Today we’re checking out the $200 Ryzen 5 2600 and we’ll be taking it for a spin on the impressive new Asus ROG Crosshair VII Hero, a $300 AMD X470 motherboard with all the bells and whistles you can imagine. Even though the Ryzen 5 2600 is better suited to more affordable motherboards like the ROG Strix X470-F Gaming or the Prime X470-Pro considering its price, the motherboard choice shouldn't affect performance while we get the opportunity to showcase this ROG board, in what is another of the multiple different tests we've planned for the coming weeks.
The R5 2600 is $30 cheaper than the 2600X we tested on 2nd-gen Ryzen's launch day. That 13% saving sees operating clock speeds reduced by 6-7%, while the box cooler has been downgraded from the Wraith Spire to the dinky little Wraith Stealth. We’ll check out how that performs later on.
The real competition though comes from the blue team's Coffee Lake Core i5 range, in particular the Core i5-8400 which is a little more affordable at $179. The Ryzen 5 2600 does have two distinct advantages though: first, it can be overclocked and push all cores past 4 GHz, meanwhile the i5-8400 is limited to an all core frequency of 3.8 GHz.
AMD’s Ryzen 5 2600X is faster than the previous-gen models in nearly every respect. The addition of lower cache and memory latencies, along with more sophisticated multi-core boosts, takes AMD. AMD Ryzen™ 5 Desktop Processors Everyone deserves a powerful processor. Uncompromising features and smooth performance are finally the standard for every gamer and artist. Including models with advanced Radeon™ graphics built-in.
Second, and perhaps the biggest advantage is that the Ryzen R5 2600 is a 6-core/12-thread processor. The 8400 lacks Hyper-Threading meaning it’s a 6-core/6-thread CPU and this will hand Ryzen a serious advantage in core heavy workloads.
AMD has stayed on an aggressive note when pricing 2nd-gen Ryzen CPUs. Last year the Ryzen 5 1600 launched at $220, though it eventually was sold for a bit less until it was officially discounted to $190 early this year. The 2600 is coming in at just a fraction more than the older and discounted 1600. Apart from improved IPC performance, greater power efficiency, reduced cache latency, enhanced memory latency and frequency support, the 2600 also comes clocked 6-8% higher than the 1600 out of the box. Then like the rest of the Ryzen lineup the 2600 is also an unlocked CPU, so reaching and exceeding stock 2600X performance shouldn’t be an issue.
Before the testing, just a quick recap in case you missed last week thorough review of the 2600X and 2700X. All the data has been updated for the release of the 2nd-gen Ryzen CPUs, this means it’s all fresh and has been gathered in the past 2 weeks. All testing was done with the latest drivers, Windows updates, motherboard BIOS updates, game and application updates and security updates. Yes, the latest Spectre and Meltdown patches have been applied.
Throughout the testing we’ll be looking at stock out of the box performance as well as overclocking. The 1st gen Ryzen CPUs have been overclocked to 4 GHz while I was able to get the 2600X stable at 4.1 GHz and the 2700X at 4.2 GHz. The vanilla 2600 was able to boot into Windows and complete a number of tests at 4.3 GHz using the same 1.375 volts that limited the 2600X to just 4.1 GHz. Unfortunately though cranking the voltage right up didn’t allow us to stabilize the overclock for our heavy Blender workload, so we were forced down to 4.2 GHz.
Something else worth noting was that the 2600 would suffer the dreaded blue screen of death when using our G.Skill Sniper X DDR4-3400 CL16 memory, the integrated memory controller doesn’t seem to be as good as what we found with the 2600X and 2700X. Therefore I switched to G.Skill’s FlareX DDR4-3200 CL14 memory, you don’t really sacrifice much with this lower frequency memory due to the tighter timings.
This could just be an issue with my chip or it could be more widespread with the non-X models, time will tell. Anyway enough chit chat, let’s get to the good stuff.
Benchmark Time
First up here’s a quick look at sustained memory performance and as you can see with lower latency CL14 memory actually edges out the higher clocked DDR4-3400 CL16 memory used by the 2600X. So despite using lower clocked memory the Ryzen 5 2600 shouldn’t be at a disadvantage, with a bandwidth of just over 39 GB/s it’s got plenty to play with.
Moving to Cinebench R15 we see that the 2600 trails the 2600X by a 6% margin for both the single and multi-threaded tests. Still out of the box it’s able to mimic the Core i7-7800X and improves on the older Ryzen 5 1600’s single thread score by a 9% margin and the multi-threaded score by an impressive 12% margin.
Overclocked though it edges out the slightly inferior 2600X chip which managed just 4.1 GHz, I suspect we got a poor chip. It seems like we have a similar situation to the 1600 and 1600X with the new 2600 and 2600X, both should be good for around the same overclock, this time 4.1 - 4.2 GHz.
Next up we have the PCMark 10 video editing results and here the stock Ryzen 5 2600 scores 4901 pts which placed it only just ahead of the R5 1600 but also just 2% behind the stock 2600X and Core i7-7800X.
Overclocked to 4.2 GHz the score jumped up by 12% to reach 5509 pts and that’s almost on par with what the $330 Ryzen 7 2700X offers out of the box, so that’s an exceptional result for the 2600.
This time when compared to the Ryzen 5 1600 the 2600 was 8% faster out of the box and 7% faster once both CPUs are overclocked to the max. Overclocked the 2600 also matched the Ryzen 7 1800X though due to a reduction in cores was 9% slower than the 2700X.
Article Index
The AMD Ryzen 5 2500U is a mobile APU for thin and light laptops that was announced in October 2017. It includes four Zen cores clocked at 2 to 3.6 GHz and offers 4 MB L3-Cache. The integrated graphics card is called Radeon RX Vega 8 and offers 8 CUs (512 Shaders) clocked at up to 1100 MHz. The TDP is configurable between 12 and 25 Watt (15 Watt nominal). More information on Raven Ridge can be found in our launch article.
Series | AMD Ryzen 5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Codename | Zen | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Series: Ryzen 5 Zen |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Clock Rate | 2000 - 3600 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Level 1 Cache | 384 KB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Level 2 Cache | 2 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Level 3 Cache | 4 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Number of Cores / Threads | 4 / 8 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Max. Power Consumption (TDP = Thermal Design Power) | 15 Watt | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Transistor Count | 4500 Million | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manufacturing Technology | 14 nm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Socket | AM4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Features | XFR, FMA3, SSE 4.2, AVX2, SMT | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GPU | AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 ( - 1100 MHz) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
64 Bit | 64 Bit support | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Announcement Date | 01/10/2018 |
Benchmarks
min: 510 avg: 597.9 median: 609 (14%) max: 642 Points
min: 124 avg: 136.2 median: 137 (63%) max: 142 Points
min: 5.71 avg: 6.5 median: 6.6 (25%) max: 6.91 Points
min: 1.53 avg: 1.6 median: 1.6 (65%) max: 1.61 Points
min: 4103 avg: 4371.2 median: 4410.5 (48%) max: 4473 Points
min: 13850 avg: 15425.7 median: 15683.5 (32%) max: 16471 Points
min: 251.078 avg: 313.5 median: 313.5 (4%) max: 375.873 seconds
min: 7.819 avg: 10.2 median: 10.2 (2%) max: 12.643 seconds
min: 2416 avg: 2425.5 median: 2425.5 (28%) max: 2435 KB/s
min: 15360 avg: 16199.7 median: 16251 (35%) max: 16988 MIPS
min: 2924 avg: 3269.3 median: 3441 (50%) max: 3443 MIPS
min: 118 avg: 121 median: 121 (45%) max: 124 fps
min: 0.357 avg: 0.4 median: 0.4 (19%) max: 0.403 GB/s
min: 0.543 avg: 0.6 median: 0.6 (19%) max: 0.568 GB/s
min: 3.2 avg: 3.3 median: 3.3 (17%) max: 3.4 GB/s
min: 757.1 avg: 770.6 median: 770.6 (8%) max: 784 Seconds
min: 4155 avg: 4952 median: 4828 (34%) max: 5873 Points
min: 11.766 avg: 17.7 median: 12.3 (3%) max: 29 Seconds
min: 26.954 avg: 27.4 median: 27.3 (1%) max: 28 Seconds
min: 684.933 avg: 696 median: 696.9 (3%) max: 706 Seconds
min: 14732 avg: 17114.3 median: 15610 (26%) max: 21001 Points
min: 3941 avg: 5636.9 median: 5973 (32%) max: 6648 points
min: 31155 avg: 32373.8 median: 31862 (20%) max: 34052 Points
min: 29317 avg: 32015 median: 32593.5 (39%) max: 33556 Points
3DMark - Ice Storm Unlimited Physics 1280x720 offscreen
min: 28284 avg: 32266.2 median: 32009.5 (37%) max: 37624 Points
min: 1579 avg: 4508.4 median: 4609.5 (12%) max: 6591 Points
min: 4922 avg: 7508.3 median: 7807 (29%) max: 9138 Points
7330 Points (59%)
6320 Points (57%)
min: 10506 avg: 11390 median: 11301 (36%) max: 12280 Points
min: 3234 avg: 3378.8 median: 3383 (70%) max: 3477 Points
min: 11649 avg: 11773.5 median: 11773.5 (31%) max: 11898 Points
min: 3601 avg: 3673.5 median: 3673.5 (75%) max: 3746 Points
min: 31590 avg: 37273 median: 37273 (13%) max: 42956 Points
min: 9480 avg: 9548 median: 9548 (35%) max: 9616 Points
min: 3558 avg: 3581.5 median: 3581.5 (62%) max: 3605 Points
min: 3275 avg: 3641.4 median: 3703 (58%) max: 3789 Points
min: 9434 avg: 10028.8 median: 9952 (27%) max: 10871 Points
min: 1137.6 avg: 1349.3 median: 1411.1 (2%) max: 1443.2 ms
min: 110.2 avg: 122 median: 117 (1%) max: 143.7 ms
min: 21539 avg: 25871.1 median: 26534.5 (51%) max: 29587 Points
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card
* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card
* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance
v1.8.1a
Reviews for the AMD Ryzen 5 2500U processor
Acer Aspire 3 A315-41-R8ZC (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» Acer Aspire 3 A315-41-R8ZC - External Review
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» Acer Aspire 3 A315-41-R98U - External Review
» Acer Aspire 3 A315-41-R98U - External Review
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» Acer Aspire 3-A315-41S - External Review
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» Acer Aspire Nitro 5 AN515-42-R1GF - External Review
» Acer Aspire Nitro 5 AN515-42-R1GF - External Review
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» Acer Nitro 5 AN515-42-R5GT - External Review
» Acer Nitro 5 AN515-42-R5GT - External Review
Acer Swift 3 SF315-41-R1H4 (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» Acer Swift 3 SF315-41-R1H4 - External Review
» Acer Swift 3 SF315-41-R1H4 - External Review
Acer Swift 3 SF315-41-R4W1 (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» Acer Swift 3 SF315 (Ryzen 5 2500U, Vega 8, 256 GB, FHD) Laptop Review - Review
» Acer Swift 3 SF315-41-R4W1 - External Review
» Acer Swift 3 SF315 (Ryzen 5 2500U, Vega 8, 256 GB, FHD) Laptop Review - Review
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Acer Swift 3 SF315-41-R69U (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» Acer Swift 3 SF315-41-R69U - External Review
» Acer Swift 3 SF315-41-R69U - External Review
Acer Swift 3 SF315-41-R7EQ (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» Acer Swift 3 SF315-41-R7EQ - External Review
» Acer Swift 3 SF315-41-R7EQ - External Review
Acer Swift 3 SF315-41-R8PP (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» Acer Swift 3 SF315-41-R8PP - External Review
» Acer Swift 3 SF315-41-R8PP - External Review
Acer Swift 3 SF315-41-R96P (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» Acer Swift 3 SF315-41-R96P - External Review
» Acer Swift 3 SF315-41-R96P - External Review
Acer Swift 3 SF315-41G-R6BR (AMD Radeon RX 540, 15.6')
» Acer Swift 3 SF315-41G (Ryzen 5 2500U, Radeon RX 540, SSD, FHD) Laptop Review - Review
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» Acer Swift 3 SF315-41G (Ryzen 5 2500U, Radeon RX 540, SSD, FHD) Laptop Review - Review
» Acer Swift 3 SF315-41G-R6BR - External Review
Asus F570ZD (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (Laptop), 15.6')
» Asus F570ZD - External Review
» Asus F570ZD - External Review
Asus VivoBook 15 R505ZA-BR675 (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» Asus VivoBook 15 R505ZA-BR675 - External Review
» Asus VivoBook 15 R505ZA-BR675 - External Review
Asus VivoBook 15 X505ZA-BQ012T (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» Asus VivoBook 15 X505ZA-BQ012T - External Review
» Asus VivoBook 15 X505ZA-BQ012T - External Review
Asus Vivobook R570ZD-DM266 (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (Laptop), 15.6')
» Asus Vivobook R570ZD-DM266 - External Review
» Asus Vivobook R570ZD-DM266 - External Review
Asus X570ZD (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (Laptop), 15.6')
» Asus X570ZD - External Review
» Asus X570ZD - External Review
Dell Inspiron 13 7375 2-in-1 (AMD Vega 8, 13.3')
» Dell Inspiron 13 7375 2-in-1 - External Review
» Dell Inspiron 13 7375 2-in-1 - External Review
Honor MagicBook KPL-WOOB (AMD Vega 8, 14')
» Honor MagicBook KPL-WOOB - External Review
» Honor MagicBook KPL-WOOB - External Review
HP 14-cm0970nd (AMD Vega 8, 14')
» HP 14-cm0970nd - External Review
» HP 14-cm0970nd - External Review
HP 15-db0011ns (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» HP 15-db0011ns - External Review
» HP 15-db0011ns - External Review
HP 15-db0029ns (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» HP 15-db0029ns - External Review
» HP 15-db0029ns - External Review
HP 15-db0045ns (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» HP 15-db0045ns - External Review
» HP 15-db0045ns - External Review
HP 17-ca0013ng (AMD Vega 8, 17.3')
» HP 17 (Ryzen 5 2500U, FHD, IPS, Vega 8) Review - Review
» HP 17 (Ryzen 5 2500U, FHD, IPS, Vega 8) Review - Review
HP 17-ca0980nd (AMD Vega 8, 17.3')
» HP 17-ca0980nd - External Review
» HP 17-ca0980nd - External Review
HP 17-ca0992nd (AMD Vega 8, 17.3')
» HP 17-ca0992nd - External Review
» HP 17-ca0992nd - External Review
HP Envy 15-bq100nd x360 (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» HP Envy 15-bq100nd x360 - External Review
» HP Envy 15-bq100nd x360 - External Review
HP Envy x360 13-AG0002NS (AMD Vega 8, 13.3')
» HP Envy x360 13-AG0002NS - External Review
» HP Envy x360 13-AG0002NS - External Review
HP Envy x360 13-ag0005ng (AMD Vega 8, 13.3')
» HP Envy x360 13-ag0005ng - External Review
» HP Envy x360 13-ag0005ng - External Review
HP Envy x360 13-ag0140nd (AMD Vega 8, 13.3')
» HP Envy x360 13-ag0140nd - External Review
» HP Envy x360 13-ag0140nd - External Review
HP Envy x360 15-bq100au (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» HP Envy x360 15-bq100au - External Review
» HP Envy x360 15-bq100au - External Review
HP Envy x360 15-bq100nl (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» HP Envy x360 15-bq100nl - External Review
» HP Envy x360 15-bq100nl - External Review
HP Envy x360 15-bq102ng (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» HP Envy x360 15z (Ryzen 5 2500U, Vega 8, SSD, FHD) Convertible Review - Review
» HP Envy x360 15-bq102ng - External Review
» HP Envy x360 15z (Ryzen 5 2500U, Vega 8, SSD, FHD) Convertible Review - Review
» HP Envy x360 15-bq102ng - External Review
HP Envy x360 15-bq181no (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» HP Envy x360 15-bq181no - External Review
» HP Envy x360 15-bq181no - External Review
HP Envy x360 15m-bq121dx (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» HP Envy x360 15 (Ryzen 5 2500U, Radeon Vega 8) Laptop Review - Review
» HP Envy x360 15m-bq121dx - External Review
» HP Envy x360 15 (Ryzen 5 2500U, Radeon Vega 8) Laptop Review - Review
» HP Envy x360 15m-bq121dx - External Review
HP Envy x360 15z-1ZA07AV (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» HP Envy x360 15z-1ZA07AV - External Review
» HP Envy x360 15z-1ZA07AV - External Review
HP Pavilion 15-cw0001ns (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» HP Pavilion 15-cw0001ns - External Review
» HP Pavilion 15-cw0001ns - External Review
HP Pavilion 15-cw0003ng (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
» HP Pavilion 15 (AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, Vega 8) Laptop Review - Review
» HP Pavilion 15 (AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, Vega 8) Laptop Review - Review
HP ProBook 445 G6 (AMD Vega 8, 14')
» HP ProBook 445 G6 (Ryzen 5 2500U, RX Vega 8, SSD, FHD) Laptop Review - Review
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Huawei MateBook D 14 W00D-53010GXL (AMD Vega 8, 14')
» Huawei MateBook D 14 W00D (Ryzen 5, RX Vega 8) Laptop Review - Review
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Huawei MateBook D 14-53010GXL (AMD Vega 8, 14')
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» Huawei MateBook D 14-53010GXL - External Review
Huawei MateBook D, AMD Edition (AMD Vega 8, 14')
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» Huawei MateBook D, AMD Edition - External Review
Lenovo IdeaPad 330-15ARR 81D2005CUS (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
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Lenovo IdeaPad 330-15ARR-81D2007KSP (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
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» Lenovo IdeaPad 330-15ARR-81D2007KSP - External Review
Lenovo Ideapad 330-15ARR-81D2007LSP (AMD Vega 8, 15.6')
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» Lenovo Ideapad 330-15ARR-81D2007LSP - External Review
Lenovo Ideapad 720S-13ARR (AMD Vega 8, 13.3')
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» Lenovo Ideapad 720S-13ARR - External Review
» Lenovo Ideapad 720S (Ryzen 2500U, Vega 8) Laptop Review - Review
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Lenovo ThinkPad E485-20KU000NGE (AMD Vega 8, 14')
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Lenovo Yoga 530-14ARR-81H9001ASP (AMD Vega 8, 14')
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» Lenovo Yoga 530-14ARR-81H9001ASP - External Review
Lenovo Yoga 530-14ARR-81H9001PMH (AMD Vega 8, 14')
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» Lenovo Yoga 530-14ARR-81H9001PMH - External Review
Lenovo Yoga 530-14ARR-81H9003DGE (AMD Vega 8, 14')
» Lenovo Yoga 530-14ARR-81H9003DGE - External Review
» Lenovo Yoga 530-14ARR-81H9003DGE - External Review