AMD Ryzen 3 1200 and 1300X CPU Review

Bringing in the tail-end of the newest AMD CPUs we have the Ryzen 3 lineup. This is AMD‘s offering for the budget-minded PC user. Today we’ll be looking at the two quad-core offerings, the 1200 and 1300X. The 1300X has the XFR technology we’ve seen from the Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, and Ryzen 5 1500X/1600X allowing for boost speeds over their typical max. The 1200 is locked to its listed speeds, unless you’re overclocking. One major difference from the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 CPUs is the exclusion of Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) from the Ryzen 3 processors. While this does mean a performance hit for multithreaded applications, it also cuts the cost of the product making it accessible to more users. Let’s take a closer look at the lineup now.

Specifications and Features

From the specifications table below, the 1200 and 1300X are both quad core CPUs without SMT, giving a total of four cores and threads. This total core/thread count comes from the use of two CPU Complexes (CCX), more on this arrangement in a second. The base clock comes in at 3.1 GHz and will boost two cores (four threads) to 3.4 GHz for the 1200 and 3.5 GHz boosting to 3.7 GHz on the 1300X. The inclusion of XFR (Xtended Frequency Range) technology on the 1300X allows another 200 MHz over both the base and boost clocks, when temperature allows. TDP of these two CPUs comes in at 65 W for both the 1200 and the 1300X. The cooling medium between the die and IHS is solder, instead of thermal paste as Intel has used on their Mainstream CPUs.

Like Ryzen 5, the Ryzen 3 CPUs will be balanced between CCXs. Both Ryzen 3 1200 and 1300X have two CCXs with two cores enabled on each. AMD is keeping it balanced and using their selective core disabling functionality to drop the core count.

Memory on this CPU/platform supports a total of 128 GB with the base specification of DDR4-2400 in a dual channel configuration. It does not support ECC memory.

Regarding PCI Express (PCIe) support, Ryzen offers a total of 24 lanes out of the CPU allowing good flexibility for multiple cards, PCIe-based NVMe SSDs, and other PCIe-based devices. Sixteen of the lanes are dedicated to graphics, four are dedicated to the native M.2 PCIe NVMe slot, and the last four connect to the chipset. Different chipsets will provide their own additional PCIe lanes for even more device connectivity.

Windows 10 is the officially supported platform for Ryzen. That said, there will be drivers available for use with Windows 7 and 8.1, but know there is no official support for these older operating systems.

The table below is a list of the Ryzen lineup. Every CPU on this list is overclockable, assuming you buy a motherboard with a chipset capable of doing so. Only SKUs with an X on the end have the new XFR (eXtended Frequency Range) technology, note. According to AMD, the X SKU processors are binned and manufactured to be better overclockers.

CPU Clock Speed Breakdown

To make it absolutely clear what the clock speed is in all loading/temperature scenarios, please see the table below.

Product Tour

Below are some images from AMD of the product packaging for the new Ryzen 3 CPUs. Both the 1200 and 1300X come with Wraith Stealth (pictured later).

Taking a look at the Wraith Stealth, we see your basic included heatsink. A four-pin fan connector here allows for PWM control of the fan speed. Again, this is included with both the 1200 and 1300X.

Next up are pictures of the two Ryzen 3 samples we have, front and back. I see no discernible differences between the CPUs other than the laser markings on the IHS.

Benchmarks

The data we have gathered will give us a great idea of its performance both at stock (no turbo), and matching clockspeeds to see IPC performance differences between them all. I have included Kaby Lake results with the i7-7700K, a quad core with SMT in the Ryzen 5 1500X, and the big-boy Ryzen 7 1800X. Unfortunately I do not have any i3 or i5 processors on hand to compare to.

And the test system:

Benchmarks Used

All benchmarks were run with the motherboard being set to optimized defaults (outside of some memory settings which had to be configured manually). When “stock” is mentioned along with the clockspeed, it does not reflect the boost clocks, only the base clocks. I tested this way as it seems motherboards are different in how they work out of the box. This takes out any differences in how AMD/Intel utilize their turbo features and how the motherboards handle turbo, so this is more of a “run what you brung” type of testing for stock speeds. Memory speeds were set at DDR4-3000 15-15-15-35 for all testing, regardless of the kit specifications. The only exception to this is the AMD system running at DDR4-2933 16-15-15-35, this is due to how the memory dividers and timings are handled.

After the testing, we then shifted to comparing the AMD and Intel systems all at the same clockspeeds (4 GHz, except Ryzen 3 at 3.9 GHz). This testing will flesh out the difference in Instructions Per Clock (IPC) between the samples. This also applies to the gaming tests.

CPU Tests

• AIDA64 Engineer CPU, FPU, and Memory Tests
• Cinebench R11.5 and R15
• x265 1080p Benchmark (HWBOT)
• POVRay
• SuperPi 1M/32M
• WPrime 32M/1024M
• 7Zip

All CPU tests were run at their default settings unless otherwise noted.

Gaming Tests

All game tests were run at 1920×1080 and 2560×1440. Please see our testing procedures for details on in-game settings. Due to availability of some of the older CPU’s we will be using a 980Ti for testing the games.

• 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme
• Crysis 3
• Dirt: Rally
• Ashes of the Singularity
• Rise of the Tomb Raider

AIDA64 Tests

Up first, the AIDA64 CPU tests. These tests are at the AMD/Intel base clock speeds listed. We can see the 1200 and 1300X making a great showing against the faster competition.

Next we see the FPU tests. In VP8 the latest update was not playing nicely, so those numbers are not included. Again, core counts and/or SMT make the Ryzen 3 chips bring up the rear as expected.

The memory tests pretty much speak for themselves. An expectedly flat set of numbers here. Memory latency is still high for Ryzen, but it doesn’t seem to impact performance in any of the other testing. Let’s be honest here, the vast majority of users will never notice the extra 20-30 ns over Intel since most usage cases are not memory constrained.

Real World Tests

In the next set of testing you can really look at the 1500X compared to the 1200 and 1300X to see how much SMT does. Since Ryzen 3 targets the Intel i3 lineup, I’d say they’re doing darned well considering it was over half the speed of the i7 in all these tests except x265.

Pi-Based Tests

Prime tests are definitely not AMD’s strong suit, so the Ryzen 3 results here are about what I expected.

Game Results

Just a reminder, all tests from this point forward have all CPU’s running at 4 GHz, 3.9 GHz for Ryzen 3, instead of their stock speeds. And as we expected, almost all game results were within a margin of error of each other. The only really notable difference here is in Ashes DX12, which has been optimized for Ryzen now and can also utilize a lot of cores. Ryzen 3 can game with the best of them, even at 1440p.

Most of the scoring differences here in 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme came from the scaling of cores in the Physics test. The dip for the 1300X makes me think it wasn’t 100% stable at 3.9 GHz. All in all, I’m impressed for these being budget processors.

Head to Head Results

In our head to head results, we ran all of the systems at 4 GHz, except 3.9 GHz for Ryzen 3. This shows the differences in IPC and cores directly. Overall, we see good scaling when upping the CPU speed as we have with other Ryzen processors.

Overclocking

Ryzen 3 1200

While trying to stabilize for 4.0 GHz testing of the Ryzen 3 1200, I managed to degrade it a tad. It simply wouldn’t stabilize out at 4.0 for me, even with lots of voltage, but I did have it running at that speed for a while. The end of the road here, stable enough to run benchmarks, was 3.9 GHz.

Ryzen 3 1300X

The story was much the same for the Ryzen 3 1300X, it topped out at 3.9 GHz as well. This one was a fight to even get the system to want to cooperate at 3.9 GHz, but I eventually was able to get it benchmarking stable. Even so, no more in the tank for this piece of silicon either.

Information from AMD Regarding Overclocking

As a general guideline: a CPU voltage of up to 1.35 V is acceptable for driving everyday overclocks of the AMD Ryzen processor. Core voltages up to 1.45 V are also sustainable, but our models suggest that processor longevity may be affected. Regardless of your voltage, make sure you’re using capable cooling to keep temperatures as low as possible.

While there are never guarantees with overclocking, the majority of users should find that an eight core, sixteen thread, AMD Ryzen processor will achieve 4.2 GHz at a core voltage of 1.45 V. Advanced and accomplished overclockers trying to push record frequencies may find more headroom by disabling cores and/or disabling SMT on motherboards that offer these options in the BIOS.

Overclocking specifics

CPU clockspeed is configured with MULTI*Ref_Clk. AMD Ryzen™ CPUs have 0.25X multipliers.

1. Ref_clk is 100 MHz.
2. While the ref_clk value is adjustable, system stability may be compromised when deviating from this value.
3. Users are encouraged to use the unlocked multipliers.

AMD Ryzen™ processors do not use pre-programmed VID tables.

1. Therefore, there is no fixed Vcore when the CPU runs in its out-of-box condition.
2. Default Vcore will vary depending on workload and will range from 1.2-1.3625 V.
3. Overclocking an AMD Ryzen™ processor will snap the voltage to 1.3625 V, but this value can be changed.

Voltages to look for:

1. CPU Vcore: Look for CPU VID value (type in value)
2. CPU SoC voltage: Look for VDDCR_SOC value (type in value). Default is 0.99 V. Adjusting this to 1.1 V may help stabilize memory overclocks.
3. Memory voltage: Look for MEM_VDDIO (type in value) and MEM_VTT (set MEM_VTT to ½ of MEM_VDDIO). VDDIO is voltage (“memory voltage”) supplied to the DRAM ICs, and MEM_VTT powers termination logic inside the DRAM ICs. These values are OFFSETS and will read as zero. Boost Memory VDDIO to stabilize memory overclocking. (e.g. MEM_VDDIO set to +0.025 will bring 1.5 V DRAM to 1.525 V.)

Power Consumption and Temperatures

Here we see a comparison of the power consumption of the overall system for the 1200, 1300X, 1500X, and 1800X all running both their base speed and locked at 4 GHz, except 3.9 GHz for Ryzen 3. This was all done with the same GPU settings, motherboard, BIOS, cooling, and number of fans so any differences here are purely due to core count and clock speeds. You can see the Ryzen 3 1200 got power hungry when overclocking, it was taking a lot of voltage to stabilize.

As above with the power graph, this spread of temperatures represents the 1200, 1300X, 1500X, and 1800X all running both their base speed and locked at 4 GHz, except 3.9 GHz for Ryzen 3. This was all done with the same GPU settings, motherboard, BIOS, cooling, and number of fans so any differences here are purely due to core count and clock speeds. You can see the Ryzen 3 1200 also got hot when overclocking due to the extra power drawn.

Conclusion

In the end, the Ryzen 3 processors are a great budget processor. Performance, particularly in gaming, was very good. Competition here is intended to be the Intel i3 series, of which those only have two physical cores. All of the Ryzen 3 series has four physical cores. With games fully utilizing quad core processors these days, that can mean quite a help in FPS for gamers.

The Ryzen 3 1200 will launch at an MSRP of $109, the 1300X at $129. If you paired one of these with a B350 based motherboard and a mid-range GPU, you could easily build a full gaming tower with a GTX 1060 for around $700-800 without cutting corners on quality parts.

-Austin (ATMINSIDE)