There are so many it's confusing to know all the differences. Could someone give me a cliffs notes version of the differences between the following and how much of a performance difference between all of them in a non-gaming but HEAVY multi-tasking environment (i.e. web browsing - 6-7 tabs open, multimedia playing, word, excel, some medium software development tools - eclipse, database, a http server - all operating simultaneously).
Ryzen 5 1600 and 1600X
Ryzen 7 1600, 1600X, 1700, 1700X
Its Ryzen 5 1500, 1500x, 1600, 1600x
Ryzen 7 1700, 1700x, 1800x
1500 Equals 4c8t 16MB L3, X means clocked faster
1600 Means 6c8t 16MB L3, X means clocked faster (highest clock/boost clock of all Ryzen's)
1700 Means 8c16t 16MB L3, X means clocked faster. (1700 is the lowest clocked Ryzen)
1800X means 8c16t 16MBL3. (Slightly slower boost clock than 1600x)
First question that must be answered is are you willing to overclock? Second question is budget?
If willing to overclock, and within budget. Get the 1700. More cores for productivity. Can regularly hit 3.8GHz with little trouble, doesn't seem to hit the max OC clock of 1800x very often (4.1). 3.9 Seems like a solid goal along the whole Ryzen lineup.
Tighter budget but willing to overclock. Get the 1600. 6c12t is still great for productivity and the cost is pretty good.
Do not want to overclock. Get the 1600x. 6c12t again great for productivity. But you get the added value of a good price for no effort performance.
The 1700x is a great middle ground between the 1700 and 1800x. But not a very value oriented chip compared to the 1700. The 1800x is a I need 8 cores, want them as fast as I can get them without overclocking but don't want to spend to much chip. At $500 its a good value against a 6900k ($1k) but overall its not a good value within the Ryzen lineup.
The 1500(x) are both great values when compared to the i3 and non-unlocked i5. They are i7 configurations with great pricing. But I know the impact from working with my engineers at work and it's sad all of them just have to do their work from laptops because outside memory, those can also be CPU hogs. Personally if doing that much productivity work on top of everything else. I would get the 1700 whether or not you plan on overclocking, if not go with the 1600 if willing to overclock, and finally the 1600x if not willing to overclock.