AMD's Ryzen 5 CPUs will compete with Intel's Core i5 chips and leaked benchmark results on the former so far showed sufficient capabilities both in the gaming and synthetic applications fields. Overall, the more affordable Zen chips will prove "disruptive in the mainstream gaming market," a new report said.

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The benchmark results cited by WCCFTech on its report specifically involved the base Ryzen 5 1400 CPU, which can deliver an overclock speed of 3.8GHz (or a few notches higher from the official boost clock speed of 3.4GHz) from the stock clock of 3.2GHz. The Ryzen 5 1400 is AMD's basic offering in the 4-core/8-thread spectrum with SRP of $169.

The package will also include 8MB of L3 cache and TDP rating of 65W. "We can expect some decent CPU performance out of this little chip," said the same report.

Basing on the gaming and synthetic performances observed on the Ryzen 5 1400, the chip will invite a second look, specifically coming from PC gamers looking to score the best bang for their bucks. For the relatively lower price, the chip is envisioned to deliver "high-performance CPU performance to a mass majority of gamers building powerful PCs for themselves."

The combination of affordability and more than decent performance will likely prompt gaming enthusiasts to look beyond Intel, and more so if the original pick is the Core i5 family.

It's important to note though that the Ryzen 5 1400 can only be boosted up to 3.8GHz as going beyond will mostly lead to system crash. But another to note is that the chip's overclocked speed is close to the 3.9GHz boosted clock seen with Intel's 4770K chip that is part of the Core i7 series, further attesting the Ryzen CPU's high-performance specifications.

And the Ryzen 5 1400 is only the base model in the series that also includes the 4-core/8-thread 1500X, the 6-core/12-thread 1600 and the series premium 1600X, also in 6-core/12-thread configuration. The latter's base clock is officially listed at 3.6GHz with sanctioned overclocking of up to 4.0GHz. It's safe to assume that the 1600X can easily breach its 4GHz speed limit.

All Ryzen 5 CPUs are expected to start selling on April 11 with the Ryzen 5 1600X tipped to be the priciest in the lineup at $249 a pop but still relatively more affordable when pitted against Intel's offerings.