AMD Ryzen 5 1600X vs Intel Core i5-2500k

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CPU comparison with benchmarks


AMD Ryzen 5 1600X CPU1 vs CPU2 Intel Core i5-2500k
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X Intel Core i5-2500k

CPU comparison

AMD Ryzen 5 1600X or Intel Core i5-2500k - which processor is faster? In this comparison we look at the differences and analyze which of these two CPUs is better. We compare the technical data and benchmark results.

The AMD Ryzen 5 1600X has 6 cores with 12 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 3.70 GHz. Up to 64 GB of memory is supported in 2 memory channels. The AMD Ryzen 5 1600X was released in Q1/2017.

The Intel Core i5-2500k has 4 cores with 4 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 3.70 GHz. The CPU supports up to 32 GB of memory in 2 memory channels. The Intel Core i5-2500k was released in Q1/2011.
AMD Ryzen 5 (78) Family Intel Core i5 (328)
AMD Ryzen 1000 (15) CPU group Intel Core i 2000 (28)
1 Generation 2
Summit Ridge (Zen) Architecture Sandy Bridge S
Desktop / Server Segment Desktop / Server
-- Predecessor --
-- Successor --

CPU Cores and Base Frequency

The AMD Ryzen 5 1600X is a 6 core processor with a clock frequency of 3.30 GHz (3.70 GHz). The Intel Core i5-2500k has 4 CPU cores with a clock frequency of 3.30 GHz (3.70 GHz).

AMD Ryzen 5 1600X Characteristic Intel Core i5-2500k
6 Cores 4
12 Threads 4
normal Core architecture normal
Yes Hyperthreading No
Yes Overclocking ? Yes
3.30 GHz Frequency 3.30 GHz
3.70 GHz Turbo Frequency (1 Core) 3.70 GHz
3.50 GHz Turbo Frequency (All Cores) 3.70 GHz

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Processors with the support of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can process many calculations, especially audio, image and video processing, much faster than classic processors. Algorithms for ML improve their performance the more data they have collected via software. ML tasks can be processed up to 10,000 times faster than with a classic processor.

AMD Ryzen 5 1600X Characteristic Intel Core i5-2500k
-- AI hardware --
-- AI specifications --

Internal Graphics

The integrated graphics unit of a processor is not only responsible for the pure image output on the system, but can also significantly increase the efficiency of the system with the support of modern video codecs.

no iGPU GPU Intel HD Graphics 3000
GPU frequency 0.85 GHz
-- GPU (Turbo) 1.10 GHz
-- GPU Generation 6
Technology 32 nm
Max. displays 2
-- Compute units 12
-- Shader 96
No Hardware Raytracing No
No Frame Generation No
-- Max. GPU Memory 2 GB
-- DirectX Version 10.1

Hardware codec support

A photo or video codec that is accelerated in hardware can greatly accelerate the working speed of a processor and extend the battery life of notebooks or smartphones when playing videos.

no iGPU GPU Intel HD Graphics 3000
No Codec h265 / HEVC (8 bit) No
No Codec h265 / HEVC (10 bit) No
No Codec h264 Decode / Encode
No Codec VP9 No
No Codec VP8 No
No Codec AV1 No
No Codec AVC Decode / Encode
No Codec VC-1 Decode
No Codec JPEG No

Memory & PCIe

The AMD Ryzen 5 1600X supports a maximum of 64 GB of memory in 2 memory channels. The Intel Core i5-2500k can connect up to 32 GB of memory in 2 memory channels.

AMD Ryzen 5 1600X Characteristic Intel Core i5-2500k
DDR4-2666 Memory DDR3-1333
64 GB Max. Memory 32 GB
2 (Dual Channel) Memory channels 2 (Dual Channel)
42.7 GB/s Max. Bandwidth 21.3 GB/s
Yes ECC No
-- L2 Cache --
16.00 MB L3 Cache 6.00 MB
3.0 PCIe version 2.0
20 PCIe lanes 16
19.7 GB/s PCIe Bandwidth 8.0 GB/s

Thermal Management

The TDP (Thermal Design Power) of a processor specifies the required cooling solution. The AMD Ryzen 5 1600X has a TDP of 95 W, that of the Intel Core i5-2500k is 95 W.

AMD Ryzen 5 1600X Characteristic Intel Core i5-2500k
95 W TDP (PL1 / PBP) 95 W
-- TDP (PL2) --
-- TDP up --
-- TDP down --
95 °C Tjunction max. --

Technical details

The AMD Ryzen 5 1600X has a 16.00 MB cache, while the Intel Core i5-2500k cache has a total of 6.00 MB.

AMD Ryzen 5 1600X Characteristic Intel Core i5-2500k
14 nm Technology 32 nm
Monolithic Chip design Monolithic
x86-64 (64 bit) Instruction set (ISA) x86-64 (64 bit)
SSE4a, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX2, FMA3 ISA extensions SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX
AM4 (PGA 1331) Socket LGA 1155
AMD-V, SVM Virtualization VT-x, VT-x EPT
Yes AES-NI Yes
Windows 10, Linux Operating systems Windows 10, Linux
Q1/2017 Release date Q1/2011
245 $ Release price --
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Average performance in benchmarks

⌀ Single core performance in 6 CPU benchmarks
⌀ Multi core performance in 8 CPU benchmarks

Cinebench R23 (Single-Core)

Cinebench R23 is the successor of Cinebench R20 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
6C 12T @ 3.70 GHz
942 (100%)
Intel Core i5-2500k Intel Core i5-2500k
4C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
697 (74%)

Cinebench R23 (Multi-Core)

Cinebench R23 is the successor of Cinebench R20 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
6C 12T @ 3.50 GHz
6470 (100%)
Intel Core i5-2500k Intel Core i5-2500k
4C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
2450 (38%)

Geekbench 5, 64bit (Single-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
6C 12T @ 3.70 GHz
950 (100%)
Intel Core i5-2500k Intel Core i5-2500k
4C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
760 (80%)

Geekbench 5, 64bit (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
6C 12T @ 3.50 GHz
5220 (100%)
Intel Core i5-2500k Intel Core i5-2500k
4C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
2537 (49%)

Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The single-core benchmark only evaluates the performance of the fastest CPU core, the number of CPU cores in a processor is irrelevant here.
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
6C 12T @ 3.70 GHz
1167 (100%)
Intel Core i5-2500k Intel Core i5-2500k
4C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
651 (56%)

Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The multi-core benchmark evaluates the performance of all of the processor's CPU cores. Virtual thread improvements such as AMD SMT or Intel's Hyper-Threading have a positive impact on the benchmark result.
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
6C 12T @ 3.50 GHz
5089 (100%)
Intel Core i5-2500k Intel Core i5-2500k
4C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
1948 (38%)

Cinebench R20 (Single-Core)

Cinebench R20 is the successor of Cinebench R15 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
6C 12T @ 3.70 GHz
389 (100%)
Intel Core i5-2500k Intel Core i5-2500k
4C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
262 (67%)

Cinebench R20 (Multi-Core)

Cinebench R20 is the successor of Cinebench R15 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
6C 12T @ 3.50 GHz
2764 (100%)
Intel Core i5-2500k Intel Core i5-2500k
4C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
894 (32%)

Estimated results for PassMark CPU Mark

Some of the CPUs listed below have been benchmarked by CPU-monkey. However the majority of CPUs have not been tested and the results have been estimated by a CPU-monkey’s secret proprietary formula. As such they do not accurately reflect the actual Passmark CPU mark values and are not endorsed by PassMark Software Pty Ltd.
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
6C 12T @ 3.50 GHz
13207 (100%)
Intel Core i5-2500k Intel Core i5-2500k
4C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
4155 (31%)

Blender 2.81 (bmw27)

Blender is a free 3D graphics software for rendering (creating) 3D bodies, which can also be textured and animated in the software. The Blender benchmark creates predefined scenes and measures the time (s) required for the entire scene. The shorter the time required, the better. We selected bmw27 as the benchmark scene.
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
6C 12T @ 3.50 GHz
323.8 (42%)
Intel Core i5-2500k Intel Core i5-2500k
4C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
778.7 (100%)

CPU-Z Benchmark 17 (Single-Core)

The CPU-Z benchmark measures a processor's performance by measuring the time it takes the system to complete all benchmark calculations. The faster the benchmark is completed, the higher the score.
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
6C 12T @ 3.50 GHz
415 (100%)
Intel Core i5-2500k Intel Core i5-2500k
4C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
372 (90%)

CPU-Z Benchmark 17 (Multi-Core)

The CPU-Z benchmark measures a processor's performance by measuring the time it takes the system to complete all benchmark calculations. The faster the benchmark is completed, the higher the score.
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
6C 12T @ 3.30 GHz
3367 (100%)
Intel Core i5-2500k Intel Core i5-2500k
4C 4T @ 3.30 GHz
1336 (40%)

Cinebench R15 (Single-Core)

Cinebench R15 is the successor of Cinebench 11.5 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
6C 12T @ 3.70 GHz
151 (100%)
Intel Core i5-2500k Intel Core i5-2500k
4C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
127 (84%)

Cinebench R15 (Multi-Core)

Cinebench R15 is the successor of Cinebench 11.5 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
6C 12T @ 3.50 GHz
1126 (100%)
Intel Core i5-2500k Intel Core i5-2500k
4C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
461 (41%)

Cinebench 2024 (Single-Core)

The Cinebench 2024 benchmark is based on the Redshift rendering engine, which is also used in Maxon's 3D program Cinema 4D. The benchmark runs are each 10 minutes long to test whether the processor is limited by its heat generation.
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
6C 12T @ 3.70 GHz
59 (100%)
Intel Core i5-2500k Intel Core i5-2500k
4C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
0 (0%)

Cinebench 2024 (Multi-Core)

The Multi-Core test of the Cinebench 2024 benchmark uses all cpu cores to render using the Redshift rendering engine, which is also used in Maxons Cinema 4D. The benchmark run is 10 minutes long to test whether the processor is limited by its heat generation.
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
6C 12T @ 3.70 GHz
411 (100%)
Intel Core i5-2500k Intel Core i5-2500k
4C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
0 (0%)

iGPU - FP32 Performance (Single-precision GFLOPS)

The theoretical computing performance of the internal graphics unit of the processor with simple accuracy (32 bit) in GFLOPS. GFLOPS indicates how many billion floating point operations the iGPU can perform per second.
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
@ 0.00 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i5-2500k Intel Core i5-2500k
Intel HD Graphics 3000 @ 1.10 GHz
211 (100%)

Devices using this processor

AMD Ryzen 5 1600X Intel Core i5-2500k
Unknown Unknown

News and articles for the AMD Ryzen 5 1600X and the Intel Core i5-2500k


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