Ryzen 5 CPUs Released, Added to Logical Increments

This week, AMD launched their exciting Ryzen 5 CPUs, which include two 6-core hyperthreaded chips (the 1600X and 1600) and two 4-core hyperthreaded chips (the 1500X and 1400). These CPUs are now among our recommendations on the Logical Increments homepage, marking a welcome return for AMD to the mid-range CPU space.

Long story short: We have added the the R5 1500X and 1600 to our Great tier, while the R5 1600 and 1600X now appear in our Excellent tier. As a result, the Ryzen chips have shaken up our once Intel-dominated mid-range CPU recommendations, and knocked the Intel i5-7400 completely off our list.

Back in February, AMD launched Ryzen with the Ryzen 7 series of 8-core CPUs. Ryzen 7’s launch was pretty good, but the price was high, and the target market was for the higher-end of PC builders. Ryzen 5 has a much more reasonable $170-$250 price range, and is targeted more at mainstream PC builders and gamers.

Of course, the $170-$250 is the Intel i5 price range too, and the i5 series is very popular! This means that Ryzen 5 faces some very stiff competition.

The only new Ryzen 5 CPU that will not be joining our list of recommendations is the R5 1400. Benchmarks and reviews for the 1400 have been scarce. But, it is only $20 cheaper than the 1500X, and being lower clocked and missing the ability to “auto-turbo” as high as the 1500X. So, the 1400 is not a very logical purchase compared to the 1500X. AMD will need to lower the price tag for us to consider recommending it.

The R5 1500X, for $190, matches or beats the i5-7400 in nearly all areas. With 4 cores and 8 threads, it makes the i5-7400 obsolete in this price range.

The R5 1600 is lower clocked, but it has 6 cores and 12 threads. For $220, that gives it extremely good performance/price for multi-threaded applications. It will lag the i5-7500 in lightly threaded applications, but only a little. We will continue to recommend both.

The R5 1600X, for $250, shows us that AMD can compete toe-to-toe with Intel’s best mid-range CPU, the i5-7600K — even if AMD prices the 1600X a little higher. The i5-7600K, Intel’s second-best gaming CPU, is usually priced between $230-$240. But while the 7600K beats the 1600X in lightly threaded games and applications, the 1600X crushes it in some multi-threaded applications.

So, to summarize, here’s what our new Great and Excellent tiers look like:

Great

Excellent

That’s all for now. Next, we’ll await the arrival of Ryzen 3!

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