AMD Ryzen 5 1400, 1500X and 1600X CPU Review

[AlienALX]

Really want to switch from this 6700k to a R5 1600 setup. But I think I should wait till Zen2(or whatever ends up being called). Think I should focus on Vega first

Get a 1700. Seriously it's the best bargain and the most forward looking of the entire Zen range IMO. It's not worth paying loads for an 8 core yet unless you encode or smash benchmarks. However, like the 2500k it's the enthusiast's choice IMO. Well worth the extra beans.

Zen 2 will likely offer higher clocks, which would be nice of course.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Get a 1700. Seriously it's the best bargain and the most forward looking of the entire Zen range IMO. It's not worth paying loads for an 8 core yet unless you encode or smash benchmarks. However, like the 2500k it's the enthusiast's choice IMO. Well worth the extra beans.

Zen 2 will likely offer higher clocks, which would be nice of course.

Don't need the cores. 1600 Is the next best buy of the Ryzen lineup. I won't switch though. Rather have Vega and Ryzen 2. Also, only enough money for one or the other, and playing at 1440p, GPU is more important

 

[Thelosouvlakia]

Nice nice, however the prices are sh*t in Greece... 200 euros for 1400
I have hope however, that the ryzen 3 will be within my budget, I'm planning to get a ryzen 3 with an a320 motherboard should fit my budget..

Seeing improvements made overtime makes me really hopeful

 

[Korreborg]

Am i the only one being disappointed about the ryzen 5's???

I was really hoping for higher clocks to put them in front in gaming
I see no point in upgrading from my 4790k :/

 

[Bartacus]

Why did people expect higher clocks? Most of us knew that wasn't going to be the case anyway. AMD never said that, and it's a silly assumption to make.

 

[Korreborg]

Why did people expect higher clocks? Most of us knew that wasn't going to be the case anyway. AMD never said that, and it's a silly assumption to make.

Hoping isn't the same as expecting And why not hope?
Intel have higher clocks in the "gaming segment", why shouldn't AMD do the same to try and beat Intel?

 

[Bartacus]

Simple: higher clocks aren't needed. Don't be fooled by watching too many benchmark vids dude. One of the only review sites I trust did a YT video on it (Level1Techs). They very recently did a double-blind test with 4 systems, 2 Intel and 2 Ryzen, testing 4 different games (Overwatch, Doom, Fallout 4, and GTA 5). They couldn't see ANY difference in actual gameplay. You can go overboard watching graphs and benching, and that doesn't tell the whole story.

Besides, Ryzen DOES beat Intel in a LOT of areas, most notably price and multi-core performance. And the performance IS there. But you need to realize that this is a new platform, and you'll need to toy with it a bit on the memory side.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Yeah people are whining and moaning about gaming performance at 1080p.
People need to realize, who in there right mind games at 1080p with a 1080 or a 1080ti? These benchmarks you see showcasing Ryzen in a bad light, are worst case scenario. If someone is going at 1080p with a 1080/ti, they 100% won't notice in way the difference in gameplay. 144fps vs 170 or whatever you can find, won't make a damn bit of difference.

Most up to date people are rocking rx400 cards or a GTX 1060 and lower and the majority of people are rocking older hardware. These cards are not enough to make a Ryzen struggle. A 1070 won't make Ryzen struggle either. Once you hit 1080 performance, you get to a point where it doesn't matter anymore, and you should be on at least 1440p, and as we all know, you become GPU limited.
It's really not a bad deal. Especially if you are GPU limited, you can save a ton of money on Ryzen. You can get a Ryzen 1600 and a board for the cost of a 7700k alone! And barely be behind it. If you are building a new system, all that money you save from not buying that Intel board, is enough to make you go from a rx480/GTX 1060 upto a GTX 1070. And guess what? That's a bigger performance increase than a 1600->7700k.

 

[Greenback]

Yeah people are whining and moaning about gaming performance at 1080p.
People need to realize, who in there right mind games at 1080p with a 1080 or a 1080ti? These benchmarks you see showcasing Ryzen in a bad light, are worst case scenario. If someone is going at 1080p with a 1080/ti, they 100% won't notice in way the difference in gameplay. 144fps vs 170 or whatever you can find, won't make a damn bit of difference.

Most up to date people are rocking rx400 cards or a GTX 1060 and lower and the majority of people are rocking older hardware. These cards are not enough to make a Ryzen struggle. A 1070 won't make Ryzen struggle either. Once you hit 1080 performance, you get to a point where it doesn't matter anymore, and you should be on at least 1440p, and as we all know, you become GPU limited.
It's really not a bad deal. Especially if you are GPU limited, you can save a ton of money on Ryzen. You can get a Ryzen 1600 and a board for the cost of a 7700k alone! And barely be behind it. If you are building a new system, all that money you save from not buying that Intel board, is enough to make you go from a rx480/GTX 1060 upto a GTX 1070. And guess what? That's a bigger performance increase than a 1600->7700k.

Blunty has done some tests with the 1600x and 1500x with a 1060 and besides streaming with the 1500 gaming is fine streaming the 1600x is better

 

[NeverBackDown]

Blunty has done some tests with the 1600x and 1500x with a 1060 and besides streaming with the 1500 gaming is fine streaming the 1600x is better

Yeah the quad core Ryzen stuff imo completely owns the market against anything less than a 7600k. Barely behind in single thread, but way way over it in multi threaded stuff. Much better value. Ryzen 3 will be amazing budget CPUs.

 

[Korreborg]

Just watched the Level1Techs video. And they might be right but 85hz monitor, at 1080p.

Well i game at 2560x1440p 165hz g-sync monitor. And have a 1080ti on the way.
The only thing i said, were; i see no reason to upgrade. And that i hoped for more.

 

[Greenback]

Yeah the quad core Ryzen stuff imo completely owns the market against anything less than a 7600k. Barely behind in single thread, but way way over it in multi threaded stuff. Much better value. Ryzen 3 will be amazing budget CPUs.

My thought is AM4 will be around for a while going by AMD's norm, and i don't see any big changes from M.2 and ssd's to put the MB outdated like my current 1155, so maybe in 2 years I get the latest cpu and my son will be 10 and probably want a better pc than he has now so I get him to convince the MRS he needs an upgrade. me not silly!

 

[AngryGoldfish]

Yeah people are whining and moaning about gaming performance at 1080p.
People need to realize, who in there right mind games at 1080p with a 1080 or a 1080ti? These benchmarks you see showcasing Ryzen in a bad light, are worst case scenario. If someone is going at 1080p with a 1080/ti, they 100% won't notice in way the difference in gameplay. 144fps vs 170 or whatever you can find, won't make a damn bit of difference.

Most up to date people are rocking rx400 cards or a GTX 1060 and lower and the majority of people are rocking older hardware. These cards are not enough to make a Ryzen struggle. A 1070 won't make Ryzen struggle either. Once you hit 1080 performance, you get to a point where it doesn't matter anymore, and you should be on at least 1440p, and as we all know, you become GPU limited.
It's really not a bad deal. Especially if you are GPU limited, you can save a ton of money on Ryzen. You can get a Ryzen 1600 and a board for the cost of a 7700k alone! And barely be behind it. If you are building a new system, all that money you save from not buying that Intel board, is enough to make you go from a rx480/GTX 1060 upto a GTX 1070. And guess what? That's a bigger performance increase than a 1600->7700k.

I don't think it's as uncommon as you suggest. I haven't seen anyone with a 1080ti at 1080p yet, but a video blogger recently asked his extensive audience whether they game at 1080p with a GTX 1080 (I'll never get over why Nvidia didn't take this opportunity to rejig their naming scheme) and a surprisingly large amount chimed in. It makes sense if you crave 144 FPS in whatever game you want with settings very high. Competitive BF1 players at 1080p that aim for 144 FPS have only one way to get that with settings at max: a minimum of a 1080 is required. And if you want 60 FPS in Ghost Recon Wildlands you need a GTX 1080. I would rather turn a few superfluous settings down in a game like Ghost Recon and run a 1440p monitor instead, but that's just me. Some absolutely insist on settings cranked and/or 144 FPS.

 

[NeverBackDown]

I don't think it's as uncommon as you suggest. I haven't seen anyone with a 1080ti at 1080p yet, but a video blogger recently asked his extensive audience whether they game at 1080p with a GTX 1080 (I'll never get over why Nvidia didn't take this opportunity to rejig their naming scheme) and a surprisingly large amount chimed in. It makes sense if you crave 144 FPS in whatever game you want with settings very high. Competitive BF1 players at 1080p that aim for 144 FPS have only one way to get that with settings at max: a minimum of a 1080 is required. And if you want 60 FPS in Ghost Recon Wildlands you need a GTX 1080. I would rather turn a few superfluous settings down in a game like Ghost Recon and run a 1440p monitor instead, but that's just me. Some absolutely insist on settings cranked and/or 144 FPS.

He was asking an enthusiast audience. So yes, they will run over the top gear.
For the majority of people, no, they will not use 1080s. They will use 1060s or 480s. Most people who game aren't technically inclined(don't take this out of context), they buy prebuilt systems.
And one vlogger isn't indicative of anything. Not trying to be rude or anything, but you can't base an argument over a vlogger
As reported buy AMD and steam, the most common market is the sub $300 bracket. And like I said, none of the CPUs excusing the 7700k(and even then not much) will have a large difference people make it out to be. It really just depends on the persons needs, and again, most people it won't matter. Price always matters, and AMD has that down.

 

[Bartacus]

Just watched the Level1Techs video. And they might be right but 85hz monitor, at 1080p.

Well i game at 2560x1440p 165hz g-sync monitor. And have a 1080ti on the way.
The only thing i said, were; i see no reason to upgrade. And that i hoped for more.

I wasn't trying to slam you man, quite the opposite. I was just saying not to let endless Ryzen benchmark graphs sway your purchase decision, that's all. I thought you were on the fence about a CPU purchase. My bad!

 

[AngryGoldfish]

He was asking an enthusiast audience. So yes, they will run over the top gear.
For the majority of people, no, they will not use 1080s. They will use 1060s or 480s. Most people who game aren't technically inclined(don't take this out of context), they buy prebuilt systems.
And one vlogger isn't indicative of anything. Not trying to be rude or anything, but you can't base an argument over a vlogger
As reported buy AMD and steam, the most common market is the sub $300 bracket. And like I said, none of the CPUs excusing the 7700k(and even then not much) will have a large difference people make it out to be. It really just depends on the persons needs, and again, most people it won't matter. Price always matters, and AMD has that down.

It's OK mate, you're not being rude. Really all I'm saying is, according to that one video out of potentially thousands of surveys (that's the only time I've ever seen the question asked) there are people who game at 1080p with high-end graphics cards. It's not completely unheard of or illogical. I then backed it up with actual data, not just the comment section of a YouTube video.

As for the Steam survey, the GTX 1080 is very high up in the graphics pole. It's already outpacing the 980ti, a cheaper graphics card that was out for longer. Considering resolutions beyond 1080p makes up roughly 3.5% of the Steam user base, and the GTX 1080 takes up 1.6% of the user base, that leaves all the other high-end graphics cards (980ti, 980, Fury, Fury X, Fury Nano, 295X2, Titan Z, Titan XM, 1070, Titan XP, 1080ti, 390, 390X, 290X, 970, 780ti, Titan, Titan Black) that all are capable of running 1440p to fill in the remaining 2% of high resolution users. That's if all 1.6% are at resolutions beyond 1080p. That's a lot of graphics cards to fill 2% of the 3.5% higher resolution demographic. To me, if I'm reading this right (please do correct me if I'm missing something glaringly obvious my dumb brain isn't picking up on), that suggests quite a few of the GTX 1080 owners are potentially still rocking 1080p monitors. And I also think they're proud of it.

 

[NeverBackDown]

It's OK mate, you're not being rude. Really all I'm saying is, according to that one video out of potentially thousands of surveys (that's the only time I've ever seen the question asked) there are people who game at 1080p with high-end graphics cards. It's not completely unheard of or illogical. I then backed it up with actual data, not just the comment section of a YouTube video.

As for the Steam survey, the GTX 1080 is very high up in the graphics pole. It's already outpacing the 980ti, a cheaper graphics card that was out for longer. Considering resolutions beyond 1080p makes up roughly 3.5% of the Steam user base, and the GTX 1080 takes up 1.6% of the user base, that leaves all the other high-end graphics cards (980ti, 980, Fury, Fury X, Fury Nano, 295X2, Titan Z, Titan XM, 1070, Titan XP, 1080ti, 390, 390X, 290X, 970, 780ti, Titan, Titan Black) that all are capable of running 1440p to fill in the remaining 2% of high resolution users. That's if all 1.6% are at resolutions beyond 1080p. That's a lot of graphics cards to fill 2% of the 3.5% higher resolution demographic. To me, if I'm reading this right (please do correct me if I'm missing something glaringly obvious my dumb brain isn't picking up on), that suggests quite a few of the GTX 1080 owners are potentially still rocking 1080p monitors. And I also think they're proud of it.

No you can't read it like that. Steam doesn't tell you what cards are being used for what resolution. It's guessing work, but my point was if you added up all the GPUs that are mostly for 1080p, you will see a huge difference in what is actually being used. It'll be a very large group of sub 300 cards compared to something with only 1.6% share. Got to put it in context before taking the numbers at face value, and you'll see what the market is and that AMD were right. Huge market for sub 300 cards. Which is to be expected.

 

[AngryGoldfish]

No you can't read it like that. Steam doesn't tell you what cards are being used for what resolution. It's guessing work, but my point was if you added up all the GPUs that are mostly for 1080p, you will see a huge difference in what is actually being used. It'll be a very large group of sub 300 cards compared to something with only 1.6% share. Got to put it in context before taking the numbers at face value, and you'll see what the market is and that AMD were right. Huge market for sub 300 cards. Which is to be expected.

Yeah, I was just guessing. I was taking the information we do have and extrapolating on them, making somewhat educated guesses.

You're right, but I'm not surprised when I see 1080 owners still using 1080p. There are a lot of cats who just buy the new Nvidia card for no other reason than it's what they always do. They don't need it, they just buy it. They're happy at 1080p but they always want the X80 from Nvidia. They bought the 980 when the 970 could be easily overclocked to match it for £150 less. They bough the 480 when it was a furnace.

 

[Radioman]

My thought is AM4 will be around for a while going by AMD's norm, and i don't see any big changes from M.2 and ssd's to put the MB outdated like my current 1155, so maybe in 2 years I get the latest cpu and my son will be 10 and probably want a better pc than he has now so I get him to convince the MRS he needs an upgrade. me not silly!

Indeed GB the AM4 will be around for a very long time. It may very well be the last CPU socket we see from AMD. Maybe an AM4+ might materialize in 5 to 10 years but I' d only give that a 50 - 50 chance.

As I see it the situation with the Ryzen Chip will be an entirely different matter. I would expect to see this situation to sort itself out rapidly. Remember Intel has been kicking sand in AMD's face on the matter of CPUs for the better part of the last 15 Years. We know the performance bench marks for Ryzen are solid making it a serious competitor for Intel I5 and respectable for the I7 at a much cheaper price. You can bet there are a fair number of bruised egos at Intel over this development. This will not go unanswered. And when that answer comes I would expect another announcement from AMD with three points.

1) The elimination of the nonperforming entries in the Ryzen Lineup. We know ourselves that the word over the internet and in the ether is to expect the Ryzen 1500X and the Ryzen 1700 to be the Hot Sellers. It would stand to reason at the point of the Intel Response AMD will chop the Ryzen 1400, Ryzen 1600, Ryzen 1600X and the Ryzen 1700X. Even though few people if any will be buying the Ryzen 1800X AMD will keep it around for price support. This is all about Marketing now.

2) I would also expect to see some price cuts. The Ryzen 1500X price to be cut to 150 dollars, 20 bucks below the introductory price for the Ryzen 1400. I would also expect the price of the Ryzen 1700 chopped to 250 Dollars.

3) Finally I would expect to see a new lineup of GPUs introduced that are optimized to give their best performance with Ryzen CPUs

I do not expect AMD to sit back on their laurels. I do expect that management will see to it that a Gen 2 Version of the 1500X and the 1700 will come to fruition. Increasing the performance of the basic Quad Core as well as the Infinity Bridge. But I don't see AMD playing that card until they absolutely have to. Something on the order of when PCI Express 5 comes out and we have Mobos with Fiber Optic Light Pipes to connect the various sections of the board.

I would expect the Ryzen 3 to be a Low Power version of the chip sold exclusively to Laptop Manufacturers. Maybe two different versions one with a cut down low power GPU on the same die and a second version without the GPU. This would explain the reason for the late announcement of those chips. Let the Desktop Version of Ryzen establish its reputation to increase sales of the Laptop Version.

 

[AngryGoldfish]

You really expect AMD is to cut their 6-core chip? The 1600X has received the widest acclaim from the media and consumers. For AMD to callously drop it from their lineup would be outright foolish. What are you basing your opinion on?