AMD Ryzen 3 3300x and Ryzen 3 3100 CPU Review

AMD Ryzen 3 Beats Intel Core i5 For Less Money

Entry-level processors often don’t get as much attention as they deserve, but today we will be spending some time with the brand new AMD Ryzen 3 3100 and Ryzen 3 3300X processors. These quad-core processors are the latest addition to the 3rd Gen Ryzen series of desktop processors and appear to be powerful little CPUs. AMD enabled SMT technology on these parts, so these quad-core parts have 8-threads! The AMD Ryzen 3 3100 is only $99 and the Ryzen 3 3300X is $120, so you can now get a 4-c0re, 8-thread processor for under $100.

Intel doesn’t have Hyper-Threading on their current Core i3/Core i5 desktop parts, so the first part with 8-threads would be the Intel Core i7-9700F that costs $329.99! AMD is once again disrupting the CPU market by delivering more cores and threads at lower prices. Intel is rumored to be enabling Hyper-Threading on their 10th Gen Comet Lake processors in the Core i3 and Core i5 series and now we know why.

The new AMD Ryzen 3 3300X ($122) pairs up against the Intel Core i5-9400F ($159.98) and the new AMD Ryzen 3 3100 ($99) will compete against the Intel Core i3-9100F ($74.99). AMD feels that they are in a position to win at every single price point with their 3rd Gen Ryzen products here in Q2 2020! If the AMD Ryzen 3 3300X can beat the Intel Core i5-9400F like AMD claims it can… This is going to be great news for AMD!

AMD sent Legit Reviews the AMD Ryzen 3 3100 and the Ryzen 3 3300X processors to review in their classic clam shell enclosures. We did not get any retail packaging or CPU coolers this time around, but the ones you will buy do include the AMD Wraith Stealth CPU Cooler. These Socket AMD4 4-pin CPU coolers generally sell for about $15 on Amazon and properly cool both of these processors at stock speeds.

Here is a look at CPU-Z on both the AMD Ryzen 3 3100 and AMD Ryzen 3 3330X 4-core, 8-thread processors. The AMD Ryzen 3 3100 has a 3.6 GHz base clock with a 3.9 GHz boost clock. For those wanting a little more power the Ryzen 3 3300X comes at a higher 3.8 GHz base clock and a 4.3 GHz boost clock. So, moving up to the more expensive 3300X CPU will get you a 5.5% higher base and a 10.3% higher boost clock. Notice that CPU-Z version 1.92.0 correctly shows that the Ryzen 3 3100 has a 2+2 CPU configuration as it shows two 8MB L3 caches. The AMD Ryzen 3 3300X shows up as having a single unified 16MB L3 cache.

Both of these processors are 65 Watt parts, but 65W TDP is just their default setting. They can be configured to run at 45 Watts in AMD Ryzen Master software if you are looking for a lower power build that saves power.

Let’s go back and talk about the difference in cache again real quick as that will impact performance. The Ryzen 3 3100 uses a 2+2 configuration that has two active cores on each CCX. The Ryzen 3 3300X has a 4+0 configuration where all active cores are on a single CCX. This means that the Ryzen 3 3300X will have lower core-to-core latency than the Ryzen 3 3100. Both processors have the same amount of cache, but 3300X has all 16MB on the CCX whereas the 3100 has 8MB on each CCX. Let’s take a look at what this actually means for latency by using AIDA64.

Using a 512-bit stride with full random data we can see the AMD Ryzen 3 3100 latency goes way up at 8MB whereas the Ryzen 3 3300X doesn’t have a similar spike until all 16MB of cache is filled. For some reason the AMD Ryzen 3 3300X does slightly better in the 768KB to 8MB block size range as well.

Moving up to a larger 4096-byte stride the results remain the same. The AMD Ryzen 3 3300X has a better memory and cache solution, so don’t believe for a second that there is only a clock difference between these two processors.

If you look at the top of a 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen series processor you’ll like see that it was diffused and made in different countries. The top of both of our chips say that these Ryzen 3 CPUs were diffused in both the USA and Taiwan. This is because the 12nm I/O chip is made at the Global Foundaries location in New York, while the actual CPU chiplets are made on the 7nm process at Global Foundaries in Taiwan. The parts are then sent over to China where final assembly is completed. It takes a global effort to bring Ryzen to market and the proof of that is laser etched into every Integrated Heat Spreader (IHS.)

AMD Ryzen 3 processors are budget friendly processors that will likely be best paired with AMD B550 chipset based motherboards. These boards will cost less than boards running the AMD X570 chipset, but are still feature packed. For example, the AMD B550 chipset supports PCI Express Gen 4.0 lanes off the CPU. This means one graphics card and one NVMe SSD can use PCIe 4.0 lanes! Most people only run one discrete graphics card and one NVMe drive, so the B550 is the value play for those looking for to have all the latest features without breaking the bank. This is also great for AMD as users can pair their AMD B550 motherboard with say the Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card and have everything running at PCIe 4.0 speeds. That said, all the PCIe lanes coming off the AMD B550 chipset are PCIe 3.0 and the chipset connects to the CPU with a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface. Motherboards using the AMD B550 chipset won’t be coming out until June 16th, 2020. Since the boards are not available just yet, we will be relying on the AMD X570 platform for testing.

On to the benchmarks!