The AMD R5 2600 and 2600X are, we think, among the more interesting processors that AMD launched for its second generation. The R5 1600 and 1600X received awards from us for 2017, mostly laying claim to “Best All-Around” processor. The 1600 series of R5 CPUs maintained 6 cores, most the gaming performance of the R7 series, and could still capably stream or perform Blender-style production rendering tasks. At the $200-$230 price range, we claimed that it functionally killed the quad-core i5 CPU, later complicated by Intel’s six-core i5 release.
The R5 2600 and 2600X have the same product stack positioning as the 1000-series predecessors, just with higher clock speeds. For specs, the R5 2600X operates at 3.6GHz base and 4.2GHz boost, with the 2600 at 3.4/3.9GHz, and the R5 1600X/1600 operating at a maximum boost of 4.0 and 3.6GHz, respectively.
Test Platform (Sponsored by Corsair)
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Motherboard |
Gigabyte H370 Gaming 3 for Pentium (w/ 2400MHz) |
GN’s side channels |
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CPU |
This is what we’re testing |
- |
|
Memory |
Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200 16-18-18-36 |
Corsair |
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Cooler |
NZXT Kraken X62 |
NZXT |
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Power Supply |
Corsair AX1600i |
Corsair |
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Video Card |
EVGA GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 |
EVGA |
For AMD, we primarily tested on these platforms:
- Gigabyte X470 Gaming 7, EFI revision F4B
- ASUS Crosshair VII, EFI revision 0505
- ASUS Crosshair VI, EFI revision 6008
Note that our initial Gigabyte X470 BIOS revision did not support disablement or tuning of XFR2. We ended up scrapping initial (internal) test data and replacing it once we received more consumer-ready BIOS revisions.
Wherever “X370” is mentioned, that’s the Crosshair VI. When X470 is mentioned, in gaming and production benchmarks, that’s the Gigabyte X470 Gaming 7. For overclocking, memory scaling, and game streaming tests, that’d be the ASUS Crosshair VII motherboard.
For Intel, we’re primarily using the ASUS Maximus X motherboard. Synthetic and Blender results, along with power results, are using the Gigabyte Ultra Gaming. We tested with the latest BIOS and with new Windows versions.
Game Streaming Test Methodology
Game streaming is tested on Gigabit Fiber internet, with active monitoring for packet loss or network-side errors (there were none). We use OBS v. 21.1 for livestreaming, and configure 1080p/60 for the stream output. Encoding is set to H264 with Faster settings, used for what we consider to be a high-quality stream at 10Mbps. We also test with 12Mbps at Medium encode settings, meant to serve as a torture test for when differences fail to emerge at more reasonable 10Mbps/Faster settings. Streaming requires both a quality streamer-side framerate and quality viewer-side delivery. It is impossible to deliver greater than the specified framerate of 60FPS to the viewer and playback service (Twitch, YouTube), and so a “perfect” score would be 100% frame delivery within 16.67ms per frame.
We actively log framerate performance for five minutes in DotA2 and DiRT Rally, with Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) logged for ten minutes. Multiple passes are conducted. We store all final MP4 clips locally and analyze them for further data validation and to calculate dropframes. YouTube plays back the livestream on the same host system, which increases load further and creates a real streaming experience.
We also log “baseline” performance metrics; that is, performance without any active livestream. The goal is to determine performance scaling and loss from baseline when adding a stream, which aids in determining the efficiency of a particular processor at juggling a game and a stream simultaneously. This also helps us understand scheduling.
A lot can be done to further tune and improve player and viewer experience with streaming, like process priority tuning and affinity tuning, which we’ve previously demonstrated as helpful with Intel scheduling.
Note again: We will reference video playback in this analysis. You’ll find the streamed clips in our video, embedded in this review.
