Upgrading to Ryzen 5 5600 from Ryzen 5 1600: How Much Faster?

[HofyPC]

I bought the R5-1600AF a couple of years ago and it still does everything I want and need. Especially since I got it for $85 new. Nice to know I can drop in a R5-5600 if I ever need to.

 

[yRaz]

I would really like to see it, it is usually a nice experience to see some other setups and find other people ideas.
But it's pity you do not enjoy this part of your job, then. For me, putting pc stuff together is like playing with lego. Sure, sometimes separating those £$%£$ is pain, but hey, my Apollo rocket looks avesome

I work heavy construction building bridges, computers are just a hobby. Built my first one when I was 5

 

[dirtyferret]

I work heavy construction building bridges, computers are just a hobby. Built my first one when I was 5

That's not impressive! I was building bridges when I was five too!

 

[Irata]

I think you intended to to compare the intel 7600k vs 2500k

Speaking of which, the 1600/x was never a great gaming CPU. I recall people screaming to the high heaves when comparing the intel 7600k vs the 1600/x. An OC 7600k was a great gaming CPU for a short time (bad long term investment) while the 1600/x was never great. The 1600/x was OK and simply got slower over time like any other CPU just didn't drop off as fast as the 7600k.

That said the AMD 5600/x are great gaming CPUs.

You might want to give Techspot‘s Two Years Later, Who Won? Ryzen 5 1600 vs. Core i5-7600K article from 2019 a read. Here‘s from the summary.

We recommended the Ryzen 5 1600 over the Core i5-7600K in 2017 for a number of reasons, many relevant at the time, but one that is relevant today is that we believed it'd be the better gaming CPU in the long run and that happens to be the case.
Taking all this into consideration, if you were faced with upgrading or building a new gaming PC in mid-2017 and had the choice between these two processors, you could say going with the 7600K was a mistake. Today the R5 1600 is the superior performer enabling highly playable performance in all the latest games, while the 7600K struggles in a number of titles.
As a bonus, if you invested in the AM4 platform two years ago, you now have the luxury of upgrading

https://www.techspot.com/review/1859-two-years-later-ryzen-1600-vs-core-i5-7600k/

 

[Irata]

Sharp plastic clips, cutting yourself on sheet metal, solder joints digging into your skin and playing with front IO pins? I'll pass.

The IO / hdd light… pins are imho the worst - I have been wondering since I started building many, many years ago why there‘s not an easier standard method.

Didn‘t enjoy that part when I was 18 and even less now that my eyes are no longer as good.

I will still build as I feel OEM PC are bad value and usually a compromise, but not having to change mainboards is a definitive plus.

 

[dirtyferret]

You might want to give Techspot‘s Two Years Later, Who Won? Ryzen 5 1600 vs. Core i5-7600K article from 2019 a read. Here‘s from the summary.

I read it but here is the thing; why would you buy either CPU in 2019 when the article was released? Both Intel & AMD had moved on to better processors and like I said previously

"An OC 7600k was a great gaming CPU for a short time (bad long term investment) while the 1600/x was never great. The 1600/x was OK and simply got slower over time like any other CPU just didn't drop off as fast as the 7600k."

which is exactly what Steve said in his article

"When the R5 1600 was first released, you could easily argue in favor of the 7600K as the better gaming CPU. The vast majority of games performed better on the Core i5-7600K and often much faster in what we considered older games at the time. However, for newly released 2017 games they were more evenly matched and in a few core-heavy titles such as Ashes of the Singularity, the Ryzen CPU was a little faster or in Battlefield 1 it was overall more consistent."

 

[VaRmeNsI]

I noticed a difference upgrading from Ryzen 1800 to 3600 to 5900, considering each upgrade cost about $100 (after selling old CPU), can't complain.

 

[kiwigraeme]

Heh heh - We fired Steve up in that Intel /AMD motherboard cycle - he played his trump card there - being able to post an extra comment after comments had closed - I'm on his side - but thought that a bit cheeky

Anyway I didn't think the difference would be so great so learnt something new.

So a great easy upgrade - with a CPU to sell or build a neat little server or something
Only proviso is many people with 1600 may have a low grade motherboard - That tomahawk was an excellent buy for those who got it

So Steve - how constrained was 4K? - would of liked to see a few cases

 

[Mr Majestyk]

So sad their weren't any useful benchmarks for real work like video editing, Matlab, Photoshop, blender, etc.

Also that 6600XT tanks at 1440p, 5600 is wasted at that res. Do yourself a favour and get a better GPU too for 1440p.

 

[Lounds]

With a motherboard? I think I'd rather keep my solid MB without warranty, than getting a $50 motherboard for 10400f. Especially, given 10400f have more or less same performance as Ryzen 3600:

Intel Core i5-10400 vs. AMD Ryzen 5 3600

Intel's new Core i5-10400 is a locked 6-core, 12-thread processor that operates at between 2.9 GHz and 4.3 GHz depending on the workload. At around $180, this...

www.techspot.com

and 5600 is solid improvement over 3600.

So yes, If I'd have to choose between getting a 5600 for $180 to my old pc and simply swap a die, or getting 10400f for $125 with some cheapest mb possible, answer is very simple. And yeah, if my mb lasted 5 years then it will be fine for at least 5 more. And I will have bit better performance.

The difference is if you had gotten a Ryzen 3600 you could sell that for a decent amount still and upgrade for very little for a good 20% boost or a 5800X3D and have next to no bottleneck with the best Graphics cards. I think at the time the 10400f was the best budget option, it was often around £140 in the UK while the 3600 as around £170 at the time. I'm glad I bought a B350 + 1600 in Nov 2017, it's been a decent platform and upgrades have cost me very little to get the best budget gaming experience.

 

[MarcusNumb]

Nice article Steve, and I totally agree with you that if AMD can make a commitment for the longevity of the AM5, like what they could with AM4, it will be a great selling point and truly a great benefit for the customers. I myself will aim for the Zen4 CPU with 3d vcache, 5800x3d was a big surprise and if they can mature it with Zen4, that CPU will be amazing.

 

[Q Wales]

It really depends on one's current configuration. For example, my work partner has a PC that he uses principally for gaming and it has an R5-1600X at its heart. However, he would see no gaming benefit from this upgrade because his card isn't fast enough. He finally upgraded his card last week from a GTX 1060 to an RX 6600 XT (his first ATi GPU).

My card is an RX 6800 XT and it gets 160FPS at 1440p in Witcher III while my R5-3600X gets 150fps. There would be no benefit for me to upgrade my CPU because what is a jump from 150 to 160fps going to do for me, even if I have a high-refresh monitor (which I don't).

I have to give some constructive criticism to TechSpot in this situation because I had to go to Guru3D.com to find charts that matched up. It doesn't help to do CPU gaming tests at 1080p while the GPU tests are all at 1440p and above because upgrading can introduce a bottleneck that totally destroys any performance uplift.

In this situation, the R5-1600X gets 269fps at 720p, 200fps at 1080p and 150fps at 1440p while the RX 6800 XT gets 160fps at 1440p. While I understand that there's little value in benchmarking a card as potent as the RX 6800 XT above 1080p, benchmarking CPUs at 1440p allows people to get a good idea of whether or not a CPU upgrade would leave the system with a GPU bottleneck or vice-versa. There's also the fact that if you have a standard 1080p 60hz monitor which, let's face it, most people do, upgrading your CPU or GPU when both already offer a minimum fps of above 60fps in all games is a waste of money.

My screen's a 2160p display so I MIGHT get a bit of a boost at 2160p but it's really not worth it.

Thanks for this, I have a 3600x with a 1660S GPU and 240fps Alienware monitor and only play Fortnite, is there any point in my upgrading the cpu? I will probably go for the 6600XT or 6650XT by the end of the year if the prices keep coming down. Have ASRock X570 Phantom Gamining 4S mobo

 

[NumberSix]

F*/kin hell!

 

[LuxZg]

If I only had a crystal ball back in the day... But I went with Skylake (6500 of all things as there was that short period of non-K overclocking), git screwed by microcode updates, and ended with Z170 that was only compatible to 7700K. And that held price above MRSP even after 3 years so I stuck with that CPU till today, eagerly awaiting for AM5. I really hope AMD doesn't disappoint

 

[Avro Arrow]

Thanks for this, I have a 3600x with a 1660S GPU and 240fps Alienware monitor and only play Fortnite, is there any point in my upgrading the cpu? I will probably go for the 6600XT or 6650XT by the end of the year if the prices keep coming down. Have ASRock X570 Phantom Gamining 4S mobo

The R5-3600X is roughly even with the RX 6800 XT which trades blows with the RTX 3080. The GTX 1660 Super isn't even remotely close that level of performance so your CPU is already being bottlenecked. If you want increased performance, upgrade your video card because the GTX 1660 Super is hopelessly outdated compared to the gaming performance of the R5-3600X. Upgrading your CPU would be a complete waste at this time.

If I only had a crystal ball back in the day... But I went with Skylake (6500 of all things as there was that short period of non-K overclocking), git screwed by microcode updates, and ended with Z170 that was only compatible to 7700K. And that held price above MRSP even after 3 years so I stuck with that CPU till today, eagerly awaiting for AM5. I really hope AMD doesn't disappoint

Do you really think that AMD will disappoint after kicking Intel's butt left and right for the last five years? Look at all of the happy people with AM4 builds that haven't had to upgrade their motherboards since 2017...

Based on your post, it sounds to me like Intel has been the master of disappointment as of late. I don't see that ever changing because even when they had the performance advantage, they always found a way to stick it to the people who bought their stuff.

 

[MarcusNumb]

Thanks for this, I have a 3600x with a 1660S GPU and 240fps Alienware monitor and only play Fortnite, is there any point in my upgrading the cpu? I will probably go for the 6600XT or 6650XT by the end of the year if the prices keep coming down. Have ASRock X570 Phantom Gamining 4S mobo

With that CPU and monitor, you should upgrade your GPU to a 6700xt or even 3070. I'm using a 3600x myself and my GPU is 3070ti, I haven't encountered bottleneck problems with high FPS games. Don't upgrade your CPU.

 

[deanimate]

If there's that much improvement then I should notice a ridiculous performance increase from an i7-2600k + 970 to Zen 4

 

[johnsonlam.hk]

Just upgraded my Ryzen 7 2700 to 5700X, I can feel the Windows response a bit faster, and most significant is CPU intensive games (such as Fallout 4) and 7-ZIP a lot faster.

 

[dihartnell]

I think you haven't built anything in recent years, and probably never with decent components you mount everything on a mb try outside, clicking it in the case without worry, whole operation takes like 20 minutes, and then you're set. All you need is steady hand and minimum amount of manual understanding.
I got myself recently a meshilicious and no company will offer a better performing, smaller form factor out of a shelf, for similar price than what I was able to put together, with pleasure

I spend 20 mins just looking at the case considering the cable management. Takes me hours to build a pc.

 

[dihartnell]

Totally appreciate AMDs commitment to the consumer. I have upgraded 1600 to 2700 to 3700x over the last 5 years. Those upgrades were very cheap as I sold the previous cpu. I dont really need an upgrade at present but I may be tempted by a 5700x at some stage and that will see me right for another 3 years or so. I can't think of another platform where I was able to keep so long without any really compromises. Good on AMD.

 

[dangh]

I spend 20 mins just looking at the case considering the cable management. Takes me hours to build a pc.

Oh, looking for the case is the most difficult part but when you decided on the perfect one, the build process is very simple and straight forward. I got meshlicious, and was really surprised how simple the process went, with 280mm rads on cpu and 6900xt. A pleasure

 

[Vanderlinde]

It really depends on one's current configuration. For example, my work partner has a PC that he uses principally for gaming and it has an R5-1600X at its heart. However, he would see no gaming benefit from this upgrade because his card isn't fast enough. He finally upgraded his card last week from a GTX 1060 to an RX 6600 XT (his first ATi GPU).

My card is an RX 6800 XT and it gets 160FPS at 1440p in Witcher III while my R5-3600X gets 150fps. There would be no benefit for me to upgrade my CPU because what is a jump from 150 to 160fps going to do for me, even if I have a high-refresh monitor (which I don't).

I have to give some constructive criticism to TechSpot in this situation because I had to go to Guru3D.com to find charts that matched up. It doesn't help to do CPU gaming tests at 1080p while the GPU tests are all at 1440p and above because upgrading can introduce a bottleneck that totally destroys any performance uplift.

In this situation, the R5-1600X gets 269fps at 720p, 200fps at 1080p and 150fps at 1440p while the RX 6800 XT gets 160fps at 1440p. While I understand that there's little value in benchmarking a card as potent as the RX 6800 XT above 1080p, benchmarking CPUs at 1440p allows people to get a good idea of whether or not a CPU upgrade would leave the system with a GPU bottleneck or vice-versa. There's also the fact that if you have a standard 1080p 60hz monitor which, let's face it, most people do, upgrading your CPU or GPU when both already offer a minimum fps of above 60fps in all games is a waste of money.

My screen's a 2160p display so I MIGHT get a bit of a boost at 2160p but it's really not worth it.

In that perspective Pubg on WQHD pretty much doubled in performance once I switched a heavily OC'ed FX at 4.8Ghz in for 2700X. It's the low's where most gains are to be made with a faster CPU.

 

[dihartnell]

@dangh You are right. I keep cases and PSUs for ages and I put a lot of effort into getting one that I will stick with for a long time. I might consider your case for the next one. I had had a fractal define for many years and over the last 5 years the enthoo pro TG. Its not a perfect case but is a good case and so far I haven't found anything that was so much better that I would actually go to the trouble and change it. Probably once I completely change the platform it will afford me the opportunity to look towards ITX maybe and a new case with that.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I saw the headline again today and a funny thought crossed my mind:

"Over 100% Performance Boost in Games"

TRANSLATION:
"No Better Way to Create a GPU Bottleneck"

 

[Spect]

I am ashamed to say, I am one of the few still running a Ryzen 5 1600 and I am considering this upgrade finally.