AMD Ryzen 5 2600 vs AMD Ryzen 5 2600H vs AMD Ryzen Embedded R1606G

AMD Ryzen 5 2600

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 is a six-core desktop processor that can handle twelve threads simultaneously thanks to Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT). This technology is equivalent to Intel's Hyper-Threading. Launched in April 2018, the Ryzen 5 2600 is the second fastest Ryzen 5 processor and is much more economical than its flagship sibling. The Ryzen 5 2600 has a 65 W TDP, which is nearly 40% more efficient than the 95 W TDP Ryzen 5 2600 X. This energy efficiency comes at a cost to performance though.

The Ryzen 5 2600 has a base clock speed of 3.4 GHz, which can be boosted by Extended Frequency Range (XFR) up to 3.9 GHz. The power gain is still high in multi-threaded applications, although this is some way off the Ryzen 5 2600X. The Ryzen 5 2600 benefits from AMD's new Zen+ architecture, with a greater number of instructions per cycle (IPC) and higher clock speeds than last year's Zen chips. The Ryzen 5 2600's six cores are divided into two clusters that are connected by Infinity Fabric, a subset of HyperTransport. Each cluster has its own L3 cache.

The Ryzen 5 2600 has good performance in games. Moreover, the Ryzen 5 2600 has a higher base clock than the Ryzen 7 2700. Seeing as many games currently lack multi-core support, this means that the Ryzen 5 2600 performs better than its technically superior sibling.

Detailed information, benchmarks and values can be found in our review of the Ryzen 5 2600.

AMD Ryzen 5 2600H

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600H is a mobile SoC that was announced late 2018. It is intended for mid-sized to big laptops and combines four Zen cores (8 threads) clocked at 3.2 (base) - 3.6 GHz (boost) with a Radeon RX Vega 8 Mobile graphics card with 8 CUs (512 Shaders, unverified). The integrated dual-channel memory controller supports up to DDR4-3200 memory.

Compared to the older Ryzen 5 2500U for slim and light laptops, the 2600H offers a higher TDP (45 Watt versus 15 Watt), higher clocked memory, a higher base clock (3.3 versus 2 GHz) and a faster integrated GPU.

More information on Raven Ridge can be found in our launch article.

The performance should be slightly better than the Ryzen 5 2600U due to the higher TDP and base clock speed. Especially longer loads should profit from this. Due to the high TDP (configurable from 35 - 54 Watt), the Ryzen 7 2600H is best suited for bigger laptops.

AMD Ryzen Embedded R1606G

The AMD Ryzen Embedded R1606G is a dual-core SoC designed for embedded systems that was announced in March 2019. It is similar to the Ryzen 3 3200U (or the 2200U with slightly increased clock speed) and based on the first generation of the Zen architecture. The Ryzen features two Zen cores with support for the thread-doubling SMT tech, clocked at 2.6 GHz - 3.5 GHz. The built-in Radeon RX Vega 3 iGPU has 3 CUs (192 unified shaders) clocked at up to 1,200 MHz. The default TDP is 15 W which makes the Ryzen a good fit for thin mid-range laptops.

In comparison to the faster Ryzen 3000 CPUs, the 3200U and therefore the R1606G is not using the newer Zen+ microarchitecture and is still manufactured in 14nm. Compared to the old Ryzen 3 2200U, the 3200U and R1606G therefore only offers a 100 MHz higher clock speed.

The R1606G is compatible with single-channel or dual-channel DDR4-2400 RAM. Please go to our Raven Ridge launch article for details on the architecture and more.