Review AMD Ryzen 3 3300X and 3100 Review: Low-End Gaming Gets a High-End Boost

[NightHawkRMX]

I wish the FX-8350 or FX-9590 were included as well. Yes it is 8 years old, but it would be interesting to see how it, an essentially quad core processor formerly high end, performed against this years entry level quad cores.

Would make for a good budget build article, a X370 or B350 motherboard, 3100 or 3300X, RX 580 or RX 5500XT...

While it would be interesting, the results are easy to predict.

An FX9590 is slightly above a FX8370 due to clock speeds, but even a Ryzen 3 1200/1300x would kill a 8370, and beat a 9590 in most cases. The 1300x was dead last by a fair margin on all of these graphs, so the 9590 would be even lower.

The 9590 would likely have the lowest performance and possibly the highest power consumption.

AMD has come a LOOOOOONG way since any FX CPU.

 

[InvalidError]

AMD launch your budget platform (namely the B550) with your budget CPU. No one is going to pair a $120 CPU with a motherboard that costs twice as much

I wouldn't bother even for a $200 CPU. Had AMD launched the B550 along with the 3600, I might have let myself get tempted to upgrade last year, before DRAM prices bounced back up. Now, I'm more of the mind to wait for the 4600/B650, especially with most parts either sold out or heavily marked up.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Really i would like to see B550 and these Ryzen 3 CPUs come about 6 months ago.

However, you can make do with a cheap MSI b450 max board. There are models at different prices.

 

[InvalidError]

However, you can make do with a cheap MSI b450 max board. There are models at different prices.

Multiple out-of-stock options (at least as far as my usual suspects are concerned) don't help much.

 

[Platinum_Gamer]

Wow that little overclocked i3-9350k is damn fast

 

[cryoburner]

Update: And the editing pass is done. You can now blame me for any remaining errors, though I must admit I skimmed pages 3 and 4 a bit.

I see what appears to be another error on page 2...

"We also tried to boot the chip at 5.6 GHz with a beefier 720mm custom loop, but to no avail."

If they only managed a 4.5GHz overclock, I can't imagine the next logical step would be to jump to 5.6GHz. : D

If you're interested solely in gaming, the Ryzen 3 3300X takes the shine off of purchasing the Ryzen 5 3600, even though the 3600's twelve threads would come in handy for multi-tasking, streaming, and/or recording.

The Ryzen 3600 will still undoubtedly be the better-performing option in the long run though, as games continue to become more heavily-multithreaded, especially seeing as "mid-range" CPUs from both AMD and Intel will be offering 12-threads very soon. Plus, people will often be playing games with other tasks running in the background that may cause increased frame instability in real-world systems that may not be evident in benchmarks done on clean test systems. The 3300X is undoubtedly a good choice for gaming systems on a lower budget, but if one is spending a few-hundred dollars or more on a graphics card, it's probably worth spending the extra $50 for 50% more processor cores.

The 1600AF's limited availability probably disqualifies it from many people's shopping list too. For people building new right now, another significant issue is going to be availability of reasonably priced 3rd-gen-ready B-series motherboards: last time I looked, most were either out of stock or marked up by $20-50.

I wouldn't be surprised if the manufacturers cut back on B450 production, seeing as B550 should be launching next month. It doesn't make much sense to build up a big stockpile of B450 boards if most of those building a Ryzen 3000 system will want the newer boards soon. And while the 1600AF has been a fine processor for the money, I think most would rather pay a little more to trade a small amount of multithreaded performance for a decent improvement in per-core performance, so I kind of doubt its going to stay on the market for very long.

Now, I'm more of the mind to wait for the 4600/B650, especially with most parts either sold out or heavily marked up.

I'm not sure I would wait on B650. If they are only getting around to releasing B550 next month, then I can't imagine a new generation of mid-range boards will be coming within the next year. They might not even release a B650 if the following generation of CPUs ends up breaking backward compatibility. If I had to guess, B550 may be intended as the mid-range board for the Ryzen 4000 generation.

I kind of wonder if AMD might lower their launch prices for a given core count with their Ryzen 4000 processors. Until now, AMD has had a core/thread advantage over Intel at any given price point, but with Comet Lake, Intel will have largely caught up on that metric. A 6-core, 12-thread i5-10400F at around $160 is probably going to provide relatively similar multithreaded performance to a Ryzen 3600, after all, and an 8-core, 16-thread i7-10700F should do the same for the 3700X at around $300. I suspect we will see additional reductions in Ryzen 3000 pricing soon, but Ryzen 4000 pricing might be affected as well, assuming AMD doesn't pull significantly ahead in terms of performance per core with their 4000-series processors.

 

[InvalidError]

They might not even release a B650 if the following generation of CPUs ends up breaking backward compatibility. If I had to guess, B550 may be intended as the mid-range board for the Ryzen 4000 generation.

Intel's Alder Lake is coming early next year if it stays on track and I suspect its 500 extra pins bring a fair amount of extra updated IO on-package. AMD will need to at least update B550 with a 4.0x4 CPU link to keep up until AM5 arrives with Zen 4 in 2022. I wouldn't be surprised if there were 700-series chipsets to go along Zen 3+ CPUs.

 

[bit_user]

Quite a few reviews show the 3300X not only ahead of the 7700K in gaming, ...

For the record, I'm a bit surprised to see the 3300X fare this well in gaming against the 7700k...

Definitely agree. The 3300X beat the i7-7700K nearly across the board, often by quite a sizeable margin. With them both being 4-core/8-thread CPUs, that's the most direct comparison and quite impressive given that the new CPU is just over 1/3rd the price.

Yes, Kaby Lake launched a whole 3 years ago, but I challenge anyone to cite when was the last time a non-HEDT flagship was so resoundingly beaten by another CPU @ 1/3rd the price, within the same timeframe. I'm not saying it never happened, but I can't think of another example.

Bravo, AMD.
👏

 

[RodroX]

Wow that little overclocked i3-9350k is damn fast

That litle i3-9350k is fast but you need to spend a lot of money on an OC motherboard, really does not make sense for a CPU with only 4 cores and no HT.

This is (for me) a really a useless CPU, other than for playing with OC and a few very niche applications.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

I see what appears to be another error on page 2...

"We also tried to boot the chip at 5.6 GHz with a beefier 720mm custom loop, but to no avail."

If they only managed a 4.5GHz overclock, I can't imagine the next logical step would be to jump to 5.6GHz. : D

Fixed, thanks!

 

[TerryLaze]

That litle i3-9350k is fast but you need to spend a lot of money on an OC motherboard, really does not make sense for a CPU with only 4 cores and no HT.

This is (for me) a really a useless CPU, other than for playing with OC and a few very niche applications.

Stock clock turbo of the 9350k is the same as the i3-10320 add another 30-40% for HTT and there you go.Also there have been reports of using TDP unlocking to get better clocks on locked 10th gen CPUs on non Z mobos,if this makes them run close to 5Ghz you have a killer CPU on your hands.
https://www.techpowerup.com/266489/...rds-for-10th-generation-non-k-comet-lake-cpus

 

[RodroX]

Stock clock turbo of the 9350k is the same as the i3-10320 add another 30-40% for HTT and there you go.Also there have been reports of using TDP unlocking to get better clocks on locked 10th gen CPUs on non Z mobos,if this makes them run close to 5Ghz you have a killer CPU on your hands.
https://www.techpowerup.com/266489/...rds-for-10th-generation-non-k-comet-lake-cpus

If thats the case then thats good news for the 10th gen, I still don't think is worth to spend money on a high end Z mobo for a Core i3. Maybe the rummors about more intel chipsets (other than the Z ones) been able to OC are truth, I guess we will have to wait a few more days.

In any case if I have to recommend some serious gammer on build parts for a gaming rig - AAA titles, I feel that any 4C/8T are not going to be on that list, no matter if they are 5GHz, Intel or AMD. For a budget gaming PC yes no doubt about it, it will get really hard to pick between the new Core i3, Ryzen 3 (zen 2) and the Ryzen 5 1600AF/2600/3600, I guess it will come dows to the games.

Lets hope intel finally take the step on enabling OC and/or TDP tweaking on more budget platform for once. After all AMDs been doing it for more than 3 years now.

 

[Razuel]

Trying to decide between 3300x and 3600.

Anyone know latency makeup of the 3600 vs 3600x vs 3700x?

"The 3300X's latency between cores (inter-core) weighs in at 24.8ns, but that's split into two distinct layers that measure ~11.4ns for near cores and ~27.8ns for far cores, respectively.

In contrast, the Ryzen 3 3100 has a 55.4ns inter-core latency with two distinct tiers that measure ~12.7ns for near cores and ~82.1ns for far cores, with the latter leading to slower performance in latency-sensitive apps, like gaming. "

 

[InvalidError]

Anyone know latency makeup of the 3600 vs 3600x vs 3700x?

Should be similar to the 3100 since latency is a function of how the cores are connected to each other which is the same for all Zen 2 CCDs, give or take a few ns depending on fabric and core clocks. Since the 3300X has only one CCX, all cores are "near" so I'm guessing the difference between "near" and "far" in that context is between threads within a given core.

 

[Razuel]

Should be similar to the 3100 since latency is a function of how the cores are connected to each other which is the same for all Zen 2 CCDs, give or take a few ns depending on fabric and core clocks. Since the 3300X has only one CCX, all cores are "near" so I'm guessing the difference between "near" and "far" in that context is between threads within a given core.

so are you saying the 3600 is trash because it has 3+3 rather than 4 + 0?

I keep seeing youtube benchmarks of the 3600 beating 3300x by 1-2 frames but these review sites show it up there with the 3700x idk some 5-15 better.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

so are you saying the 3600 is trash because it has 3+3 rather than 4 + 0?

I keep seeing youtube benchmarks of the 3600 beating 3300x by 1-2 frames but these review sites show it up there with the 3700x idk some 5-15 better.

The R5 3600 isn't 'trash' but there are certainly workloads where the 4+0 configuration of the 3300X is going to beat the 3+3 arrangement on the 3600. Which will be best is going to come down to how well a game scales with more cores and threads. A single unified cache hierarchy with eight cores will be a split hierarchy with eight cores, just like a unified 4-core beats a split 2+2-core arrangement. But if you have more cores at higher clockspeeds, some workloads will prefer that to fewer cores at lower clocks.

 

[InvalidError]

so are you saying the 3600 is trash because it has 3+3 rather than 4 + 0?

Not trash, just not automatically better depending on how latency-sensitive the software or game is. Same goes for the 3900X and the additional CCD-to-CCD latency via the IOD on top of CCX-to-CCX, so you see the 3900X/3950X get beaten by the 3600-3800X every now and then too.

Zen 3 should make this quite a bit better by eliminating the CCX-to-CCX hop within the CCD with all cores and cache being in one cluster.

 

[Maingano36]

Same interesting results!!

https://tweakreviews.com/processor---cpu/amd-ryzen-3-3100-and-3300x

 

[cryoburner]

The 3600 does also have the advantage of having twice as much cache though. Each of its two core-complexes gets 16MB of L3, shared among three cores, with a total of 32MB between both complexes. Communications between cores are more likely to be within the same CCX compared to the 3100, due to the additional core per CCX, and there should also be a higher ratio of cache to cores. As a result, I suspect that typical latency would often be lower than the 3100, though that could vary depending on how many cores need to communicate for a particular task.

In any case, I would go for the 3600 over the 3300X unless the budget were really constrained for a build, or the person only really cared about lightly-threaded performance, as it provides 50% more cores for only about $50 more at current prices. The 3600's price might also drop a bit more once the 6-core, 12-thread i5-10400F is available, though an exact release date for that processor hasn't been made available yet, and might be some time after the initial Comet Lake release.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

In any case, I would go for the 3600 over the 3300X unless the budget were really constrained for a build, or the person only really cared about lightly-threaded performance, as it provides 50% more cores for only about $50 more at current prices. The 3600's price might also drop a bit more once the 6-core, 12-thread i5-10400F is available, though an exact release date for that processor hasn't been made available yet, and might be some time after the initial Comet Lake release.

I definitely agree with this. Sure, Ryzen 3 3300X can beat the i7-7700K from 2017. That's fine. But the we've now had three years of getting more CPU cores, and even in 2015 I was running a 6-core i7-5930K and was very happy with it. Personally, I've been done with 4-core CPUs for over five years. I'm happy budget CPUs are getting better, but every PC I build aims for at least a mid-range CPU that costs around $200, and often I encourage people to consider $300 options. 6-core and 8-core are the new mainstream, and have been for a couple of years at least thanks to Ryzen.

 

[The_Arioch]

Didn't find the details on Stockfish in the article, nor links.

Hopefully you run different EXEs on AMD and Intel, don't you?