Pay attention featherweight fans, there is a challenge going down between Intel’s $82 Core i3-9100F and AMD’s $99 Ryzen 5 1600 AF over at TechSpot. It would not be accurate to call this a battle, as you can tell from the first benchmarks that this is going to be an incredibly one sided contest. Indeed the only win Intel could pull off in this value priced contest was the single core Cinebench R20 benchmark, the rest were no contest.
Making matters worse for Intel at this price point is the fact that the Ryzen ships with a Wraith Stealth Cooler bundled in, and it is compatible with three generations of motherboard so prospective buyers have a huge amount of choice as to how much they want to spend on a motherboard. Those choosing Intel will need to buy a cooler in addition to a motherboard; though they will end up with a system that requires less total power which could be attractive to some.
Comparing Ryzen 5 1600 and Core i3-9100F processor market type [desktop or notebook], architecture, sales start time and price.
Place in performance rankingPlace by popularityValue for money16.9217.25Market segmentDesktop processorDesktop processorSeriesAMD Ryzen 5Intel Core i3Architecture codenameZen [2017−2020]Coffee Lake-R [2018−2019]Release date11 April 2017 [6 years old]23 April 2019 [4 years old]Launch price [MSRP]$219$122Current price$124 [0.6x MSRP]$115 [0.9x MSRP]
Value for money
Performance per price, higher is better.
i3-9100F has 2% better value for money than Ryzen 5 1600.
Technical specs
Ryzen 5 1600 and Core i3-9100F 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 cores6 [Hexa-Core]4 [Quad-Core]Threads124Base clock speed3.2 GHz3.6 GHzBoost clock speed3.6 GHz4.2 GHzL1 cache96K [per core]64K [per core]L2 cache512K [per core]256K [per core]L3 cache16 MB [shared]6 MB [shared]Chip lithography14 nm14 nmDie size192 mm2126 mm2Maximum core temperatureno data100 °CMaximum case temperature [TCase]no data72 °CNumber of transistors4,800 millionno data64 bit support++Windows 11 compatibility-+Unlocked multiplier+-
Compatibility
Information on Ryzen 5 1600 and Core i3-9100F 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 configuration1 [Uniprocessor]1SocketAM4FCLGA1151Power consumption [TDP]65 Watt65 Watt
Technologies and extensions
Technological solutions and additional instructions supported by Ryzen 5 1600 and Core i3-9100F. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.
Instruction set extensionsXFR, FMA3, SSE 4.2, AVX2, SMTIntel® SSE4.1, Intel® SSE4.2, Intel® AVX2AES-NI++AVX++Enhanced SpeedStep [EIST]no data+Enhanced SpeedStep [EIST]no data+Turbo Boost Technologyno data2.0Hyper-Threading Technologyno data-TSXno data-TSXno data+Idle Statesno data+Thermal Monitoringno data+SIPPno data-
Security technologies
Ryzen 5 1600 and Core i3-9100F technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.
TXTno data-EDBno data+Secure Keyno data+MPXno data+Identity Protectionno data+SGXno dataYes with Intel® MEOS Guardno data+
Virtualization technologies
Virtual machine speed-up technologies supported by Ryzen 5 1600 and Core i3-9100F are enumerated here.
AMD-V++VT-dno data+VT-xno data+EPTno data+
Memory specs
Types, maximum amount and channel quantity of RAM supported by Ryzen 5 1600 and Core i3-9100F. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequencies may be supported.
Supported memory typesDDR4DDR4Maximum memory size64 GB64 GBMax memory channels22Maximum memory bandwidth42.671 GB/s37.5 GB/sECC memory support++
Graphics specifications
General parameters of integrated GPUs, if any.
Integrated graphics card--
Peripherals
Specifications and connection of peripherals supported by Ryzen 5 1600 and Core i3-9100F.
PCIe version3.03.0PCI Express lanes2016
Synthetic benchmark performance
Various benchmark results of the processors in comparison. Overall score is measured in points in 0-100 range, higher is better.
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 Core i3-9100F by 82% in our combined benchmark results.
Passmark
Passmark CPU Mark is a widespread benchmark, consisting of 8 different types of workload, including integer and floating point math, extended instructions, compression, encryption and physics calculation. There is also one separate single-threaded scenario measuring single-core performance.
Benchmark coverage: 67%
Ryzen 5 1600 12291
+82.3%
Ryzen 5 1600 outperforms Core i3-9100F by 82% in Passmark.
GeekBench 5 Single-Core
GeekBench 5 Single-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses only a single CPU core.
Benchmark coverage: 40%
Core i3-9100F outperforms Ryzen 5 1600 by 28% in GeekBench 5 Single-Core.
GeekBench 5 Multi-Core
GeekBench 5 Multi-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses all available CPU cores.
Benchmark coverage: 40%
Ryzen 5 1600 outperforms Core i3-9100F by 25% in GeekBench 5 Multi-Core.
Cinebench 10 32-bit single-core
Cinebench R10 is an ancient ray tracing benchmark for processors by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. Its single core version uses just one CPU thread to render a futuristic looking motorcycle.
Benchmark coverage: 20%
Core i3-9100F outperforms Ryzen 5 1600 by 43% in Cinebench 10 32-bit single-core.
Cinebench 10 32-bit multi-core
Cinebench Release 10 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R10 using all the processor threads. Possible number of threads is limited by 16 in this version.
Benchmark coverage: 19%
Ryzen 5 1600 25970
+43.3%
Ryzen 5 1600 outperforms Core i3-9100F by 43% in Cinebench 10 32-bit multi-core.
wPrime 32
wPrime 32M is a math multi-thread processor test, which calculates square roots of first 32 million integer numbers. Its result is measured in seconds, so that the less is benchmark result, the faster the processor.
Benchmark coverage: 18%
Core i3-9100F outperforms Ryzen 5 1600 by 72% in wPrime 32.
Cinebench 11.5 64-bit multi-core
Cinebench Release 11.5 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R11.5 which uses all the processor threads. A maximum of 64 threads is supported in this version.
Benchmark coverage: 17%
Ryzen 5 1600 outperforms Core i3-9100F by 134% in Cinebench 11.5 64-bit multi-core.
Cinebench 15 64-bit multi-core
Cinebench Release 15 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R15 which uses all the processor threads.
Benchmark coverage: 15%
Ryzen 5 1600 outperforms Core i3-9100F by 78% in Cinebench 15 64-bit multi-core.
Cinebench 15 64-bit single-core
Cinebench R15 [standing for Release 15] is a benchmark made by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. It was superseded by later versions of Cinebench, which use more modern variants of Cinema 4D engine. The Single Core version [sometimes called Single-Thread] only uses a single processor thread to render a room full of reflective spheres and light sources.
Benchmark coverage: 14%
Core i3-9100F outperforms Ryzen 5 1600 by 16% in Cinebench 15 64-bit single-core.
Cinebench 11.5 64-bit single-core
Cinebench R11.5 is an old benchmark by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. It was superseded by later versions of Cinebench, which use more modern variants of Cinema 4D engine. The Single Core version loads a single thread with ray tracing to render a glossy room full of crystal spheres and light sources.
Benchmark coverage: 14%
Core i3-9100F outperforms Ryzen 5 1600 by 18% in Cinebench 11.5 64-bit single-core.
TrueCrypt AES
TrueCrypt is a discontinued piece of software that was widely used for on-the-fly-encryption of disk partitions, now superseded by VeraCrypt. It contains several embedded performance tests, one of them being TrueCrypt AES, which measures data encryption speed using AES algorithm. Result is encryption speed in gigabytes per second.
Benchmark coverage: 13%
Ryzen 5 1600 outperforms Core i3-9100F by 113% in TrueCrypt AES.
WinRAR 4.0
WinRAR 4.0 is an outdated version of a popular file archiver. It contains an internal speed test, using 'Best' setting of RAR compression on large chunks of randomly generated data. Its results are measured in kilobytes per second.
Benchmark coverage: 13%
Core i3-9100F outperforms Ryzen 5 1600 by 18% in WinRAR 4.0.
x264 encoding pass 1
x264 version 4.0 is a video encoding benchmark uses MPEG 4 x264 compression method to compress a sample HD [720p] video. Pass 1 is a faster variant that produces a constant bit rate output file. Its result is measured in frames per second, which means how many frames of the source video file were encoded per second.
Benchmark coverage: 13%
Core i3-9100F outperforms Ryzen 5 1600 by 23% in x264 encoding pass 1.
x264 encoding pass 2
x264 Pass 2 is a slower variant of x264 video compression that produces a variable bit rate output file, which results in better quality since the higher bit rate is used when it is needed more. Benchmark result is still measured in frames per second.
Benchmark coverage: 13%
Ryzen 5 1600 outperforms Core i3-9100F by 55% in x264 encoding pass 2.
Gaming performance
Advantages and disadvantages
Performance score 8.03 4.41 Recency 11 April 2017 23 April 2019 Physical cores 6 4 Threads 12 4 Cost $219 $122 Boost clock speed 3600 4200 Base clock speed 3200 3600
The Ryzen 5 1600 is our recommended choice as it beats the Core i3-9100F in performance tests.
Should you still have questions on choice between Ryzen 5 1600 and Core i3-9100F, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.
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Ryzen 5 1600
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