AMD Reveals Mid-Range Ryzen 5 CPU Lineup Launching In April

[Correction: This article mistakenly mentioned the i5-7600K as a four-core eight-thread CPU, but is a four-core four-thread CPU. It has since been changed.]

With the higher-end Ryzen 7 series of CPUs that released earlier this month, AMD returned to competing with Intel in the consumer processor market. However, details on the mid-range Ryzen 5 series were not announced until today, which will consist of four SKUs: the 1600X, 1600, 1500X, and 1400, which will be available worldwide on April 11.

Both the Ryzen 5 1600X and 1600 are six-core 12-thread processors based on AMD's new Zen architecture. The 1600X is the flagship chip and will have a base clock speed of 3.6GHz and boost clock speed of 4.0GHz at the price of $249. The 1600 sports 3.2GHz base clock and 3.6GHz boost clock speeds, but costs $219.

The four-core, eight-thread variants of the Zen-based CPUs are known as the Ryzen 5 1500X ($189) and 1400 ($169). The 1500X will run at 3.5GHz base clock and a 3.7GHz boost clock, while the 1400 will be clocked at 3.2GHz base and 3.4GHz boost. Boost clock margins are another notable change in these two CPUs, only allowing for an extra 200MHz.

As with the Ryzen 7 line, all CPUs come with unlocked multipliers, which will allow for unhindered manual overclocking, given that the AM4 motherboard is equipped with the proper chipset: the X370, B350, or X300. Lower-end A320 and A300 chipsets will not allow manual overclocking.

The only benchmark numbers given by AMD's press briefing was from a Cinebench nT test between the Ryzen 5 1600X and Intel's Core i5-7600K, in which the AMD CPU outperformed Intel's by 69 percent. Keep in mind that the i5-7600K is a four-core four-thread processor. As we saw with Ryzen 7 benchmarks, the Zen-based CPUs do particularly well in benchmarks that utilize multiple cores and threads, such as video production simulations like Cinebench, but gaming performance left more to be desired.

Stay tuned as GameSpot will evaluate the performance of the new Ryzen 5 CPUs as we closer approach the April 11 release date.