The Ryzen 1600 is as fast as a Intel 6850k. The 6850k costs over £400. For that much you can buy a 1600, half decent B350 board AND memory.
It's far more forward thinking. Have a look around you and you will know that people are actually buying Ryzen. In fact, just lately since the BIOS issues were ironed out a little that seems to be all people are buying.
And yes, AMD will be releasing all of their 7nm CPUs on AM4. You don't need X370 unless you are using more than one GPU (eww, gob spit) or using loads of NVME M2 drives. That is all you would ever need it for, so don't waste money on features you won't be using.
This
https://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-B350-T...8&qid=1495711614&sr=8-1&keywords=msi+am4+b350
Is gorgeous, well laid out and costs only £100 or less. You can also get it in white, if that floats your boat, for about a tenner more
https://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-B350-T...8&qid=1495711614&sr=8-3&keywords=msi+am4+b350
And it's one of the best looking boards on the market too.
srs, 1600 and B350 will last him YEARS. Great threaded performance, great IPC and very good gaming performance. Then, when Intel and AMD go nuts in a few months time and start releasing 16+ cored CPUs the support will arrive.
that was my thinking as well from the reviews that I've watched, struggling to find out the difference between the 1600 and the 1600x though really, is the 1600x worth going for or is the 1600 just as good when overclocked?
The 1600x is only worth it if you don't want to overclock. The 1600 and 1700 are the CPUs to have by a mile. Just up the multi and up the volts, it really is that simple (and don't touch the FSB as it does weird things).