AMD Ryzen 5 1600X: 6C/12T @ 4GHz for $249

AMD is just weeks away from launching its mid-range Ryzen 5 family of CPUs, with the Ryzen 5 1400, Ryzen 5 1500X, Ryzen 5 1600, and the flagship Ryzen 5 1600X processor.

AMD's new Ryzen 5 family is their mid-range offering to fight off the higher-end Core i3 and mid-range Core i5 processors from Intel, with the new Ryzen 5 1600X being compared against Intel's Core i5-7600K in Cinebench, with AMD's new Ryzen 5 1600X being 69% faster. A huge improvement, thanks to the 6C/12T performance versus 4C/8T on the 7600K chip.

AMD Ryzen 5 CPU - core/threads - clock speeds

• Ryzen 5 1400: 4C/8T @ 3.2/3.4GHz
• Ryzen 5 1500X: 4C/8T @ 3.5/3.7GHz (unlocked/overclockable)
• Ryzen 5 1600: 6C/12T @ 3.2/3.6GHz
• Ryzen 5 1600X: 6C/12T @ 3.6/4GHz (unlocked/overclockable)

AMD's new Ryzen 5 processors go on sale April 11.