Ryzen 5 1600X: Building a versatile work-and-play PC with AMD’s 6-core CPU champion
THE RYZEN 5 1600X is here, and AMD’s affordable processor is just as disruptive as the high-end Ryzen 7 CPUs. Hell, maybe even more so.
While the 8-core-equipped Ryzen 7 series trades blows with Intel’s $1,000 Core i7-6900K for as little as a third of the price, it lags significantly behind the quad-core Core i7-7700K in many pure gaming workloads. The Ryzen 5 1600X’s value proposition is much clearer. With 6 overclockable cores and 12 threads, its competitor would be the $420 Core i7-6800K, in a vacuum—but we don’t live in a vacuum. Here in the real world, the 1600X’s $250 price tag puts it toe-to-toe with Intel’s Core i5-7600K, a ferocious gaming chip but one limited to just four cores without any hyperthreading.
The Ryzen 5 1600X.
Sure, the 1600X still isn’t quite as fast as the 7600K in some games, but Ryzen nevertheless games like a champ when paired with a decent graphics card. And with three times as many threads as its rival, AMD’s processor absolutely burns the Core i5 to the ground in multithreaded applications. Seriously. It’s a massacre.
You’ll need to read PCWorld’s comprehensive Ryzen 5 1600X review for the detailed scoop on its performance. Here, we’re going to build one hell of an all-around system that basks in the Ryzen 5 1600X’s status as the jack—nay, the king—of all trades, and the best mainstream CPU powerhouse you can buy.
What’s inside the Ryzen 1600X PC
While our Ryzen 7 1800X build celebrating the apex of all-AMD power contained several indulgences (the closed-loop cooler and premium power supply alone cost over $500), this build’s a bit more restrained. Don’t get me wrong: At a hair over $1,500, this isn’t a cheap PC. But it’s one designed to offer damned fine (though not best-in-class) performance in all computing areas—gaming, streaming, audio/video editing, programming, you
