# Should I upgrade from my 2600k to a Ryzen 1600 AF?



## stoggs1 (Feb 7, 2020)

Hey everyone,

So I have been contemplating upgrading from my current cpu and motherboard setup which is an I7 2600k overclocked to 4.2 ghz(max stable overclock I can achieve) and an Asus p8p67 deluxe MB to a Ryzen 1600 AF and a solid b450 motherboard and 16 gb of ddr4 ram.

The reason I am looking at Ryzen is mainly due to budget constraints, when I receive my income tax refund I will have about 300 dollars to play with so the Ryzen platform would fall within that budget.  But my main question is would it be worth?  Would see a significant performance gain over my current platform?

Also another reason I am considering upgrading is because I want to make sure my pc will be up to snuff to run Doom Eternal and Cyberpunk 2077 since those are my most two anticipated games of 2020 and I would hope to be able to run both games at with high settings 1080 or 1440p with 60 fps since my current display is 60hz and I don't plan on upgrading my display until I get a faster GPU.

If I don't upgrade this year then I will save up probably do a full build next year around this time.

Thanks in advance.


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## oxrufiioxo (Feb 7, 2020)

What GPU are you rocking?


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## LFaWolf (Feb 7, 2020)

It is not worth it. The gain is minimal, if there is any gain at all


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## sam_86314 (Feb 7, 2020)

I switched from an i7 2600K (that wouldn't go above 4.3GHz without a BCLK overclock) to an R5 2600X. I've had noticeable performance gains in general use and CPU intensive games, and substantial gains in stuff like file compression, 3D rendering, and video transcoding.

Not sure how the 12nm 1600 compares to the 2600X. I'd assume it would only be slightly behind.


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## stoggs1 (Feb 7, 2020)

oxrufiioxo said:


> What GPU are you rocking?


Gtx 1070 I don't plan on upgrading it anytime soon since it is still quite capable for 60 fps gaming.  But I most likely will next year.


LFaWolf said:


> It is not worth it. The gain is minimal, if there is any gain at all


Ok, I appreciate your reply, do you think my current system should last me at least another year?



sam_86314 said:


> I switched from an i7 2600K (that wouldn't go above 4.3GHz without a BCLK overclock) to an R5 2600X. I've had noticeable performance gains in general use and CPU intensive games, and substantial gains in stuff like file compression, 3D rendering, and video transcoding.
> 
> Not sure how the 12nm 1600 compares to the 2600X. I'd assume it would only be slightly behind.


Ok, thanks for your input, I mostly use my pc for gaming, youtube and my side job.  I wouldn't utilize those other tools/apps but I do appreciate the info.


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## LFaWolf (Feb 7, 2020)

The key to a good gaming system is balance. Your 2600k is a good enough match for the GTX 1070. Spending the $300 you will not see significant gain, and it will be wasted money. For the 2 games that you want to play, you may need to dial down the settings a bit. But come next year, say you have doubled your budget to $600, you can have a more meaningful upgrade to a mid range Intel or AMD offerings at that time. Both companies should come out with new CPUs by this time next year. You may need to save more for a GPU upgrade as well.


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## Deleted member 67555 (Feb 7, 2020)

I bought an $80 1600 and it ran toe to toe with the 2600 but I'm pretty sure it was a 2600 in disguise... Gave it to my brother in law.
It ran games just fine and yes it will make a difference... The upgrade in optional upgrades alone make it worth it aka Sata 3 to NVMe.
The performance is slightly better than a I7-4770.


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## biffzinker (Feb 7, 2020)

jmcslob said:


> The upgrade in optional upgrades alone make it worth it aka Sata 3 to NVMe.


There is also USB 3.1 Gen2 (SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps) Type A/C ports.


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## sepheronx (Feb 7, 2020)

If you can get it, I would say so.

2600K is still good, but 6 cores and 12 threads is very nice.


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## R0H1T (Feb 7, 2020)

One of the reasons I can think of a potential switch being worth it is if you are also looking to upgrade to a Ryzen 3xxx or 4xxx down the line. In which case the 1600 AF is worth the money, it's still the* best bang for buck* outside of chips selling on great deals like ~ *Micro Center strikes again - $79.99 for a 2600X (Feb 7 to 9)*
*
In short* definitely buy it if you are looking to upgrade to a better AMD CPU down the line, you never know when AMD stops making these.


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## oxrufiioxo (Feb 7, 2020)

stoggs1 said:


> Gtx 1070 I don't plan on upgrading it anytime soon since it is still quite capable for 60 fps gaming.  But I most likely will next year.




You'll probably want to save up for ryzen 4000... the 1600 af might be slightly better but probably not enough to warrant a whole platform upgrade and your GPU is a pretty good match for your current CPU. That being said the next line of GPU may be bottlenecked by your CPU but it will probably still be good enough for 60hz in the majority of games.


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## biffzinker (Feb 7, 2020)

Single thread performance is likely higher with the i7-2600K overclocked to 4.2 GHz. The Ryzen 5 1600AF shows a performance uplift in multithreaded loads.


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## oxrufiioxo (Feb 7, 2020)

biffzinker said:


> Single thread performance is likely higher with the i7-2600K overclocked to 4.2 GHz. The Ryzen 5 1600AF shows a performance uplift in multithreaded loads.



It's faster or similar to a 4.8ghz 4790k in modern games.


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## LFaWolf (Feb 7, 2020)

Well, watch it yourself here -


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## R0H1T (Feb 7, 2020)

biffzinker said:


> Single thread performance is likely higher with the i7-2600K


Original Ryzen was at or around Broadwell level IPC, zen+ slightly ahead depending on the application. 2600k is a fair way behind the 1600AF at stock, even if we include the OC you'd have to take into account the smeltdown patches & after which I'd guess ~5Ghz would put it beyond the zen+ assuming you're also likely to push the AMD chip to its limit. In MT tasks it will be a bloodbath mostly. An indication of how it'd turn out ~





						CPU 2019 Benchmarks - Compare Products on AnandTech
					

CPU 2019 benchmarks: Compare two products side-by-side or see a cascading list of product ratings along with our annotations.




					www.anandtech.com


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## Melvis (Feb 7, 2020)

I did, I went from a i7 2600 to a 1600X and I did see a performance gain not massive but it was there and the best part is im now on the great AM4 platform so upgrades are almost endless so all in all I think its worth it.


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## EarthDog (Feb 7, 2020)

stoggs1 said:


> Ok, I appreciate your reply, do you think my current system should last me at least another year?


That isn't up to us, bud... Is it working for you? That is what matters.

That said, though you will see improvements from a Sandybridge to 1st gen ryzen, I'd save my pennies and get Ryzen 3000 series, or at least Ryzen 2000 series.


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## Mussels (Feb 7, 2020)

I went from a 4770k to a ryzen 1600 regular and noticed gains, you're getting a huge boost from the motherboard platform change alone

go for it, you can always upgrade the CPU even further later when prices are lower


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## ppn (Feb 7, 2020)

Wait for 4600 in Q42020, or get 3600 now. You can afford it ~~299$ B450-K 16GB R5-3600, and sell the old parts to buy 1TB nVME


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## Kissamies (Feb 7, 2020)

LFaWolf said:


> It is not worth it. The gain is minimal, if there is any gain at all


That's a good one!

I have a R5 2600 in my gaming rig, 2600K @ 4.5GHz in my HTPC, and there's no way that I'd use that as my main PC. It does it job fine as a HTPC, but for new games, 4 cores aren't enough anymore.


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## Nater (Feb 7, 2020)

My 2 cents - 

I went from an i5 2300/12GB/GTX 1070 to a Ryzen 5 2600/16GB/GTX 1070 for a bit, and the biggest difference I noticed (Black Ops 4 essentially all I played) was the little micro-stutters went away.  Playing at 1440p, sure, average FPS went up marginally, but it was the fact that it stopped freezing up for a split second here and there, made all the difference.


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## Vario (Feb 7, 2020)

Benefits are gaining NVMe M.2 slots for faster storage, DDR4.  2 more cores 4 more threads than your i7.  The R5 1600AF is a R5 2600.


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## stoggs1 (Feb 8, 2020)

So after checking out some benchmarks comparing the 2600k to a ryzen 2600(which is basically a slightly faster 1600 af)  I see the fps difference in most games is roughly 10 to 15 and this is with a higher end gpu such as 1080 ti or 2080 ti so the performance gain for my 1070 would most likely be lower I am not sure if its worth the upgrade.

However the performance gap between cpu bound games are a bit higher, but I don't play many of those.

I am still considering it though as I could just drop in 3700 or something similar in a year or so and not have to worry about swapping everything out.

But if I don't do this upgrade I can pick up a used ps4 pro and a newish phone for about the same price and I do kind of want one especialy for The Last of Us 2 and Bloodborne.  And my current phone has a cracked screen (note I don't buy higher end phones anymore but I could snag a galaxy s6 or note 4 for around 50 bucks which are both alot better than my current phone)

Decisions decisions.

And one more thing, do you guys think my current system will get me through until next year?

And thanks to everyone who replied.  I appreciate any input.


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## rtwjunkie (Feb 8, 2020)

stoggs1 said:


> And one more thing, do you guys think my current system will get me through until next year?


I don’t see why it can’t. This is even more true if you are satisfied with the performance and willing to wait.


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## Hyderz (Feb 8, 2020)

stoggs1 said:


> So after checking out some benchmarks comparing the 2600k to a ryzen 2600(which is basically a slightly faster 1600 af)  I see the fps difference in most games is roughly 10 to 15 and this is with a higher end gpu such as 1080 ti or 2080 ti so the performance gain for my 1070 would most likely be lower I am not sure if its worth the upgrade.
> 
> However the performance gap between cpu bound games are a bit higher, but I don't play many of those.
> 
> ...



another thing to look out for when comparing cpu is to look at the 0.1% and 1%. They make a big difference when it comes to gaming, you can get a cpu that can do say 70-90 average fps but thats pointless if it dips below 35fps in the 1%. 
Since you own the 2600k which is an awesome cpu and i think you might be better getting a higher tier cpu like the 3700x or intel 9900k equivalent (this is expensive but great for gaming).
The Ryzen 5 1600AF is a great value cpu and performs really well at games and content creation but i think you better upgrade to something more powerful.
Your 2600k is definately good enough this year save up and upgrade both cpu and gpu . Get a new phone first after all, its a useful day to day communication tool.


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## stoggs1 (Feb 8, 2020)

rtwjunkie said:


> I don’t see why it can’t. This is even more true if you are satisfied with the performance and willing to wait.


I am since i average 60 fps in pretty much every game, but I the main reason I was considering upgrading is because I wanted to make sure my pc was strong enough to play Doom Eternal and Cyberpunk, but I think it should be able to, I don't see them being super demanding at least no more than say Metro Exodus or Red Dead 2, I havent played Red Dead 2 yet but from benchmarks I have seen I should get roughly 60 at high on that game and I can run Metro Exodus with the Ultra preset and I get 60 most of the time but it does dip here and there but its not too bad.


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## hat (Feb 8, 2020)

I'm kinda in the same boat as you. With a 2600k at 4.4, I'd like to upgrade, but... not just yet. Since I don't really need to upgrade, I'm waiting to see what happens with Intel's new non *lake architecture (I believe Rocket Lake is the first new design) and whatever AMD has then. And then still maybe not, heh.


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## Zach_01 (Feb 8, 2020)

Since there is no urgency for upgrade, and maybe the budget is not very high I say just wait and save up for an upgrade that makes more sense that 2600k >> R5 1600AF/2600.
For me the R5 3600 should be minimum upgrade path from 2600k.
Next year, prices of Ryzen 3000 will be ridiculously low and you may be able to grab a 3700X or some 4000 SKU...


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## Vario (Feb 8, 2020)

stoggs1 said:


> So after checking out some benchmarks comparing the 2600k to a ryzen 2600(which is basically a slightly faster 1600 af)  I see the fps difference in most games is roughly 10 to 15 and this is with a higher end gpu such as 1080 ti or 2080 ti so the performance gain for my 1070 would most likely be lower I am not sure if its worth the upgrade.
> 
> However the performance gap between cpu bound games are a bit higher, but I don't play many of those.
> 
> ...


You might as well just wait a bit longer, save some more cash and buy the 3700 then.
Interesting to think that in 2011 an Intel i7 2600K was not considered a value proposition, but its served 9 years now.


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## dirtyferret (Feb 8, 2020)

Vario said:


> You might as well just wait a bit longer, save some more cash and buy the 3700 then.
> Interesting to think that in 2011 an Intel i7 2600K was not considered a value proposition, but its served 9 years now.


Go on some Reddit forums and there are armies of i5-2500k & i5-3570k users still happy with their CPUs eight + years in.


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## cucker tarlson (Feb 8, 2020)

Heres an example of a multi threaded game 








						Test Intel Core i5-8400 vs AMD Ryzen 5 1600 - Wojna sześciu rdzeni | PurePC.pl
					

Test Intel Core i5-8400 vs AMD Ryzen 5 1600 - Wojna sześciu rdzeni (strona 39) Test procesora Intel Core i5-8400, czyli najtańsze sześciu rdzeni na rynku, kontra AMD Ryzen 5 1600 mający dwanaście wątków. Który jest wydajniejszy i bardziej opłacalny?




					www.purepc.pl
				



There is some difference,but its rather small.


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## freeagent (Feb 8, 2020)

Im still rocking my 3770K too, but I will probably upgrade this summer.  I almost pulled the trigger on a new midrange system the other day, but bought last years phone because my 4 year old phone is pretty beat up. At least something got upgraded :/


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## lexluthermiester (Feb 8, 2020)

stoggs1 said:


> Hey everyone,
> 
> So I have been contemplating upgrading from my current cpu and motherboard setup which is an I7 2600k overclocked to 4.2 ghz(max stable overclock I can achieve) and an Asus p8p67 deluxe MB to a Ryzen 1600 AF and a solid b450 motherboard and 16 gb of ddr4 ram.
> 
> ...


My 2 cents, If your system is currently doing what you need/want it too, save your money for a full build. However, if it's not performing the way you need/want it too an upgrade would be a good idea. A Ryzen 1600 would be a solid upgrade from your 2600k. Doom Eternal and Cyberpunk are both going to be games that will require a beefy system. The GTX1070 you have will do ok at 1080p, but 1440p it's going to struggle a bit a max settings. So you'll need to turn some settings down to get a solid 60fps. A GPU upgrade might serve you better short term for the goals you desire.


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## Darmok N Jalad (Feb 8, 2020)

I just wonder how much longer you can count on overclocked 9 year old components. If nothing else, start setting some money aside so you can make a move if something finally gives out. It's hard to find those old motherboards for cheap anymore, and even then, it's probably not worth the risk, especially when you can move to a modern platform for not a whole lot more. NVMe storage is one of the better upgrades since that era, especially for game load times and (in my case) RAW image processing.

If it were me, I'd save up to get at least a 3600X + B450 build, and stretch the 1070 for a little longer. We're finally seeing some movement in the GPU mid-sector, and some next-gen hardware is just around the corner.


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## freeagent (Feb 8, 2020)

I totally agree. My rig is probably pretty slow in these modern times, luckily I am ignorant to the power of new  So to me this thing still hauls butt. If I'm honest I am completely content with it. But its nearly a decade old so I'm sure things have progressed a little.. As for longevity, as long as you keep things cool and dusted you should be good to go for quite some time. I thought my X58 would have died a long time ago, I even hoped it would. Yet its still alive, like that old cat that keeps pissing on the carpet.. your mercy will  be its end.


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## cucker tarlson (Feb 8, 2020)

freeagent said:


> I totally agree. My rig is probably pretty slow in these modern times, luckily I am ignorant to the power of new  So to me this thing still hauls butt. If I'm honest I am completely content with it. But its nearly a decade old so I'm sure things have progressed a little.. As for longevity, as long as you keep things cool and dusted you should be good to go for quite some time. I thought my X58 would have died a long time ago, I even hoped it would. Yet its still alive, like that old cat that keeps pissing on the carpet.. your mercy will  be its end.


it's not terrible either
gtx 980 at 1.5ghz is like rx590 probably,a pretty decent 1080p card
3770k at 4.7ghz with some fast ddr3 - not a top tier cpu,but for 60 fps gaming it's pretty sufficient too.


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## freeagent (Feb 8, 2020)

Oh yeah for sure. Like I said, to me this thing still rips. I can play most of my steam library at max settings, sometimes concessions need to be made, but its nothing horrible for sure. 3dmark and aida64 say its an upper midrange pc, and the SSDs in raid get me into the 1000MB/s zone so I really cant complain to much.


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## stoggs1 (Feb 9, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> My 2 cents, If your system is currently doing what you need/want it too, save your money for a full build. However, if it's not performing the way you need/want it too an upgrade would be a good idea. A Ryzen 1600 would be a solid upgrade from your 2600k. Doom Eternal and Cyberpunk are both going to be games that will require a beefy system. The GTX1070 you have will do ok at 1080p, but 1440p it's going to struggle a bit a max settings. So you'll need to turn some settings down to get a solid 60fps. A GPU upgrade might serve you better short term for the goals you desire.


I don't doubt that about Doom E and Cyberpunk will be demanding games, but if as I can get 60 fps high settings at 1080p I'll be happy since I don't notice a big difference between high and ultra settings in most games.   I was considering a gpu upgrade as well but the only two decent cards I can afford are the RTX 2060 and RX 5700 but neither one are a big enough jump from my 1070 to justify the cost.  I would want to get a RTX 2070 minimum, and that card is way outside of my upgrade budget, so that's why I was looking at the cpu/motherboard upgrade instead.

I am still quite happy with the performance I am currently getting since my system handles everything I throw at it with max or near max settings even games like Metro Exodus which are quite demanding I can run at the Ultra preset(no RTX obvisously) 1080p and I got 60 fps through out most of the campaign when I played through it last year, but I did get some dips every once ina while but overall it ran quite well.  To be honest the only game my pc has struggled with ironically enough has been the original Crysis which I am currently playing through at the moment.  It does run at 60 a good amount of the time but sometimes it just drops to the mid 20's, but thats Crysis for you.  I have experienced this on pretty much every PC I have ever played that game on.

The only really high end game I have not played as of yet is Red Dead 2 if that is any indication for you.

Most likely I will wait until ID drops the hardware requirements for Doom Eternal and if they are too out of my reach I will probably pull the trigger and upgrade since that is my most anticipated game since Doom is my all time favorite game series and I loved Doom 2016. I can wait until next to year to play Cyberpunk if need be but I don't think I can wait that long for Doom lol.


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## oxrufiioxo (Feb 9, 2020)

stoggs1 said:


> I don't doubt that about Doom E and Cyberpunk will be demanding games, but if as I can get 60 fps high settings at 1080p I'll be happy since I don't notice a big difference between high and ultra settings in most games.   I was considering a gpu upgrade as well but the only two decent cards I can afford are the RTX 2060 and RX 5700 but neither one are a big enough jump from my 1070 to justify the cost.  I would want to get a RTX 2070 minimum, and that card is way outside of my upgrade budget, so that's why I was looking at the cpu/motherboard upgrade instead.
> 
> I am still quite happy with the performance I am currently getting since my system handles everything I throw at it with max or near max settings even games like Metro Exodus which are quite demanding I can run at the Ultra preset(no RTX obvisously) 1080p and I got 60 fps through out most of the campaign when I played through last, but I did get some dips every once and a while but overall it ran quite well.  To be honest the only game my pc has struggled with ironically enough has been the original Crysis.
> 
> Most likely I will wait until ID drops the hardware requirements for Doom Eternal and if they are too out of my reach I will probably pull the trigger and upgrade since that is my most anticipated game since Doom is my all time favorite game series and I loved Doom 2016. I can wait until next to year to play Cyberpunk if need be but I don't think I can wait that long for Doom lol.



Doom eternal will likely run at 60fps on the potato console CPU ( Pro/X ) I doubt you'll have any issues hitting 60 unless its and unoptimized mess. 

Faster next gen GPU will be out around Cyberpunk launch most likely as well as ryzen 4000.


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## stoggs1 (Feb 9, 2020)

oxrufiioxo said:


> Doom eternal will likely run at 60fps on the potato console CPU ( Pro/X ) I doubt you'll have any issues hitting 60 unless its and unoptimized mess.
> 
> Faster next gen GPU will be out around Cyberpunk launch most likely as well as ryzen 4000.


I doubt it will be unoptimized if Doom 2016 is any indication, since that one runs pretty good on ancient hardware, the pc I had when one that one came out only had a core 2 quad equivalent xeon at 3 ghz, a gtx 960 and 8 gb of ddr2 and it was able to run it at high 60 fps 1080p throughout most of campaign although I had to lower settings on a couple of different maps.


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## Deleted member 178884 (Feb 9, 2020)

Honestly I'd hold out on that CPU, moving to ryzen is a waste of money given you've held out this long, if there's any zen that's ideal to move to it's the 3600 or 3700X or even a used 2700X, you really won't tell much of a difference moving to a 1600AF.


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## lexluthermiester (Feb 9, 2020)

Xx Tek Tip xX said:


> Honestly I'd hold out on that CPU, moving to ryzen is a waste of money given you've held out this long, if there's any zen that's ideal to move to it's the 3600 or 3700X or even a used 2700X, you really won't tell much of a difference moving to a 1600AF.


That's a good point, as demonstrated below;


			Intel Core i7-2600K @ 3.40GHz vs AMD Ryzen 5 1600X vs AMD Ryzen 5 3600X [cpubenchmark.net] by PassMark Software
		

In single core performance, the Ryzen only barely edges ahead of the 2600k, but in overall performance the extra 2 cores made the difference, and new(er) games do/will take advantage of the extra cores. However, the 3600 is a massive upgrade in all areas and not much more expensive than the 1600.


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## DrCR (Feb 9, 2020)

OP, you could consider saving that $300, pair it with whatever return you get next year, and go for an AM5 build in ~18 months or whenever it is the AM5 platform and Ryzen CPUs come out. It would be a good time to get a GPU upgrade to go with it as well.



stoggs1 said:


> my income tax refund I will have about 300 dollars ...
> If I don't upgrade this year then I will save up probably do a full build next year around this time.


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## matonezu (Feb 9, 2020)

For this money, it is difficult to buy something other than the Ryzen 1600, so it is a good choice!


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