CPU Performance

So for testing, I set both the R5 1500X and the R5 1600X up on our AM4 test bench and ran through our regular test suite of games, benchmarks, and other CPU focused tests. I ran the test using the same configuration as our Ryzen 7 CPUs so this means our memory was running at 2666MHz. I mention this because Ryzen has been known to be very dependent on memory clock speeds and with the post-launch updates getting things running faster is now possible but to keep things consistent we stuck with the original memory clocks, they just happen to match the memory clocks on our Intel testing as well so that works out as well.

I started off my testing in an encoding test with X264 HD Benchmark 4.0. It runs through encoding performance four times and the results below as the average. The results are in FPS so the higher the FPS the better the result. The 1600X did extremely well, performing just blow the 1800X and the 1500X was down in between the 1700X and the 1700. This is because the higher clock speeds were more important in this test than additional cores, so the 1600X was able to stay close to the 1800X due to their close clock speeds, even with two fewer cores.

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Next, I tested in Cinebench R15, this is one my favorite CPU benchmarks simply because it has a test for single core performance and then a multi-core benchmark. Having both helps compare both aspects of CPU performance. In the multi-core benchmark the 1600X did extremely well, coming in below the 1700 and above the 7700K from Intel, the 1500X, on the other hand, struggled a little more with results below the now dated 6700K. In the single core benchmark, Intel still had the lead but the 1600X wasn’t far behind the 1800X and the 1500X came in ahead of the 1700 and 1700X.

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Next, I took a look at a few older CPU-focused benchmarks in wPrime and 7-zip. wPrime tests the time it takes to calculate square roots with a recursive call of newtons method for estimating functions. Then in 7-zip, we take a look at compressing and extracting performance. I especially like wPrime because even today it can be set to run with as many threads as needed so it scales well with higher core counts. In that benchmark, the 8 core Ryzen 7 CPUs pulled ahead but the 1600X wasn’t too far behind. The 1500X, on the other hand, was father back with older 6+ core CPUs from Intel like the 3970X but the 1550 was faster than a lot of the 4 core Intel CPUs from even a few years ago. 7-Zip is also good with higher core counts so in this benchmark the 1600X outperformed the more expensive 7700K and was still surprisingly close to the 8 core R7 1700.

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For something completely different I then switched things up and took a look at two browser-based benchmarks. Actually, both are a compilation of multiple browser benchmarks, mostly focused on Java performance. These are nice to take a look at because there are still a lot of website and games running Java. In both, I was really surprised to see just how well the 1600X performed, outperforming even the 1800X in Google Octane. I even went back and redid all of my tests a few times to confirm. There isn’t any good reason for it as it is still slighting lower in clock speed and is two cores short f the 1800X unless having more cache per core helped. Both CPUs also did well in Jetstream as well. Of course ‘

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In Passmark’s Performance Test 9 I focused just on the CPU benchmarks and it really liked the multi-core CPUs putting the 6900K ahead of everything with the three Ryzen 7 CPUs behind it. The 1600X edged out the 7700K with its extra two cores then the 1500X came in last.

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Then I took a look at PCMark 8 using the Home Accelerated benchmark where it runs through various real word situations for an overall system score. Here the Intel CPUs dominated, then the pecking order was in order of price for all of the Ryzen CPUs. This is a benchmark that doesn’t favor clock speeds or cores over each other getting a nice mix instead.

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To dip my toes into game testing I first started with 3DMark Fire Strike and Dolphin benchmark. 3DMark I focused on the physics score that is heavily CPU focused. The 1600X did extremely well in this one with its higher clock speeds and 6 cores. The 1500X, on the other hand, dropped down the charts down in with the 4770K and the 6700K, both good CPUs but in the middle of the pack in these results. Then for Dolphin Benchmark, I saw results like the Google Octane results where the 1600X outperformed ALL of the other Ryzen CPUs even after multiple retests. It even outperformed the 6900K but the 7700K was still in its own world.

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I then jumped into In-Game testing with just a few games. I did, however, add in another new game with Wildlands though. With all of the issues with game performance with Ryzen 7, I was really interested in seeing how the 1600X and 1500X would fair especially with some updates being dropped. In Hitman the 1600X ended up being the fastest Ryzen CPU tested with similar results to our Google Octane and Dolphin benchmarks. It wasn’t enough to catch up to the top Intel CPUs, but it is really interesting. Deus Ex, on the other hand, went the other way with lower performance in both benchmarks. Then there is Wildlands, I knew going in that this wasn’t a CPU dependent benchmark. In the Intel and Ryzen 7 benchmarks most of the time there was only about 35% CPU utilization but I was curious if there would still be any performance difference. All of the Ryzen CPUs basically have the same score but the two Intel CPUs tested did have a noticeable performance jump.

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Then there is Ashes of the Singularity… This is the benchmark that had the biggest gap in my original Ryzen 7 testing. I tested with the original and also went back and retested with the updated Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation free expansion that is incorporated huge gains for Ryzen CPUs. So with these tests, I wanted to see where the new Ryzen 5 CPUs ended up, but I also was curious how much of an improvement the new patch gave as well. The improvement was extremely impressive, with the Ryzen 1800X actually pulling up close to the 7700K with its 7 FPS performance jump. Even the Ryzen 5 CPUs saw a performance improvement with the new update as well. That said they both did come out at the bottom.

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