AMD Ryzen 5 1400 Review

[Jos]

The Ryzen 5 1600 (non-X) is virtually unchallenged in terms of value among enthusiasts processors. However, we've yet to determine the next best option for those who can't afford to spend $220 on AMD's six-core champion. For $170, the quad-core AMD Ryzen 5 1400 appears to be a great alternative.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1386-amd-ryzen-5-1400/

 

[ZackL04]

Soooo AMD's version of an i7 is somewhere between Intels latest overclocked i3 and bottom barrell i5? Im not impressed.

I understand the price factor, but if Im building from scratch Im spending a bit more for an Intel CPU that will last longer than my current GPU and have the legs for a GPU upgrade a few years later

 

[oldikes]

Soooo AMD's version of an i7 is somewhere between Intels latest overclocked i3 and bottom barrell i5? Im not impressed.

I understand the price factor, but if Im building from scratch Im spending a bit more for an Intel CPU that will last longer than my current GPU and have the legs for a GPU upgrade a few years later

then you should most definitely not be buying anything with 4 threads or less (ESPECIALLY not an i3), which puts anything under an i7 out.

People have been saying multithreading is gonna be more and more prevelant for a decade, but now that consoles are x86 with 8 cores, you can bet much more easily on games being heavily threaded moving forward, and thats already been more obvious since mid 2016.

 

[dirtyferret]

So Steven, would you say the 1400 makes the 1500 irrelevant (for gamers) especially if the builder OC? It looks like the gaming choice (from your reviews) is the 1400 or 1600 and buyer should avoid the X chips (1500x & 1600x) to get the most bang for their respective buck.

 

[Daithi]

Soooo AMD's version of an i7 is somewhere between Intels latest overclocked i3 and bottom barrell i5? Im not impressed.

I understand the price factor, but if Im building from scratch Im spending a bit more for an Intel CPU that will last longer than my current GPU and have the legs for a GPU upgrade a few years later

It doesn't look like it's meant to take on i7s, not at sub $200. In and around i5s is probably exactly where they intended for it to be.

I'd be hesitant to call Intel a better long term option as well. People have only managed to stick with sandy bridge so long only because Intel have been stagnating ever since. That, and the fact that AMD have better long term support for older socket types means you'd probably have a better choice for upgrades in the future. Intel chipsets are a deadend for upgrading after two years.

 

[amstech]

Ok ok ok. I have been stagnant but no more.
I'll admit what I am seeing here.

AMD's new architecture is well made, its doing very well in application benchmarks of all sorts including multitasking and newer software. AMD has done their homework and this architecture will be the foothold for many generations to come. As far as games and overclockability I have changed my tune 'a little'...overall I am not sure where I stand on those two categories now.

 

[CrazyDave]

Soooo AMD's version of an i7 is somewhere between Intels latest overclocked i3 and bottom barrell i5? Im not impressed.

I understand the price factor, but if Im building from scratch Im spending a bit more for an Intel CPU that will last longer than my current GPU and have the legs for a GPU upgrade a few years later

Seems like you've missed the news for the last month or so. Ryzen numbering is similar to Intel's.
Ryzen 7 vs i7 (Arrived about a month ago, was reviewed then too)
Ryzen 5 vs i5 (Here now, this actual review)
Ryzen 3 vs i3 (Still coming)

The only reason some i7 parts are now better priced, is because of Ryzen. With no competition comes no limits on pricing. Intel dropped pricing on many i7's because of the need to be competitive with Ryzen. Brand loyalty aside, competition in the form of Ryzen is a clear win for all desktop CPU buyers.

 

[ZackL04]

Soooo AMD's version of an i7 is somewhere between Intels latest overclocked i3 and bottom barrell i5? Im not impressed.

I understand the price factor, but if Im building from scratch Im spending a bit more for an Intel CPU that will last longer than my current GPU and have the legs for a GPU upgrade a few years later

then you should most definitely not be buying anything with 4 threads or less (ESPECIALLY not an i3), which puts anything under an i7 out.

People have been saying multithreading is gonna be more and more prevelant for a decade, but now that consoles are x86 with 8 cores, you can bet much more easily on games being heavily threaded moving forward, and thats already been more obvious since mid 2016.

I totally agree, I wouldnt buy the 7350k ever. But to see it keeping up tells the the "power" of the core I these amd chips is lacking. This is first gen tech, so in a few years and multiple generations they should improve. I would be much more impressed and willing to buy if any of these Ryzen chips could approach 4.5ghz+.

Just because games are becoming more heavily threaded doesnt mean we should have to trade fewer faster cores for more slower ones. Gnomesayin?

 

[kapital98]

Soooo AMD's version of an i7 is somewhere between Intels latest overclocked i3 and bottom barrell i5? Im not impressed.

I understand the price factor, but if Im building from scratch Im spending a bit more for an Intel CPU that will last longer than my current GPU and have the legs for a GPU upgrade a few years later

The only reason some i7 parts are now better priced, is because of Ryzen. With no competition comes no limits on pricing. Intel dropped pricing on many i7's because of the need to be competitive with Ryzen. Brand loyalty aside, competition in the form of Ryzen is a clear win for all desktop CPU buyers.

This is really important. Intel had no incentive to change the price of it's $150+ chips because AMD has continually failed to compete in this part of the consumer market. Yes, they offered cheaper alternatives but those alternatives where almost never worth the performance hit, higher energy, and heat problems.

Now that the Ryzen 7 and 5's are out there have been an immediate response by Intel. First, they have already substantially cut the price of the i5's and i7's. Second, they will be releasing 8th generation core's in a couple months (well before they wanted to). Third, you can expect Intel to hit back with something beyond a slight refresh in the relatively near future (say, Q4 or early 2018).

This is great news for everybody. If you want AMD, you now have a legitimate option in the enthusiasts market. If you want Intel, hey, you just got a free $50-150 discount for doing absolutely nothing. AMD just put money in your pocket.

AMD has always kept Intel honest in the ~$100 and lower market. But they've been able to price as they wish in the i5/i7 market for the entire history of the Core series. It's good to see some competition.

 

[oldikes]

This is really important. Intel had no incentive to change the price of it's $150+ chips because AMD has continually failed to compete in this part of the consumer market. Yes, they offered cheaper alternatives but those alternatives where almost never worth the performance hit, higher energy, and heat problems.

Now that the Ryzen 7 and 5's are out there have been an immediate response by Intel. First, they have already substantially cut the price of the i5's and i7's. Second, they will be releasing 8th generation core's in a couple months (well before they wanted to). Third, you can expect Intel to hit back with something beyond a slight refresh in the relatively near future (say, Q4 or early 2018).

This is great news for everybody. If you want AMD, you now have a legitimate option in the enthusiasts market. If you want Intel, hey, you just got a free $50-150 discount for doing absolutely nothing. AMD just put money in your pocket.

AMD has always kept Intel honest in the ~$100 and lower market. But they've been able to price as they wish in the i5/i7 market for the entire history of the Core series. It's good to see some competition.

where is this substantial price cut? i5s are still as overpriced as ever as far as I can see

 

[kapital98]

where is this substantial price cut? i5s are still as overpriced as ever as far as I can see

The Core i7-7700k was around $400 before benchmarks of the Ryzen started to leak. Intel has cut that down both in the MSRP but also in terms of what their vendors are willing to sell. You can now pick up a 7700k for $300-320 depending on where you look.

I'd say a ~20% price drop is huge. This same type of price drop can be seen in their other products.

 

[kapital98]

The Core i7-7700k was around $400 before benchmarks of the Ryzen started to leak. Intel has cut that down both in the MSRP but also in terms of what their vendors are willing to sell. You can now pick up a 7700k for $300-320 depending on where you look.

I'd say a ~20% price drop is huge. This same type of price drop can be seen in their other products.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/VK...ore-processor-bx80677i77700k?history_days=180

 

[GreenNova343]

Soooo AMD's version of an i7 is somewhere between Intels latest overclocked i3 and bottom barrell i5? Im not impressed.

I understand the price factor, but if Im building from scratch Im spending a bit more for an Intel CPU that will last longer than my current GPU and have the legs for a GPU upgrade a few years later

I'll admit there might be some confusion, since the charts lists the i5-7400 but the testing rig information says i5-7500. However, I will point out that a) the i5-7500 only costs about $12 more than the i5-7400, & b) despite the 10% lead in base/Turbo frequencies, the i5-7500 doesn't seem to provide anywhere near 10% more performance than the i5-7400 (http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1833?vs=1862) -- more like 5% tops.

And having said that, this is what you also have to consider:
-- price-wise, I found a $3 USD difference between the i5-7400 build (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/bKmKgL) & the Ryzen 5 1400 build (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/qPLKgL), although I switched the i5 build to only have 16GB of DDR4 RAM (& have both using DDR4-2400 RAM). To be fair, I still don't consider them "mainstream" builds, given the use of the Titan X & a 2TB SSD pushes them to nearly $2,200 each...but cutting down to an ASUS RX 480 (8GB ROG STRIX model) & a 250TB SSD (along with 2 Western Digital 1TB Caviar Blue drives) cuts them down to under $1,000 ($952 for the i5, $955 for the 1400).
-- performance-wise, the Ryzen 5 1400 in the non-gaming benchmarks used here averages about 17.4% better performance compared to the i5-7400, while using only about 3% more power at idle & 7% power under load; gaming doesn't look quite as good, but based on these benchmarks you're talking about getting 98% of the i5-7400's performance for the same price. That's so close that it's almost really a tie between them... & when was the last time you heard of a brand-new AMD chip tying a brand-new "equivalent" Intel chip in performance of any kind?
-- As pointed out many, many times, with the Intel build you have a "locked" system: not only can you never overclock it for a little more performance, you can't even overclock any of the unlocked CPUs (not available on a B250 board). In contrast, the Ryzen 5 1400 system can be overclocked (& even overclocked with the stock cooler it comes with)...& the overclocking they did here provided measurable performance (38% better non-gaming, 10% better gaming performance compared to the i5-7400). And to even have a chance to overclock a Kaby Lake i5, you'd have to spend another $115 USD for that Z270 & a halfway-decent cooler (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/pVvCVY). That's about a 10% increase in cost, but I don't know if you can guarantee that an overclocked i5-7600K will have even 10% more performance than the overclocked Ryzen 5 1400.

 

[madboyv1]

I've been running Intel since the end of the netburst days, and before that AMD Athlon (and before that Intel in the 90s). Before Ryzen came out I was saying if that if Ryzen was a flop that it would basically be the final nail of AMD's coffin in the consumer processor market. Instead we got a solid architecture putting Intel to task, or at least keeping up at a lower price. I'm glad to see AMD is back on it's horse again in the enthusiast and mainstream markets, and I only expect the same in the budget market which is where AMD has kept fairly solid.

 

[HardReset]

I'd say a ~20% price drop is huge. This same type of price drop can be seen in their other products.

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/49454-intel-calls-core-2-best-in-world-slashes-prices-60
https://www.techpowerup.com/129961/intel-halves-price-of-core-i7-950-introduces-new-chips

 

[Boshum]

Soooo AMD's version of an i7 is somewhere between Intels latest overclocked i3 and bottom barrell i5? Im not impressed.

I understand the price factor, but if Im building from scratch Im spending a bit more for an Intel CPU that will last longer than my current GPU and have the legs for a GPU upgrade a few years later

Your first sentence is wrong because it beats the bottom of the barrel I'5s. What does it matter anyways about the cores if the end result is that at a given price point it beats the Intels right now. If anything, the extra cores means it will beat Intel even more in the future.

If you are spending more than $200 than Intel gets beat again at any given price point by the Ryzen R5 1600's or R7's, unless you want to spend over $1000 on your cpu. The only exception might be the 7700K at low resolutions doing high fps gaming with a high refresh monitor and ultra high end graphics card.

 

[tylerb1489]

Soooo AMD's version of an i7 is somewhere between Intels latest overclocked i3 and bottom barrell i5? Im not impressed.

I understand the price factor, but if Im building from scratch Im spending a bit more for an Intel CPU that will last longer than my current GPU and have the legs for a GPU upgrade a few years later

It doesn't look like it's meant to take on i7s, not at sub $200. In and around i5s is probably exactly where they intended for it to be.

I'd be hesitant to call Intel a better long term option as well. People have only managed to stick with sandy bridge so long only because Intel have been stagnating ever since. That, and the fact that AMD have better long term support for older socket types means you'd probably have a better choice for upgrades in the future. Intel chipsets are a deadend for upgrading after two years.

Yes, the only reason why I am still on an i5-2500 is because INTEL hasn't come out with a substantial upgrade since 2011.... I skipped 1st gen i5 & waited for 2nd gen. See I went from a 2005 Pentium 4 3.2ghz w/ HT and my new processor is about 300% faster overall, if you compare a i5-7500 its about 25% faster effective speed. Each processor is about six years apart from each other, hence the horrible stalling that has been happening. Now I could top out my chipset at a 3770K, but its so old already too why bother.

 

[CaptainTom]

Soooo AMD's version of an i7 is somewhere between Intels latest overclocked i3 and bottom barrell i5? Im not impressed.

I understand the price factor, but if Im building from scratch Im spending a bit more for an Intel CPU that will last longer than my current GPU and have the legs for a GPU upgrade a few years later

Did you read anything?

If you want a sub $200 cpu, the 1400 decimated the competition. If you want to spend more, the 1600 is sitting right there and also making the i7-7700K look like a fool.

The only situation where the 7700K makes sense is if you watercool and overclock it for 200 FPS 1080P gaming. But even then stuttering seems to be a concern.

 

[theBest11778]

Definitely one of the most interesting CPUs in years. Price/performance is excellent for a new part. I7 2600ks can be had for a little less, but are also slower, used, lack of modern mobo features, and a decent z77 board is much more than a b350.

For the average 60fps gamer this is a perfect fit.

 

[Puiu]

Soooo AMD's version of an i7 is somewhere between Intels latest overclocked i3 and bottom barrell i5? Im not impressed.

I understand the price factor, but if Im building from scratch Im spending a bit more for an Intel CPU that will last longer than my current GPU and have the legs for a GPU upgrade a few years later

what you should be impressed is the performance you get for your money, not how it has the same number of threads as the i7.

"an Intel CPU that will last longer" --> then buying an i3 or and i5 CPU is out of the question since you'll be stuck with just 2/4c and 4 threads. and if you plan to upgrade 2-3 years from now then, again, you want AMD since the AM4 socket will be compatible with multiple generations.

let me ask you something simple:
- when you game do you never open anything in the background? browser? discord/ts/skype? antivirus? music? etc?
- will you reinstall windows every so often and not install anything besides games?
-> which one do you think will cope better in that situation? as programmer let me tell you this: even simple android apps can easily be made to take advantage of multiple threads. programing tools and languages now make it easier than ever to create multithreaded applications/games. 2016 showed this clearly.

you need to look at real world situations, not just benchmarks that were done specifically to stress test the CPU in a controlled and clean environment.

 

[CaptainTom]

Definitely one of the most interesting CPUs in years. Price/performance is excellent for a new part. I7 2600ks can be had for a little less, but are also slower, used, lack of modern mobo features, and a decent z77 board is much more than a b350.

For the average 60fps gamer this is a perfect fit.

I think I might refer this to a friend with either a 570 or 580.

 

[Puiu]

@Steven Walton thank you for including the percentile results. I've always wondered why techspot didn't have them

 

[yeeeeman]

Hard to imagine a few months ago that AMD will comeback as strong as it did with these chips. Seems like Jim Keller being the head of this new generation was a safe bet. I think that in the next months AMD will grow - that is, if people start to realize the value in AMD products - but it remains to be seen if that really happens or not.

 

[Rockstarrrr]

Gotta admit, R5 1400, when OC to ~4 Ghz is doing really good. Even more realistic 3700-3800 should be enough. With that in mind, dont go for R5 1400 - wait for R3, those will be 4/4 and will clock the same. Should be around 110-150$, which is really, really good. Intel seems to be in a real trouble here.

 

[iABDOzz Mustafa]

I think AMD Started to compete against the companies that eating our money with no one to stop them -- we needed that for along time and this is the first round