The $85 Ryzen 5 1600 AF; As Cool
Better Than The Ryzen 5 1600 AE?
Did you know that AMD ran out of space on their 14nm line the R5 1600 was originally produced on and so quietly moved it to the 12nm line, making it almost the same as an R5 2600? The clocks are dropped from 3.4/3.7 GHz to 3.2/3.6 GHz but other than that the Ryzen 5 1600 AE is a 6-core, 12-thread Zen+ part with an MSRP $85. You will have to shop carefully and look for a label which matches the one Techspot posted in their review, as well as waiting until you see it selling for close to that price, but if you succeed you will end up with a decent chip for a bargain price.
You can see in the benchmarks that the performance delta is not huge, but the difference in price when compared to the R5 2600 certainly is!
A mysterious Ryzen 5 1600 refresh made it to market late last year. Bizarrely, AMD has released a really cheap version of the Ryzen 5 2600, but just called it the Ryzen 5 1600. Known as the "1600 AF" because of the box identification this is a Zen+ 6-core, 12-thread part that's selling for just $85 brand new.
The easy way to tell if it is an AF is to look at the cooler. the 1600 AF has the Wraith Stealth Cooler. The older version ships with the Wraith Spire Cooler.