Athlon X4 970 vs Ryzen 5 1600

Primary details

Comparing Ryzen 5 1600 and Athlon X4 970 processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and price.

Place in performance ranking	880	1955
Place by popularity	51	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	11.57	no data
Market segment	Desktop processor	Desktop processor
Series	AMD Ryzen 5	no data
Architecture codename	Zen 2 (2019−2020)	Bristol Ridge (2016−2019)
Release date	16 March 2017 (7 years ago)	27 July 2017 (6 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$219	no data
Current price	$140 (0.6x MSRP)	$59

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance per price, higher is better.

Detailed specifications

Ryzen 5 1600 and Athlon X4 970 basic parameters such as number of cores, number of threads, base frequency and turbo boost clock, lithography, cache size and multiplier lock state. These parameters indirectly say of CPU speed, though for more precise assessment you have to consider their test results.

Physical cores	6 (Hexa-Core)	4 (Quad-Core)
Threads	12	4
Base clock speed	3.2 GHz	3.8 GHz
Boost clock speed	3.2 GHz	4 GHz
Bus support	4 × 8 GT/s	no data
L1 cache	576 KB	128 KB (per core)
L2 cache	3 MB	512 KB (per core)
L3 cache	16 MB (shared)	0 KB
Chip lithography	14 nm	28 nm
Die size	213 mm2	246 mm2
Maximum case temperature (TCase)	no data	74 °C
Number of transistors	4800 Million	1,178 million
64 bit support	+	+
Windows 11 compatibility	-	-
Unlocked multiplier	Yes	Yes

Compatibility

Information on Ryzen 5 1600 and Athlon X4 970 compatibility with other computer components: motherboard (look for socket type), power supply unit (look for power consumption) etc. Useful when planning a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. Note that power consumption of some processors can well exceed their nominal TDP, even without overclocking. Some can even double their declared thermals given that the motherboard allows to tune the CPU power parameters.

Number of CPUs in a configuration	1 (Uniprocessor)	1
Socket	AM4	AM4
Power consumption (TDP)	65 Watt	65 Watt

Technologies and extensions

Technological solutions and additional instructions supported by Ryzen 5 1600 and Athlon X4 970. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.

Instruction set extensions	XFR, FMA3, SSE 4.2, AVX2, SMT	no data
AES-NI	+	+
FMA	no data	+
AVX	+	+

Virtualization technologies

Virtual machine speed-up technologies supported by Ryzen 5 1600 and Athlon X4 970 are enumerated here.

AMD-V

+

+

Memory specs

Types, maximum amount and channel quantity of RAM supported by Ryzen 5 1600 and Athlon X4 970. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequencies may be supported.

Supported memory types	DDR4	DDR4 Dual-channel
Maximum memory size	64 GB	no data
Max memory channels	2	no data
Maximum memory bandwidth	42.671 GB/s	no data
ECC memory support	+	no data

Peripherals

Specifications and connection of peripherals supported by Ryzen 5 1600 and Athlon X4 970.

PCIe version	3.0	no data
PCI Express lanes	20	no data

Synthetic benchmark performance

Various benchmark results of the processors in comparison. Overall score is measured in points in 0-100 range, higher is better.

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Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance rating. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

Ryzen 5 1600 outperforms Athlon X4 970 by 364% based on our aggregate benchmark results.

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Pros & cons summary

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Performance score	7.94	1.71
Recency	16 March 2017	27 July 2017
Physical cores	6	4
Threads	12	4
Chip lithography	14 nm	28 nm

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Should you still have questions on choice between Ryzen 5 1600 and Athlon X4 970, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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