

    You can check out Bitwit's vid on streaming/recording performance where Ryzen wins rather dramatically. The 7700 is really humbled, given that its 4 extra theads over the i5's don't help either.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXeenX0FZAY
    Reply
  • ZRace
    @Elbert: When streaming, more use is usually being made of having more cores/threads available, so I'd guess the Ryzen CPUs yield better game streaming results compared to pure gaming results when comparing the to the current i5's.
    Reply
  • darth_adversor
    I'm not an Intel fanboy by any means (I think it's fantastic that AMD is going head-to-head with Intel again), but for gaming, minimum frame-rate data is so much more important than average. The article does make a mention of that toward the end, but I don't think it was emphasized nearly as much as it should have been. I really want AMD to succeed (I was AMD all the way throughout the socket 754, 939, AM2/3 days), but if you look past the author's positive spin, I think the Core i5's are really the way to go for gaming.

    Hopefully that will change as the platform matures and the software catches up. I'm still sitting on a 2500k, probably gonna hold out for one more generation before I upgrade. I'd love to go back to AMD.
    Reply
  • DavidDisciple
    Yeah, and things just keep getting better for Ryzen with all the game optimizations and updates for memory compatibility and manufacturers like ROG are adding them in their performance gaming systems. Things are looking pretty good for Ryzen.
    Reply
  • JocPro
    Hey, Paul: AMD has never said that non X processors lack XFR, they just have a more limited extra boost of 50-100 MHz instead of the 100-200 MHz in the X models...
    Reply
  • PaulAlcorn
    19749289 said:
    Hey, Paul: AMD has never said that non X processors lack XFR, they just have a more limited extra boost of 50-100 MHz instead of the 100-200 MHz in the X models...


    I have marketing materials (reviewers guides, press releases, slides from briefings, etc.) that say, specifically and repetitively, that XFR is only on X SKUs.
    Reply