AMD Ryzen 5: Ryzen 5 1600X & 1500X CPU Beats Intel With 3 Times More Threads, at Same Price

AMD announced its eagerly-anticipated mid-range processors, the Ryzen 5, are now available. This means tech enthusiasts will now be having cheaper substitutes to Intel's costly Core i5 CPUs. The AMD Ryzen 5 1600X processor reportedly has more cores and three times more threads than the Intel Core 15-7600K giving it some edge over its competitor.

According to Forbes, AMD is looking extremely strong, in multi-threaded applications with its latest AMD Ryzen 5, and regularly has a good lead on the more expensive Intel Core i7-7700K. The Intel CPU boasts a higher clock speed, but only has four physical cores and eight threads as compared to the six cores and 12 threads of the AMD Ryzen 5 1600. The AMD Ryzen CPU is having a price tag of $219; while on Newegg today the Intel CPU will set you back $350.

The latest AMD Ryzen 5 series consists of four different processors, the 1600X, 1600, 1500X and 1400 CPUs. The Ryzen 5 1600X is coming with 6 cores and 12 threads with 16 MB L3, a 3.6 GHz base clock which can be boosted to 4.0 GHz and is offered at a TDP of 95W.

Another processor the $219 AMD Ryzen 5 1600, as mentioned above, also comes with 6 cores and 12 threads with base and boost speeds of 3.2 and 3.6 GHz, correspondingly. The AMD Ryzen 1500X with 4 cores and 8 threads long with speeds of 3.5 to 3.7 GHz, is there for only $189 while the Ryzen 5 1400 which has 4 cores and 8 threads and 3.2 to 3.4 GHz clock speed, is worth $169. The last three AMD Ryzen 5 processors have a TDP of 65W.

AMD's mid-range line of desktop CPUs AMD Ryzen 5 is less powerful than the Ryzen 7 line up that meant it is for serious gamers and businessmen. The latest AMD processors are more for mainstream users which, as noted by AnandTech, is a bigger market as compared to the Ryzen 7 users.

The AMD Ryzen 5 1600X, however, is comparable to the high-end Intel Core i7 processor in terms of speed and performance despite being way less costly, when measuring multi-threaded performance in the benchmarking site Cinebench. When compared to Intel's Core i5-7600K which only has four cores and four threads, the Ryzen 5 1600X is, as reported by Kotaku, 70 percent faster.

For those who are wondering that the AMD Ryzen 5 1500X and 1600 will ship with the Wraith Spire cooler while 1400 comes with the smaller Wraith Stealth cooler. Unluckily, we only have one quad-core model on hand for review and that's the higher-clocked 1500X.