The 2600 compliments the new 400 series motherboards and is also backwards compatible with the 300 series following a bios update. Included in the expected retail price of about $200 is a Wraith Stealth cooler, so the 2600, like the 1600 before it, represents great value for workstation users. The 2600 appears to have a stock base/boost clock of 3.4 / 3.9 GHz compared to the 1600’s 3.2 / 3.6 GHz which is expected to result in a modest increase in effective speed that said, early benchmarks are inconclusive. In other words, progress between generations is predominantly driven by power efficiency and therefore higher attainable clock speeds. The newer generation sees a lithography reduction from 14nm to 12nm, but no increase in the number of cores and threads (6 and 12 respectively) over the ground-breaking first generation which continues to surpass similarly priced Intel CPUs in terms of multi-core performance.
The Ryzen 5 2600, from AMD’s second generation (Zen+) of high-end desktop Ryzen processors, supersedes the first generation Ryzen 5 1600.
Streaming with dedicated hardware such as NVENC or a separate stream PC will nearly always result in fewer dropped frames.
Even though the 2600X is plausible for multimedia production streamers should look elsewhere. Pinnacle Ridge processors are designed to work with the new 400 series motherboards, which allow for greater overclocking head room, and they are also backwards compatible with the 300 series motherboard following a bios update. However, for most use cases, the new lower clocked Ryat $200 represents better value for money. The 2600X ships with a Wraith Spire cooler and is priced reasonably at an expected $250. Modest effective speed improvements are expected, although further benchmarks are necessary to draw firm conclusions. This is only marginally faster than the 1600X’s 3.6 / 4.0 GHz. The 2600X appears to have stock base / boost clock speeds of 3.6 / 4.2 GHz.
The latest generation of CPUs features a matured Zen+ chip architecture with 12nm lithography, increased clock speeds and Precision Boost 2 technology designed to leverage more CPU power than per the first generation. The 2600X is set to replace the also 6 core, 12 thread 1600X as AMD’s new mid-range Ryzen 5 flagship. The 6 core, 12 thread Ryzen 5 2600X is one of four new AMD second generation of high-end desktop Ryzen processors (codenamed Pinnacle Ridge) renowned for excellent value multi-core performance.