Bargain hunters may want to take another look at the Ryzen 5 1600.
AMD has begun selling a 12 nm, Zen+ variant of its 2017-era CPU. The upgrade could mean performance and efficiency gains for the chip, which was originally released as a 14 nm part.
The 12 nm version can be identified by the “AF” designation on the box (e.g., YD1600BB”AF”BOX) and chip itself. Previous editions had the “AE” label.
According to an early adopter, the AF variant can sustain boosted clocks for longer periods. The all-core boost algorithm may also perform better within certain applications, such as Cinebench.
[A] likely explanation is that these are simply Ryzen 5 2600 die that didn’t make the cut for that class of chip due to frequency targets, but because they meet the criteria required for a 1600 model, it is simply more economical for AMD to use the die in the older chips.