AMD just announced that its eagerly-anticipated mid-range processors - the Ryzen 5 - are now available. This means enthusiasts will now have cheaper alternatives to Intel's Core i5 CPUs. The flagship AMD Ryzen 5 1600X processor, however, has more cores and three times more threads than the Core 15-7600K giving it some edge over its rival.

The new AMD Ryzen 5 series consists of four different processors, the 1600X, 1600, 1500X and 1400 CPUs. The Ryzen 5 1600X comes with 6 cores and 12 threads, 16 MB L3, a 3.6 GHz base clock which can be boosted to 4.0 GHz and is offered at a thermal design power (TDP) of 95W. The $219 Ryzen 5 1600 also comes with 6 cores and 12 threads with base and boost speeds of 3.2 and 3.6 GHz, respectively. The 1500X with 4 cores and 8 threads long with speeds of 3.5 to 3.7 GHz, is available 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 processors have a TDP of 65W.

AMD's mid-range line of desktop CPUs is less powerful than the Ryzen 7 line which is meant for serious gamers and businessmen. The new processors are more for mainstream users which as AnandTech stressed, is a bigger market as compared to the Ryzen 7 users. The Ryzen 5 1600X, however, is comparable to the high-end Intel Core i7 processor in terms of speed and performance despite being way less expensive. When compared to Intel's Core i5-7600K, which only has four cores and four threads, the Ryzen 5 1600X is, as Kotaku reported, 70 percent faster.

The impressive performance of the AMD Ryzen 5 processors should not come as a surprise since they have more cores and threads than their Intel rivals. In fact, test results were leaked earlier by El Chapuzas, a Spanish website which claimed that the Ryzen 5 1600 performed better than Intel's Core i7 processor.