Like a lot of others have said, this is the AF version of this CPU, which means a 12nm node with Zen+ updates. This is basically an underclocked Ryzen 5 2600. Gamer's Nexus did a really good YouTube video on this CPU if you are interested in the more technical details.
My personal experience is using this with an ASUS Strix B450-F Gaming motherboard and a Fractal Design Celsius S24 AIO cooler. This booted no problem with my motherboard. After doing some initial stress tests to make sure it was stable and everything was working ok, I went back to the BIOS to overclock it.
Also, I should note that I did not do a fresh install of my OS after swapping CPUs. I run Windows 10 with whatever the current update is as of Jan 2020. On intial boot, my WiFi was disabled, but I had already loaded the chipset drivers onto a USB drive. I installed the chipset driver, rebooted, and everything was more or less back to normal. I did show all my hidden devices in Device Manager, then went through and removed everything related to my old CPU and old Motherboard. Not really sure that was needed, but it's what I did. Windows did not seem to mind at all, and it is still showing up as activated.
I was able to hit 4.0 GHz pretty easily. All I did was change the multiplier from Auto to 40, and TPU from Auto to TPU II. Rebooted and stress tested again, rock solid at 4.0 GHz with occasional single core boosts to 4.4 GHz and multi core boosts to 4.2 GHz. Note that I did not use PBO or really anything else to do this.
Temperatures while testing never went above 50c. The interesting part about that is my AIO has a hardware based auto mode that seems to throttle the fans independently of the motherboard. The fans never really seemed to ramp up to maintain the 50c temperature.
One other thing I wanted to note was a comparison to my old processor, an Intel 4790k running at stock speeds. I lost the silicon lottery with that CPU, and it would never really OC past 4.4 GHz without running up the voltage quite a bit, to the point where the CPU was running very hot. However, it would undervolt pretty well while running at stock speeds, so I just ran it undervolted for about 5 years. Setup like this, it would run at around 70-77c with the same cooler, and the fans were working much harder.
The R5 1600AF runs most of my games with a few more frames at the top end and average (maybe 5-10 depending on the game). However, my low frames and perceived smoothness is night and day. I am easily gaining 10-30 frames on the low end. The desktop also feels a lot snappier.
So overall, I am happy. While I didn't gain an amazing FPS boost, my PC is much quieter and my experience is much better. If I did any actual productivity work, I would probably notice even more of a difference. For $85, I am thrilled with this processor. Easily the best CPU I have ever purchased.
| Processor | 1600 GHz amd_ryzen_5_1600 |
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