Ryzen 5 1600X

The Ryzen 5 1600X is the flagship processor from AMD's latest generation of Ryzen 5 processors which feature the Zen architecture. Following on from last month's release of the Ryzen 7 series, the Ryzen 5 series is positioned as a less expensive mid-performance alternative to Intel's i5 mainstream offerings. Once again, AMD excels in multi-core technology. Like the Ryzen 5 1600, the 1600X features 6 cores and 12 threads, but has roughly 11% higher clock speeds (out of the box) for a 14% premium. Like all Ryzen CPUs the 1600X is unlocked. The 1600X is the only Ryzen 5 CPU with a TDP of 95W, the 1600, 1500X and 1400 all have 50% lower power consumption of 65W. Due to its high thread count, UserBenchmarks show that at stock clocks the 1600X outperforms the i7-7700k on multi-threaded tasks by 23%, but it lags behind by 23% for single and 14% for quad-core performance. The 1600X is priced keenly at $249 so a more appropriate CPU comparison is the i5-7600k where the 1600X wins on stock multi-core by a whopping 81%. The 1600X does represent great value for workstation users that also game but its $30 cheaper sibling, the 1600 (non x version), which includes a cooler and has great overclocking potential out of the box is arguably the the value king in this segment. ^{[Apr '17 CPUPro]}