AMD ’s third-generation Ryzen processor has emerged in the PC hardware space, providing a perfect combination of price and performance for content creation and gaming-but these chips are not available at all price points. Although AMD added high-end options with the release of the 3950X, manufacturers of budget systems had to pay $ 200 for the mid-range Ryzen 5 3600, or accept the compromise of older first- or second-generation Ryzen CPUs. Today, with the release of $ 100 / £ 95 Ryzen 3 3100 and $ 120 / £ 115 Ryzen 3 3300X, this situation has changed.

These mainstream processors may soon be favored by system builders, and due to some key improvements, they appear to be more powerful than previous processors. First, both CPUs have four Zen 2 cores, so they should provide better single-threaded performance than their earlier Ryzen generation Zen and Zen + predecessor products. The efficiency advantages inherent in the conversion from 12nm to 7nm also allow for higher boost frequencies, with the boost frequency on the 3100 set to 3.9GHz and the boost frequency on the 3300X set to 4GHz. These CPUs also support SMT (Synchronous Multithreading), which is the first of Ryzen 3 processors. Having eight threads can make these chips better suited for content creation roles, and can also help build games based on more modern engines.

These changes alone will cause major performance changes, but there will be more minor upgrades here. For example, the size of the L3 cache on the 3300X has doubled compared to the 2300X. This means that these processors do not need to rely frequently on data streaming from RAM, which speeds up processing and helps these chips better pair with lower frequency RAM. Despite these advances, TDP remains at 65W, including the included Wraith Stealth radiator, and in most cases no third-party AiO or air radiator is required.

All of this looks promising, but only in actual tests can the crucible determine whether these chips can reach their potential in the highly competitive field. Thankfully, we have already had Ryzen 3100 and 3300X to answer this question in the past few weeks.

As usual, most of our performance tests will be conducted in games. Over the past decade, we have chosen a lot of CPU-intensive games, but we will also briefly introduce content creation tasks-after all, there are four Zen 2 core With 8 threads, we have the level of performance that early YouTubers dreamed of.

Although Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300X are the stars of this exhibition, we also included the results of high-end AMD and Intel processors to provide some much-needed context. Later in the review, we will focus on some similarly priced competitors, including Ryzen 5 2600, Ryzen 5 3400G and-Incredibly Intel Core i7 7700K (quad-core, eight-thread flagship in 2017), And some similar products. It is very similar to Intel's upcoming tenth-generation Core i3 series.

In order to test these chips fairly, we used a standard Windows 10 installation (installed the latest security patches and AMD chipset drivers) on the fast NVMe storage-especially the XPG Spectrix S40G (we chose the most Best NVMe SSD). Our main AMD benchmark tests were conducted on Asus ROG Crosshair 7 X470 motherboards, and supplementary tests were conducted on MSI MPG X570 Gaming Plus and Asus ROG Crosshair 8. Except for the Core i7 7700K, our Core processors have been tested on Asus ROG Maximus XI Extreme. , So you must return to the classic MSI Z170A game M7.

The Ryzen processor is cooled by AMD ’s Wraith Prism cooler, which is a slightly better version of the Wraith Stealth bundled with the 3100 and 3300X. In terms of Intel, the game Storm Castle 240mm AiO is used. Our setup includes G. Skill Trident Z Royal 3600MHz CL16 RAM provided by AMD, reliable 850W Gaming Storm PSU and open-air test bench.

Before testing games, it is necessary to understand how 3100 and 3300X compare with each other in video creation, video transcoding and other content creation tasks, and their more expensive competitors. To this end, we chose to use the popular Cinebench R20 application, which replicates rendering work in the industrial-grade video software Cinema 4D.

The results here are immediately interesting. Although the cost of the 3100 is lower than all other CPUs, it still ranks the Core i5 9600K with single-core performance and is about 12% higher than the Ryzen 2600 and 2700X. The 3300X is even more impressive, with its single-core score surpassing the Core i7 9700K, only lagging behind the Ryzen 9 3900X and Core i9 9900K. However, the result of multi-threading is another matter. The four physical cores of the 3300X and eight threads manage less than 2,600 points. This is similar to the Core i5 9600K, but the greater number of cores in AMD's remaining product lines translates into huge performance advantages. Nonetheless, we should be reasonable-after all, this is a $ 100 and $ 120 processor.

Another common task for video producers is transcoding, which is to convert digital video files from one format to another. For this reason, Handbrake is a popular open source application that forms the basis of our next test. Here, the CRF 18 quality settings of the production standard preset and the use of two different encoders x264 (h.264) and x265 (HEVC) are used to encode the source file, and the average frame rate is recorded and the entire system is measured on the wall Power consumption.

The results here follow the early Cinebench score, the new Ryzen chips are executed separately, but only really challenge the six-core, six-thread Core i5 9600K in encoding speed, and lose to its Core i7 and the current Ryzen 5 competition.

The comparison between Ryzen 3 3100 and Ryzen 5 2600 is perhaps the most interesting. The older Zen + design recorded a faster h.264 encoding rate, but the number of Zen 2 cores in the 3100 is smaller, which is in the HEVC test A weak victory was achieved. The latter test uses the AVX instruction set, which is a particular area of ​​attention that AMD calls Zen 2-you can see the results, our $ 100 Ryzen 3100 beats the (original) $ 200 Ryzen 5 2600 .

Note that 3300X is only 10% faster than 3100, but the cost is 20% higher, so 3100 is a better choice for cheap video encoding. Ultimately, both new Ryzen CPUs consume power, and our complete system consumes only 120W at full tilt.

Although these processors can be excellent low-cost editing platforms, we guess that most buyers will seek to play some games-this is our next goal. The powerful single-threaded Cinebench results show that even in the case of a naive game engine (which cannot scale well to multiple threads), the 3100 and 3300X can still function well, while four physical cores and eight logical cores It should be enough to cope with more modern games. Great-but will these chips be as easy to recommend as our current value champion Ryzen 5 3600?

To find out, we tested each game in a scenario that emphasizes CPU 1080p, 1440p, and 2160p. To ensure that each processor can reach its maximum potential, we paired it with the fastest consumer GPU RTX 2080 Ti available. Although this combination can ensure that even if there is a slight difference in processor performance, you can see the visibility, but we hope that even on GPUs with higher 1080p resolutions, the performance will reach a similar gap. To give you some insight, the 4K RTX 2080 Ti (as tested here) is similar in performance to the GTX 1660 running at 1080p. Higher resolutions (such as 1440p and 4K) should depend more on the graphics capabilities-especially in the challenging game we chose-but there will still be differences between processors, so these results must also be included .

Before we proceed with the analysis, let me say a few warnings. No matter how good we design and implement the CPU review, we can only test-as Richard Leadbetter said-"The tiny microscopic spots of a series of game scenes that the CPU will experience." With this in mind, we recommend that you also read and watch other Comment to get a more comprehensive understanding of the performance of these processors. Having said that, let's get to the result-starting with the three challenging games recently released.

AMD Ryzen 3 3100 / 3300X analysis

AMD ’s third-generation Ryzen processor has emerged in the PC hardware space, providing a perfect combination of price and performance for content creation and gaming-but these chips are not available at all price points. Although AMD added high-end options with the release of the 3950X, manufacturers of budget systems had to pay $ 200 for the mid-range Ryzen 5 3600, or accept the compromise of older first- or second-generation Ryzen CPUs. Today, with the release of $ 100 / £ 95 Ryzen 3 3100 and $ 120 / £ 115 Ryzen 3 3300X, this situation has changed.

These mainstream processors may soon be favored by system builders, and due to some key improvements, they appear to be more powerful than previous processors. First, both CPUs have four Zen 2 cores, so they should provide better single-threaded performance than their earlier Ryzen generation Zen and Zen + predecessor products. The efficiency advantages inherent in the conversion from 12nm to 7nm also allow for higher boost frequencies, with the boost frequency on the 3100 set to 3.9GHz and the boost frequency on the 3300X set to 4GHz. These CPUs also support SMT (Synchronous Multithreading), which is the first of Ryzen 3 processors. Having eight threads can make these chips better suited for content creation roles, and can also help build games based on more modern engines.

These changes alone will cause major performance changes, but there will be more minor upgrades here. For example, the size of the L3 cache on the 3300X has doubled compared to the 2300X. This means that these processors do not need to rely frequently on data streaming from RAM, which speeds up processing and helps these chips better pair with lower frequency RAM. Despite these advances, TDP remains at 65W, including the included Wraith Stealth radiator, and in most cases no third-party AiO or air radiator is required.

All of this looks promising, but only in actual tests can the crucible determine whether these chips can reach their potential in the highly competitive field. Thankfully, we have already had Ryzen 3100 and 3300X to answer this question in the past few weeks.

As usual, most of our performance tests will be conducted in games. Over the past decade, we have chosen a lot of CPU-intensive games, but we will also briefly introduce content creation tasks-after all, there are four Zen 2 cores With 8 threads, we have the level of performance that early YouTubers dreamed of.

Although Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300X are the stars of this exhibition, we also included the results of high-end AMD and Intel processors to provide some much-needed context. Later in the review, we will focus on some similarly priced competitors, including Ryzen 5 2600, Ryzen 5 3400G and-Incredibly Intel ’s Core i7 7700K (quad-core, eight-thread flagship in 2017), And some similar products. It is very similar to Intel's upcoming tenth-generation Core i3 series.

In order to test these chips fairly, we used a standard Windows 10 installation (installed the latest security patches and AMD chipset drivers) on the fast NVMe storage-especially the XPG Spectrix S40G (we chose the most Best NVMe SSD). Our main AMD benchmark tests were conducted on Asus ROG Crosshair 7 X470 motherboards, and supplementary tests were conducted on MSI MPG X570 Gaming Plus and Asus ROG Crosshair 8. Except for the Core i7 7700K, our Core processors have been tested on Asus ROG Maximus XI Extreme. , So you must return to the classic MSI Z170A game M7.

The Ryzen processor is cooled by AMD ’s Wraith Prism cooler, which is a slightly better version of the Wraith Stealth bundled with the 3100 and 3300X. In terms of Intel, the game Storm Castle 240mm AiO is used. Our setup includes G. Skill Trident Z Royal 3600MHz CL16 RAM provided by AMD, reliable 850W Gaming Storm PSU and open-air test bench.

Before testing games, it is necessary to understand how 3100 and 3300X compare with each other in video creation, video transcoding and other content creation tasks, as well as their more expensive competitors. To this end, we chose to use the popular Cinebench R20 application, which replicates rendering work in the industrial-grade video software Cinema 4D.

The results here are immediately interesting. Although the cost of the 3100 is lower than all other CPUs, it still ranks the Core i5 9600K with single-core performance and is about 12% higher than the Ryzen 2600 and 2700X. The 3300X is even more impressive, with its single-core score surpassing the Core i7 9700K, only lagging behind the Ryzen 9 3900X and Core i9 9900K. However, the result of multi-threading is another matter. The four physical cores of the 3300X and eight threads manage less than 2,600 points. This is similar to the Core i5 9600K, but the greater number of cores in AMD's remaining product lines translates into huge performance advantages. Nonetheless, we should be reasonable-after all, this is a $ 100 and $ 120 processor.

Another common task for video producers is transcoding, which is to convert digital video files from one format to another. For this reason, Handbrake is a popular open source application that forms the basis of our next test. Here, the CRF 18 quality settings of the production standard preset and the use of two different encoders x264 (h.264) and x265 (HEVC) are used to encode the source file, and the average frame rate is recorded and the entire system is measured on the wall Power consumption.

The results here follow the early Cinebench score, the new Ryzen chips are executed separately, but only really challenge the six-core, six-thread Core i5 9600K in encoding speed, and lose to its Core i7 and the current Ryzen 5 competition.

The comparison between Ryzen 3 3100 and Ryzen 5 2600 is perhaps the most interesting. The older Zen + design recorded a faster h.264 encoding rate, but the number of Zen 2 cores in the 3100 is smaller, which is in the HEVC test A weak victory was achieved. The latter test uses the AVX instruction set, which is a particular area of ​​attention that AMD calls Zen 2-you can see the results, our $ 100 Ryzen 3100 beats the (original) $ 200 Ryzen 5 2600 .

Note that 3300X is only 10% faster than 3100, but the cost is 20% higher, so 3100 is a better choice for cheap video encoding. Ultimately, both new Ryzen CPUs consume power, and our complete system consumes only 120W at full tilt.

Although these processors can be excellent low-cost editing platforms, we guess that most buyers will seek to play some games-this is our next goal. The powerful single-threaded Cinebench results show that even in the case of a naive game engine (which cannot scale well to multiple threads), the 3100 and 3300X can still function well, while four physical cores and eight logical cores It should be enough to handle more modern games. Great-but will these chips be as easy to recommend as our current value champion Ryzen 5 3600?

To find out, we tested each game in a scenario that emphasizes CPU 1080p, 1440p, and 2160p. To ensure that each processor can reach its maximum potential, we paired it with the fastest consumer GPU RTX 2080 Ti available. Although this combination can ensure that even if there is a slight difference in processor performance, you can see the visibility, but we hope that even on GPUs with higher 1080p resolutions, the performance will reach a similar gap. To give you some insight, the 4K RTX 2080 Ti (as tested here) is similar in performance to the GTX 1660 running at 1080p. Higher resolutions (such as 1440p and 4K) should depend more on the graphics processing power-especially in the challenging games we choose-but there will still be differences between the processors, so these must also be included result.

Before we proceed with the analysis, let me say a few warnings. No matter how good we design and implement the CPU review, we can only test-as Richard Leadbetter said-"The tiny microscopic spots of a series of game scenes that the CPU will experience." With this in mind, we recommend that you also read and watch other Comment to get a more comprehensive understanding of the performance of these processors. Having said that, let's get to the result-starting with the three challenging games recently released.

AMD Ryzen 3 3100 / 3300X analysis