AMD Ryzen 5 1600 6-Core, 12-Thread Unlocked Desktop Processor with Wraith Stealth Cooler

I bought mines back in 2020 but couldn't use it because of the gpu shortage. had to wait like 2 years just to get a GPU. started using this back at may of 2022. I'm still using this chip. it's great for streaming, gaming & content creation! it's going to be a sad day when i upgrade to a new chip. definitely recommend this for budget builds!broke the AMD fan on accident when trying to unscrew a screw. :(

If you are like me you looked up videos on how to build your first budget pc, and if you are also like me, you may have noticed that almost everyone on YT recommends this cpu (or the 2600 after the rebranding, but still pretty much the same.) I gotta say I was blown away by its performance. I can play everyone of my games (valorant was my main Guinea pig) with no issues. I paired a zotac geforce 1050, asus B450m-a motherboard, and 16gb of ram with this and it shows no sign of slowing down. Easy to install and with a good quality air cooler included (very quiet even when throttled) you can't go wrong putting this into your first pc.

TLDR: This chip is the perfect upgrade for anyone who built a sub-$400 budget gaming PC with an AM4-based AMD Athlon processor - the performance difference is night-and-day.This version of the R5 1600 offers performance similar to the 2600 for $40 less. If you followed one of those "$300-400 budget rig" build guides on Youtube from a couple years ago that used the AM4 Athlon chips, this is an absolute no-brainer. It works on 300-series boards without the need for a BIOS update, which is very handy given it's effectively a Zen+ architecture CPU in everything but name.The included cooler, while not as beefy as the original AE variant chips, still does a great job keeping this chip cool under load at stock clock speeds. Paired with a GTX 1650 Super, this particular SKU of the 1600 outperformed the Athlon X4 950 by up to 3x the framerate in most games. The difference in synthetic benchmarks were also very impressive for a now sub-$100 chip. (See images)I know I've already stated this multiple times, but it really does need to be said; If you're still using an Athlon X4 9xx or 200GE, now is the time to upgrade, and this is the chip you should be upgrading to.

I am a huge fan of this AF variant of the 1600. I can confirm this product listing is for the 12nm refresh, running under a Hyper 212 LED vertical push/pull (I have a 1st revision AM4 support model with incorrect slats) and running Crossfire 2x 570 4gb's (unrelated: don't do this, it's not for the feint of heart and very much out of support after Radeon driver 20.1.2).One concern I would have is possible motherboard support- I did purchase an MSI B450-A Pro MAX that did support it out of the box but I have heard anecdotally that it *theoretically* may not play nice with certain motherboards out of the box due to it listing as a 1000 series part but internally it is 2000 series. Very old BIOS revisions of other mobo's may not post or error out attempting to get to OS?Performance is fantastic out of the box, boosts up to 3.7GHz, and stays there, when ram is set to A-XMP (16gb 2933MHz dual channel CL16 here) and during all core sustained settles at 3.45GHz with barely any heat. Mine benches somewhere between the R5 1600X and the R5 2600.Currently with the 1600AF being sold in the USA for $85 and the R5 3600 being on sale regularly for $175 gaming has never been cheaper with CPUs. If you have the budget spring for the 3600 however I am 100% happy long term with the 1600AF. Room to upgrade but I likely won't need to for a long time.