Review on AMD Ryzen 5 1600 AM4 Processor with Wraith Stealth Cooler (YD1600BBAFBOX) - 65W Energy Efficiency by Andrew Amzallag

Like many others, this is the AF version of this processor, ie 12nm nodes with Zen+ updates. It's essentially a downclocked Ryzen 5 2600. Gamer's Nexus made a really good YouTube video on this processor if you're interested in more specs. My personal experience with this processor using ASUS Strix B450-F gaming motherboard and Fractal Design Celsius processor. Cooler S24 AIO. It booted to my motherboard with no problems. After running a few initial stress tests to make sure it was stable and everything was working fine, I went back into the BIOS to overclock it. Also, I should note that I did not reinstall my operating system after switching processors. I'm using Windows 10 with a recent update from January 2020. When I first started it my WiFi was disabled but I had already downloaded the chipset drivers to a USB stick. I installed the chipset driver, rebooted and everything was pretty much back to normal. I showed all my hidden devices in device manager and then removed everything related to my old processor and motherboard. I'm not entirely sure if that was necessary, but I did. Windows didn't seem to mind at all and it still shows as enabled. I was able to get to 4.0GHz fairly easily. I just changed the multiplier from Auto to 40 and the TPU from Auto to TPU II. Reboots and re-stress tests showed stable performance at 4.0GHz with intermittent single-core overclocking to 4.4GHz and multi-core overclocking to 4.2GHz. Note that I didn't use PBO or anything like that for this. The temperature during the test never exceeded 50°C. The interesting thing is that my AIO has a hardware auto mode that seems to throttle the fans independently of the motherboard. The fans were never overclocked to keep the temperature at 50°C. Another thing I want to point out is how it compares to my old Intel 4790k processor running at stock speeds. I lost the silicon lottery with this processor and it was never able to overclock above 4.4GHz without increasing the voltage so much that the processor got very hot. It worked pretty well at stock speeds though, so I only used it for about 5 years. With this setup it will run around 70-77°C with the same cooler and the fans will work much harder. The R5 1600AF runs most of my games with a few extra frames on the top end and mid (maybe 5-10 depending on the game). However, my low footage and perceived smoothness is day and night. I easily get 10-30 frames on the bottom. The desktop also seems to be much faster. So overall I'm satisfied. Although I didn't get an impressive FPS boost, my PC is much quieter and my experience is much better. If I really worked on the performance I would probably notice an even bigger difference. For $85, I love this processor. Easily the best processor I've ever bought.