This time last year we set out to address a question many of you were asking at the time: should you buy the Ryzen 5 1600X or the non-X 1600? The 1600X was selling for $250 at the time, while the vanilla 1600 could be had for a tad less at just $220.

The R5 1600 came clocked ~10% lower out of the box, but because it was an unlocked part, overclocking was an option and pushing past 1600X performance was possible. The 1600 also came stock with the Wraith Stealth cooler, while AMD tried a move from Intel’s playbook and sold the 1600X without a cooler at all.