Intel's $200 Core i5-8500 is part of the second wave of Coffee Lake CPUs, released earlier this year. The processor comes with six cores and six threads, and will boost up to 4.1 GHz. Our testing shows that even at higher thread counts it won't ever go below 3.9 GHz, which will make life difficult for the Ryzen 5 2600 - its main competitor.

Intel recently expanded its 8th generation Core processor family with more Core i5 six-core processor models, capturing important price points between $189 to $229. This price-band has become rather crowded now, with the i5-8400 starting at $189, the i5-8500 around $209, and the i5-8600 at $229. With the advent of AMD's 2nd generation Ryzen "Pinnacle Ridge" processor family, the competition between Intel and AMD heated up even more, with some retailers serving up the i5-8500 as low as $204, to compete with the new Ryzen 5 2600.