AMD Ryzen 5 1600 AF Review

Mid-range Desktop processor released in 2019 with 6 cores and 12 threads. With base clock at 3.2GHz, max speed at 3.6GHz, and a 65W power rating. Ryzen 5 1600 AF is based on the Pinnacle Ridge 12nm family and part of the Ryzen 5 series.
Price 100%
Speed 54%
Productivity 44%
Gaming 82%
Category Desktop
Target mid-range
Socket Compatibility AM4
Integrated Graphics None
Cooler Included Yes
Overclock Potential 0 %
Year 2019 Model
Price 85 USD
Number of Cores 6 Cores
Number of Threads 12 Threads
Core Frequency 3.2 GHz
Boost Frequency 3.6 GHz
Max Stable Overclock 3.6 GHz
Power Consumption 65 W
Manufacturing Process 12 nm
L3 Cache 16 MB
Maximum Supported Memory 0 GB
Price-Value Score 100 %
Speed Score 54 %
Productivity Score 44 %
Gaming Score 82 %
Max 1080p Bottleneck 38 %
Max 1440p Bottleneck 19 %
Max 4K Bottleneck 9.5 %
Overall Score 43/100

The Ryzen 5 1600 AF is one of AMD's mid-range Desktop processors. It was released in 2019 with 6 cores and 12 threads. With base clock at 3.2GHz, max speed at 3.6GHz, and a 65W power rating. The Ryzen 5 1600 AF is based on the Pinnacle Ridge 12nm family and is part of the Ryzen 5 series.

What this all means is that the AMD Ryzen 5 1600 AF is an absolute beast when it comes to multi-threaded workloads, especially at this price point. If you're counting on doing some video editing or compiling one hell of an Excel spreadsheet, you're going to see firsthand a performance boost with the Ryzen 5 1600 AF.

One of the nice things about the AMD Ryzen 5 1600 AF processors is that the retail boxed models come with a CPU cooler. So, you can pick something like the AMD Ryzen 5 1600 AF up for $85 and don’t need to spend any extra money on CPU cooling.

The AMD Ryzen 5 1600 AF retail boxed processor comes with the traditional ‘pancake’ CPU cooler. Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done on this processor which is rated at 65W TDP. You do not need to have an aftermarket cooling solution unless you want to.

With Ryzen 5, AMD continues to innovate on its new architecture and 12nm process. Like Ryzen 5, AMD has engineered Ryzen 5 to operate on a AM4 chipset with all the modern amenities of computing. This includes support for DDR4 RAM, the fastest NVMe SSDs and Thunderbolt 3 ports.

Now the biggest question is can AMD’s Ryzen 5 processor play games? The answer is simply yes as it got a respectable gaming score of 82% in our benchmarks.

Regardless of those external factors, the Ryzen 5 1600 AF proves it has the chops to be your main gaming system and a just as effective media creation platform – two things that are becoming intrinsically connected in this age of live-streaming, eSports and uploading gameplay videos.

The Ryzen 5 1600 AF clocks up to 3.6Ghz just as it promises on the box, and with AMD’s software you can take one of the cores all the way up to 3.7GHz. However, don’t expect to get much beyond that without seriously upgrading your cooling solution and manually tweaking voltages behind the operating system level.

If you’ve been looking for an affordable, powerhouse CPU that both works and parties hard, this is it.

Although the 65W-rated cooler doesn't feature a copper base or the LEDs found on AMD's higher-end thermal solutions, it does handle Ryzen 5's heat output deftly enough to facilitate XFR-triggered frequencies. This gives you an extra 200 MHz. We were even able to overclock the Ryzen 5 1600 AF to 3.8 GHz within a reasonable temperature range. The fan also blows down onto the motherboard, which provide additional cooling around the socket. If you need more bling, AMD recently announced that it now offers the LED-equipped cooler separately.

Which GPU to Pick for AMD Ryzen 5 1600 AF

Below is a comparison of all graphics cards average FPS performance (using an average of 80+ games at ultra quality settings), combined with the AMD Ryzen 5 1600 AF.

Graphics Card Price Cost Per Frame Avg 1080p Avg 1440p Avg 4K
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 24GB $ 1,599 $ 6.5 245.3 FPS
245.3 FPS
173.7 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Ti 20GB $ 799 $ 3.5 228.9 FPS
228.9 FPS
162.1 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24GB $ 999 $ 4.5 221.4 FPS
217.3 FPS
140.1 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 16GB $ 1,199 $ 5.6 212.6 FPS
212.4 FPS
150.4 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti 12GB $ 799 $ 3.9 204.3 FPS
204 FPS
144.4 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT 20GB $ 899 $ 4.5 201.3 FPS
197.6 FPS
127.2 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 24GB $ 1,499 $ 7.8 191.1 FPS
184.2 FPS
122.8 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT 16GB $ 1,099 $ 6 182.9 FPS
179.6 FPS
115.6 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti 24GB $ 1,999 $ 11.1 179.9 FPS
179.7 FPS
127.3 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT 16GB $ 999 $ 5.6 179.1 FPS
173.7 FPS
113.8 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT 16GB $ 649 $ 3.8 168.6 FPS
163.5 FPS
107.2 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 20GB $ 799 $ 4.8 166.6 FPS
163.8 FPS
113.2 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 10GB $ 699 $ 4.2 166.5 FPS
160.6 FPS
107 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 12GB $ 599 $ 3.7 160.8 FPS
156.7 FPS
109.6 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 10GB $ 599 $ 4.2 142.9 FPS
138.9 FPS
94.2 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 6800 16GB $ 579 $ 4.3 133.6 FPS
129.5 FPS
84.9 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 8GB $ 499 $ 3.9 127.4 FPS
122.9 FPS
81.9 FPS
NVIDIA TITAN RTX 24GB $ 2,499 $ 21.4 117 FPS
116.5 FPS
78.1 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB $ 1,299 $ 11.4 113.9 FPS
113.4 FPS
76 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT 12GB $ 479 $ 4.3 112.4 FPS
109.8 FPS
71 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB 8GB $ 399 $ 3.6 110.6 FPS
109.2 FPS
75 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8GB $ 399 $ 3.8 104.4 FPS
103.3 FPS
70.2 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8GB $ 699 $ 6.8 103.3 FPS
101.9 FPS
68 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT 8GB $ 399 $ 4 99.7 FPS
97.8 FPS
64.5 FPS
NVIDIA TITAN V 12GB $ 2,999 $ 30.3 99.1 FPS
98.6 FPS
67.5 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 8GB $ 299 $ 3 99 FPS
98.3 FPS
67.5 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 7600 8GB $ 269 $ 2.7 98.9 FPS
97.2 FPS
63.9 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 8GB $ 699 $ 7.2 97.7 FPS
95.3 FPS
63 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT 8GB $ 379 $ 4 93.6 FPS
91.4 FPS
59.8 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB $ 759 $ 8.3 91.6 FPS
90.9 FPS
60.6 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8GB $ 499 $ 5.5 91 FPS
87.8 FPS
58.4 FPS
AMD Radeon VII 16GB $ 699 $ 7.8 89.8 FPS
87.1 FPS
57.1 FPS
NVIDIA TITAN Xp 12GB $ 1,199 $ 13.4 89.8 FPS
87.8 FPS
59.8 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GB $ 399 $ 4.6 87.4 FPS
84.8 FPS
55.5 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 8GB $ 499 $ 5.8 86.2 FPS
82 FPS
55.3 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 8GB $ 200 $ 2.3 86.2 FPS
84.8 FPS
58.2 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB $ 329 $ 3.8 85.6 FPS
82.8 FPS
55.7 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8GB $ 400 $ 4.9 81.6 FPS
76.3 FPS
50.6 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 5700 8GB $ 349 $ 4.4 80.1 FPS
77.8 FPS
50.9 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB $ 499 $ 6.4 77.8 FPS
74.3 FPS
48.8 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6GB $ 350 $ 4.6 76.8 FPS
70.2 FPS
45.7 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT 6GB $ 279 $ 3.7 75.6 FPS
72.7 FPS
47.5 FPS
AMD Radeon R9 295X2 4GB $ 1,499 $ 20.6 72.9 FPS
68.7 FPS
48 FPS
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB $ 499 $ 6.9 72.7 FPS
70.6 FPS
46.1 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8GB $ 409 $ 5.7 72.1 FPS
68.9 FPS
45 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti 6GB $ 249 $ 3.5 70.5 FPS
66.9 FPS
44.5 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X 12GB $ 999 $ 14.3 70.1 FPS
66.2 FPS
43.3 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6GB $ 279 $ 4.1 68.5 FPS
65.5 FPS
42.8 FPS
AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 8GB $ 399 $ 5.9 68.1 FPS
66 FPS
43.1 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB $ 399 $ 6 66.3 FPS
62.8 FPS
40.8 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6GB $ 229 $ 3.5 64.6 FPS
61.8 FPS
40.5 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB $ 649 $ 10.6 61 FPS
58 FPS
37.9 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 6GB $ 220 $ 3.6 60.8 FPS
58.1 FPS
38 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 590 8GB $ 279 $ 4.8 57.7 FPS
53.6 FPS
34.3 FPS
AMD Radeon R9 FURY X 4GB $ 649 $ 11.7 55.4 FPS
55.1 FPS
37 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER 4GB $ 160 $ 3 53 FPS
50.5 FPS
33 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB 8GB $ 199 $ 3.8 52.5 FPS
48.7 FPS
31.1 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 4GB $ 549 $ 10.5 52.3 FPS
49.1 FPS
32.4 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB $ 229 $ 4.5 51.2 FPS
47.4 FPS
30.2 FPS
AMD Radeon R9 Nano 4GB $ 649 $ 12.9 50.4 FPS
49.2 FPS
32.9 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN BLACK 6GB $ 999 $ 20.5 48.8 FPS
45.5 FPS
31.3 FPS
AMD Radeon R9 FURY 4GB $ 549 $ 11.5 47.6 FPS
46.4 FPS
30.6 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB $ 254 $ 5.3 47.5 FPS
44.4 FPS
29.1 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 4GB 4GB $ 169 $ 3.6 47.1 FPS
43.7 FPS
27.9 FPS
AMD Radeon R9 390X 8GB $ 429 $ 9.4 45.8 FPS
44.5 FPS
29.5 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB 3GB $ 170 $ 3.8 45.1 FPS
42.2 FPS
27.7 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4GB $ 329 $ 7.4 44.3 FPS
41 FPS
28 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB $ 400 $ 9.3 43.1 FPS
41.4 FPS
27.8 FPS
AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB $ 329 $ 7.7 42.8 FPS
40.6 FPS
25.3 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 570 4GB $ 169 $ 4 42.2 FPS
40.1 FPS
25.6 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 4GB $ 149 $ 3.7 40.4 FPS
38.3 FPS
24.9 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 470 4GB $ 179 $ 4.7 37.7 FPS
35.9 FPS
23.4 FPS
AMD Radeon R9 380X 4GB $ 229 $ 7.2 31.7 FPS
29.9 FPS
19.9 FPS
AMD Radeon R9 285 2GB $ 249 $ 8.7 28.5 FPS
26.9 FPS
16.9 FPS
AMD Radeon R9 380 2GB $ 199 $ 7.1 28.2 FPS
26.6 FPS
16.9 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB $ 169 $ 6.1 27.8 FPS
26.4 FPS
17.2 FPS
AMD Radeon R9 280 3GB $ 279 $ 10.1 27.6 FPS
26.3 FPS
16.2 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 2GB $ 199 $ 7.3 27.2 FPS
25.6 FPS
16.5 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 3GB $ 169 $ 7.1 23.7 FPS
22.2 FPS
14.3 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 560 4GB $ 99 $ 4.5 21.9 FPS
20.3 FPS
13.1 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 2GB $ 159 $ 7.4 21.5 FPS
19.9 FPS
13.3 FPS
AMD Radeon R7 370 2GB $ 149 $ 7.1 21.1 FPS
18.7 FPS
12.6 FPS
AMD Radeon R7 265 2GB $ 149 $ 7.1 20.9 FPS
18.1 FPS
12.2 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 460 4GB $ 140 $ 7.2 19.4 FPS
18 FPS
11.7 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB $ 149 $ 8 18.7 FPS
15.5 FPS
10.5 FPS
AMD Radeon RX 550 2GB $ 79 $ 5.2 15.3 FPS
14.3 FPS
9.2 FPS
NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 2GB $ 79 $ 5.4 14.6 FPS
13.6 FPS
8.4 FPS
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Critics Reviews

The original 14nm Ryzen 5 1600 was a great deal at a little over $100 and the Ryzen 5 2600 was killer at $120, but the Ryzen 5 1600 AF blows them both out of the water at just $85. That is, as ...
The AMD Ryzen 5 1600 AF is a good processor. The R5 1600 won one of our Best CPUs awards for 2017, but this isn’t a 2017 part – it’s sort of a 2018 Zen+ part, but it was released in 2019.
Le processeur est livré avec le cooler "wraith stealth" même que le ryzen 5 2600. Cela parce qu'on a ici le Ryzen 5 1600 "AF" une version du Ryzen 5 1600 "AE" ( Se voit sur la boîte du processeur ) mis à jour avec une architecture 12nm améliorée. On a des performances qui sont équivalentes au Ryzen 5 2600 stock.
In this review, we're looking at AMD's new Ryzen 5 1600 AF processor, which is a 2nd Gen Ryzen CPU (with 1st Gen naming) to replace the R5 1600. Sponsor: Lian Li O11 Dynamic XL (Newegg https ...
AMD Ryzen 5 1600 AF Review Disclosure: We get a small commission when you purchase products via our Amazon links, this doesn’t cost you anything extra, it’s a cut that comes out on Amazon’s ...
In this review, we're looking at AMD's new Ryzen 5 1600 AF processor, which is a 2nd Gen Ryzen CPU (with 1st Gen naming) to replace the R5 1600. Sponsor: Lian Li O11 Dynamic XL (Newegg https://geni.us/KmQGR) AMD somewhat silently released a new CPU -- the AMD Ryzen 5 1600…
Al igual que la versión original, el AMD Ryzen 5 1600 AF ofrece 6 núcleos, que a su vez ofrecen 12 hilos.Estos parten de una frecuencia base de 3.20 GHz para alcanzar los 3.60 GHz en el modo Boost, 200 MHz extras frente a la versión original.Ofrece además, un total de 2 x 8 MB de caché L3, así como 6 x 512 KB de caché L2 y 6 x 32 KB + 6 x 64 KB de caché L1, por lo que ofrece un reparto ...
The original 14nm Ryzen 5 1600 was a great deal at a little over $100 and the Ryzen 5 2600 was killer at $120, but the Ryzen 5 1600 AF blows them both out of the water at just $85.That is, as long as you can get it. The CPU seems to be readily available in the United States, but it’s not sold everywhere.
Ryzen 5 1600 af o R3 3300x? Hola que tal. Tengo un 3200g y estoy por actualizar. Estoy entre un 1600 Af y un 3300x, ambos tienen buen precio actualmente y tienen una diferencia de mil pesos. Estuve mirando diferencias pero me confundieron un poco. Si bien uno tiene mas nucleos que el otro, parece que para jugar, sirve el 3300x a pesar de que ...
The Ryzen 5 1600 features a 3.2 GHz base clock rate compared to the "X" model's 3.6 GHz, and it also incurs a similar 400 MHz deficit to the dual-core Precision Boost frequency.