Sidegraded from 6600K to Ryzen 5 1600

[Nick R]

Now that AMD finally has something competitive again, I wanted to go back to an AMD system. I sold some of my old components I had lying around to fund this, and picked up an AMD Ryzen 5 1600, an ASRock X370 Gaming K4 motherboard, and 16GB of G Skill 2x8GB DDR4-3000 (more on this later).

The upgrade went pretty smoothly. I ended up just using the stock Wraith Spire cooler, which is very competent for a stock cooler, and more than enough for the mild overclock I had planned. (stock 3.2Ghz/3.7ghz boost for 1 core). I ended up for now at 3.75Ghz at 1.325V on the core, which is pretty good. This gives me about 75-80c under prime95 stress test, which is in the range I want to see. Down the road I might pick up a closed loop cooler or something, but for now this is more than enough. The only issue I've run into is sort of what I expected. That is to say, Ryzen and Ryzen motherboards don't have completely mature BIOSes yet, and high speed memory support is spotty at best. In the end, for right now with the current BIOS/AGESA 1.0.0.4a I'm only able to POST at 2400mhz. No matter what SoC voltage, timings, DRAM voltage I use I can't get it to POST at 2666 or 2933Mhz. For now 2400Mhz will have to do, but the performance difference with 2933 is near 5-10% in some cases thanks to the core-complex interconnect running at IMC speed. For now though it's running happily enough at DDR4-2400 15-15-15-36 instead of 2933 16-18-18-38.

Nice thing about Windows 10, is I didn't have to re-install Windows. Just throw the new hardware in, it installs basic drivers during boot. I upgrade drivers, and all set. Don't even need to re-activate Windows. It's pretty great so far, there are some software bugs regarding monitoring software that don't work properly (CPU-Z and HWMonitor for example read vCore as something in the neighborhood of 2.7V. World of Warships though actually runs far better on this system than the Intel system, no stuttering or random framerate drops like I used to have. It's nice to be back on an AMD system after so long. Also, the CPU Core is made at the Globalfoundries Fab8 right up the road in Saratoga County, which is nice.


Full specs, for those interested..
AMD Ryzen R5-1600 @ 3.75Ghz w/AMD Wraith Spire Cooler
ASRock X370 Gaming K4
16GB (2x8GB Single Rank) G Skill Aegis DDR4-2933 (Hynix DRAM)
EVGA SSC GTX 970
Samsung 850 Evo 500GB Boot SSD, SKHynix 500GB SSD, 3x 1TB Hard Drives
Fractal Design Define S case w/3x 140mm Fractal Design fans
Windows 10 Home x64

 

[901Memphis]

Did you try running a lower memory divider and higher reference clock on the cpu to get higher overall mhz? Sometimes that will fix it.

 

[Nick R]

Originally Posted By: 901Memphis
Did you try running a lower memory divider and higher reference clock on the cpu to get higher overall mhz? Sometimes that will fix it.



The motherboard I have doesn't support refclk changes. Unfortunately due to how immature the platform is, high speed memory support is very limited, mostly to RAM with Samsung B-die stuff, which is very expensive. It's supposed to improve in May with the next AGESA/BIOS updates.

 

[Danno]

Used to be a big AMD fan, just seemed the product was half baked and never performed to expectations.
I had an R290 for running Wargaming titles - World of Tanks and World of Warships.
Upgraded to the 980 Ti and never looked back.
Wargaming does lean towards Nvidia and Intel as their preferred platforms.
As for Windows 10 transferring seamlessly across a new MB and CPU, if it is a legit copy, expect it to ask for a new SN sooner or later.
Good luck with your rig.

 

[Wampahoofus]

I'm glad to see AMD rigs being built again (go team Red!).

You probably aren't missing out on as much performance as you might be thinking, if LinusTechTips recent video here is to be believed. With upcoming BIOS flashes it sounds like memory stability on Ryzen platforms will be significantly improved though, so you may still get the results you want in time.

Congrats on the new setup, and good luck!

Maybe it's time for my 4690 to go...

 

[JHZR2]

Glad to hear that AMD is getting back in the game. I used to be a big fan back in the athlon days.

 

[Superflan]

Originally Posted By: Danno
As for Windows 10 transferring seamlessly across a new MB and CPU, if it is a legit copy, expect it to ask for a new SN sooner or later.

You can, since 1607 anniversary update, actually reactivate simply, especially if your digital license was linked to your Microsoft account

I did it on two rigs, worked flawlessly

 

[Nick R]

It's nice actually, I played some World of Warships last night, and to my surprise it actually runs better than it did on the 6600K. Lower CPU usage (obviously because 6c/12t instead of 4/4) but I don't have the random framerate drops I used to have, and the GUI in the port is far smoother and more responsive. Interesting to say the least. But yeah I ran cinebench last night too, multithreaded score was a bit over 1200 @ 3.75Ghz @ 1.325vcore. not bad at all. I'll mess more with the OC and voltage today to see if I can get the voltage a bit lower.

 

[pcguy]

I have had great results so far with my new 1800x build, using MSI x370 titanium board. Been a happy camper with the new performance, previous rig was a 8350 setup.

 

[Nick R]

Originally Posted By: pcguy
I have had great results so far with my new 1800x build, using MSI x370 titanium board. Been a happy camper with the new performance, previous rig was a 8350 setup.


Yeah pretty happy with my 1600 so far. I messed with it a bit and settled on 3.8Ghz with 1.325V for now, that gets me decent temps with the Wraith Spire. I'm still stuck at 2400mhz on the memory, hopefully the upcoming AGESA 1.0.0.6 update from AMD at the end of the month that will be in the June BIOS updates from Mobo vendors will help me actually be able to set it to 2933. :|