AMD YD170XBCAEWOF Ryzen 7 1700X Processor

First, system specs:ASRock X370 Taichi board16 GB (2X8) Team T Force Nighthawk DDR4 3200 RAMSapphire R9 280X (1080p)Kingston Hyper X 3K 120 GB SSD for OSWindows 10 Home 64 BitThis was an upgrade from an FX 8320 OC to 4.2 Ghz and 990FX board. Most components were carried over to the Ryzen system. I must say, this is a very noticeable increase in performance! This CPU takes anything I throw at it and doesn't even break a sweat. Handbrake encode times on my custom settings are less than 1/4 the time it took the FX to complete, Blender renders much faster, games are smoother with higher frame rates, and the list goes on. It was well worth the upgrade. Even with the dated and aging GPU I have seen average frame rate gains as high as 50% over the 8320. The AGESA 1006a BIOS update (V3.0 for this board) seems to have solved the early memory problems and stability issues. My board has no issue using the XMP profile for 3200 RAM with the correct timings and the system is fully stable. Shop around and be very selective on your RAM choice. DDR4 3200 is the fastest supported so far, but this will likely change in time. Get the fastest you can, Ryzen performance gains are pretty much linear up to DDR4 3600.The Ryzen platform still has some rough edges that need smoothing out, but it is at the point now where it will run fine in most any circumstance. For such a new platform, I'm surprised at how well it works. I've not had any stability issues at all. Overall, I'm very satisfied with this CPU and platform. I'm not even going to bother overclocking it yet, it's plenty fast enough for me.This CPU runs very, very cool. Temp monitoring software reports the 1700X and 1800X at 20 degrees Celsius higher than it actually is. Subtracting the 20 degrees, the highest I've seen is 52 degrees running handbrake, and 54 degrees under heavy gaming load. It hovers around 35 degrees when browsing the net. I'm using a Corair H 60 AIO cooler. It is also extremely efficient. I have seen ~96 watts or so under heavy load, and 20-35 during internet browsing.XFR boosting is an absolutely awesome thing! This CPU with the H 60 regularly runs at 3.5 GHz on all cores, and boosts as high as 3.9 GHz when using less cores.Things to consider:I actually was going to get the Ryzen 5 1600X, but the sale price for the 1700X made me go after it instead. The 1600X is roughly equal to or faster compared to the 1700X at stock clocks in games. So if all you're doing is gaming, that's the top choice. If you (Like me) do other things as well such as rendering, video encoding, photo shopping, or CAD work, the 1700X makes more sense. It is also likely a bit more future proof than the hex core Ryzens are as well.Get a good cooler if getting one of the X models! They do not come with a cooler (As of the date I bought mine). The non X CPU's have a very nice stock cooler. The Corsair H 60 is more than enough for this beast at stock clocks and is dead silent. There are many great air coolers out there, too. Just look for one that comes with the AM4 bracket. Most companies will send one separately if the cooler doesn't come with it.TLDR; This CPU is more than enough to handle anything you want to do. It is a massive upgrade from anything older (2008-2014), especially any FX CPU and quad cores. Ryzen is about 76% faster than Piledriver (FX) clock for clock! I am very happy with it and recommend it to anyone looking to build a new system.

Welcome back, AMD. We missed you, and you came back as strong as I really could've wanted.Simply put, I had planned on going straight to Ryzen 7 once I decided on upgrading, but I settled on an Athlon X4 950 a few months before striking for this. And for $215? I have no regrets.Team Fortress 2 just plows through with an HD 7850 at 1440p just fine.Handbrake encodes really fast even at demanding presets, which is something I really desired.OBS Studio does just fine with 1080p60 x264 encoding with nice quality to boot. Just make sure to play around with the settings to see what fits your situation best.2160p60 video on YouTube? No if, ands or buts about it, it'll play just fine.Emulation? No questions asked. Burnout 3 and Gran Turismo 4 just went along on PCSX2 with no choking in sight.The Simpsons: Hit and Run and Mario Kart: Double Dash on Dolphin? Absolutely nothing to this CPU.GTA V? Again, my GPU is the limiting factor here. The CPU doesn't struggle at all.Video rendering? Absolutely no question that it does well in Vegas Pro 15.My main thing was that it had issues at 3.0 GHz and 3.2 GHz, and honestly, I'd say that my motherboard was more of the issue here than my CPU.If this is under $250 or you want a cheaper but still very competent workstation? This CPU is worth every last penny. Just make sure you have a cooler prepared for this.

After many years of waiting AMD is finally back in the game. This CPU has not bogged down with anything I throw at it. I'm in IT and run several VMs on my machines. I can run a slew of VMs and game at the same time with no regard to taking down my PC. Media creation has also been a breeze on this thing.There are some cons though: AMD either needs to refine their die selection, or fine a way to tap in some overclocking. Right now the limiting factor from this being the single best CPU on the market is speed. I can barely get this thing to stay stable at 3.95 with 2666 RAM. Some of this BIOS related as a previous BIOS got me to 4.0 and 2900, but honestly the difference form 2666 and 2900 is minimum and so is the 3.95 to 4.0. What this chip needs is the ability to handle 3600 RAM and 4.3-4.5. If they can hit those in Ryzen 2 (or even some better binning in the future) this will smoke anything and everything out there.All in all for the price this is a stellar CPU, and well worth the amount. The caveats we all know: i7-7700k is still the best gaming ONLY CPU (major emphasis on only) and the 6900k is a smidgen better at non gaming task. But for the price this CPU will come close to the 6900k (and can beat it in a good bit of scenarios) and is not super far off the 7700k (10-20fps in 1080p, match in 1440p and up). So there is no reason not to buy this CPU unless you gaming ONLY (and again major emphasis on only, if you do anything else, want to do anything else, or may even have dreams of doing anything else, the 7700k won't cut it).