Conclusion
It is a positive experience to review the AMD Ryzen system. The wait is well deserved for a brand new architecture that can take on Intel.
The data crunching performance is amazing. From encryption to rendering, we can see that it is a capable processor not only for daily use, it is more capable than a desktop processor.
In terms of the price, the processor is way cheaper than the Intel counterpart by almost 50%. Pricing Info
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X $499
AMD Ryzen 7 1700X $399
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 $329
Intel Core i7 6900K $1021.97
Intel Core i7 6850K $570
Every new product there are bound to be some hiccups here and there. A number of board’s BIOS still requires tuning to be more compatible with the DDR4 modules that are already available in the market. XMP or AXMP on some boards may not work properly.
There are also reports of games not performing to expectations. I believe this is more like a software issue or optimisation was not done before on this newer processor.
Temperature wise, the AMD Ryzen 1800X has a TDP of 95W. Upon benchmarking, the temperature can rise up to 75 deg Celsius as monitored by the Ryzen Master monitoring tool.
As for overclocking, the buffer for overclocking is still within 400 to 500MHz. There is no way we could get it stable at 4.05 GHz at all on air cooling. Even if we were to turn off the cores using Ryzen Master, overclockability still remains the same. 3.6 GHz-> 4GHz.
Overall, a nice experience and I look forward to the mid range 1500X and 1600X which should bring back price/performance competition and market share. We give it our Editor’s Award.
The Gigabyte AX370-Gaming 5 retails at $312 at Amazon.
 |
 |
|
|
|
| Customer Rating | ||||
| Price | $499.99 | $329.99 | $329.99 | $399.99 |