Not a Ryzen 9

Great CPU, and it is hard to find any complaints. However, I do recommend a different cooler as it can run hotter under load.

I'm running an X370 motherboard, and with a recent BIOS upgrade, the board (Gigabyte K7) took the new chip with no problems. I'm running a Corsair H110i cooler system, and sustained stress-tests on the chip have maxed out around 68.5 Celsius. The single thread performance gain over my first gen Ryzen is objectively noticeable; my CPU-Z benchmarks are showing almost 50% gains. More importantly, desktop workloads in many programs, such as Photoshop and Lightroom, are tangibly faster.

This is the first time in years that I've put a new chip into my computer and actually "felt" the difference (I think the last time I was this excited was when I got my 2600k). Version 2 of the AMD Ryzen Master is also a lot of fun to use, although I agree with a lot of blogs that AMD has already optimized the chip and there isn't a whole lot else to do. Overall, I'm really happy with the performance and price, and its an added bonus that a MB upgrade wasn't needed. I am really, really happy with this upgrade.

Performance

Cooling

CPU definitely does not operate at advertised 65W TDP and included cooler is not nearly enough. At only 20% load CPU was hitting 80C+ and max fan speeds. Get a water cooler or a Noctua for Ryzen 7 or 9. This model operates closer to the 105W TDP of the 3800x and higher so good cooling is a must. Otherwise, great product! Just sad I can't use the RGB