AMD Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300X Review

We’re back again to have a look at the new Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300X which will round out AMD’s desktop CPU lineup. Both CPUs have 4-cores and 8-threads but these are based on Zen2 architecture, unlike the 3000-series APUs which run a generation behind. This gives them the benefits of AMD’s latest 7 nm architecture, which had significant performance per watt improvements over Zen+.

The latest generation of Ryzen 3 CPUs are priced at $99 for the R3 3100 and $120 for the R3 3300X. This price point positions them against the Intel i3 9100F, a 4-core CPU at $80, and the i5 9400F 6-core CPU listing at $160. These three CPUs are about to square off against each other, the Ryzen 3, and an i7 7700K, Intel’s top-of-the-line desktop CPU in 2017 and sold for over $300.

Specifications and Features

Looking at the specifications table below, we see the new Ryzen 3 CPUs are produced using the 7 nm process from TSMC foundries. Like other Zen2 CPUs, Ryzen 3 also has cores arranged in CCXs (core complex) with two CCX per CCD (core chiplet die) with a separate 12 nm IO/memory controller on the package. The new Ryzen 3 CPUs both have 16 MB of L3 Cache and 512 KB L2 Cache per core for a total of 2 MB.

The Ryzen 3 3100 has a base frequency of 3.6 GHz and a maximum boost of 3.9 GHz designed to fit within a 65 W TDP. The Ryzen 3 3300X has the same 65 W rating, but slightly higher clock speeds of 3.8 GHz and a 4.3 GHz boost. AMD is still using solder between the die and IHS on the Ryzen CPUs for improved thermal transfer, and both CPUs come bundled with the Wraith Stealth cooler.

All the new Ryzen CPUs support 3200 MHz JEDEC in dual-channel configuration out of the box. They also support up to 128 GB capacity and ECC memory, although this is dependent on your choice of motherboard. Also, very dependent on your choice of motherboard is PCIe 4.0 capability. The new Zen 2 based CPUs can use PCIe 4.0 when paired with a 5xx series chipset.

Windows 10 is the officially supported platform for the Ryzen CPUs; however, with persistence and some modified drivers, Windows 7 installations are possible for those still hanging on or folks doing competitive benchmarking where every clock cycle counts. We have created a guide for building your own custom ISO installation media. This may take a lot of trial and error before you manage to get it working, but we’re always around for advice. Just remember Windows 7 is not officially supported, so you do this at your own risk. Using motherboards with a PS/2 input for the mouse during installation will work, and an add-in card will also work for USB function if you aren’t comfortable working with ISOs.

For more details on the new Zen2 architecture and changes that AMD made to the new Ryzen CPUs, have a look at our launch review of the Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 7 3700X.

Specifications below supplied by AMD:

The table below is a list of the third-generation Ryzen desktop CPU lineup:

Ryzen 3: 3100 Versus 3300X

At a glance, it would appear that the new Ryzen 3 CPUs are identical except for clock speed, but that’s not the case. Under the IHS, there are some very fundamental differences that are intended to give the Ryzen 3 3300X some advantages over its counterpart.

The Zen 2 desktop CPUs use a chiplet design with up to two chiplets and an I/O die under the heat sink. Threadripper and Epyc CPUs can have up to four chiplets. Each chiplet can have up to eight cores, which are divided into two CCXs that house up to four cores, with each CCX having 16 MB of L3 cache available.

The difference between the two Ryzen 3 CPUs comes down to how AMD arranged the cores within the chiplet. The Ryzen 3 3100 has two cores in each CCX with a shared 16 MB of L3 cache (8 MB on each CCX) while the 3300X has all four cores within a single CCX, which gives it a unified 16 MB of L3 cache. Having this unified cache reduces the core to core latency, which in turn improves performance giving the 3300X a slight advantage over the 3100.

Product Tour

Unfortunately, the samples we received weren’t in retail packaging. They were shipped in the plastic clamshell-type holders you can see below. Typically these would come in a cube-shaped box along with the included Wraith Stealth coolers. You’ll also notice the Ryzen 3 CPUs are compatible with the AM4 socket as you can see each CPU is sporting 1331 pins.

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Benchmarks

All benchmarks were run with the motherboard being set to optimized defaults with the XMP setting enabled. All tests were done at the time of this writing with the recent Windows 10 November 2019 update as well as the newest updated chipset drivers and BIOS files.

Benchmarks Used

CPU Tests

• AIDA64 Engineer CPU, FPU, and Memory Tests
• Cinebench R20 and R15
• HWBot x265 1080p Benchmark
• POVRay
• SuperPi 1M/32M
• WPrime 32M/1024M
• 7Zip

All CPU tests were run at their default settings with XMP enabled. An overclocked result was also included with the Ryzen 3 3100 running at 4.4 GHz on all cores, turbo boost is disabled when overclocking.

Gaming Tests

All game tests were run at 1920×1080 with all CPUs at defaults. An overclocked result was also included with the Ryzen 3 3100 running at 4.4 GHz on all cores, turbo boost is disabled when overclocking. Please see our testing procedures for details on in-game settings.

• 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme
• F1 2018
• Far Cry 5
• Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider

AIDA64 Tests

Just a note here, I used the latest AIDA64 Engineer Beta for testing, and the team at AIDA has replaced some of the benchmarks we have used in previous reviews in favor of some newly updated benchmarks. New this time around is the SHA3 test in the CPU portion and FP-64 ray tracing test in the FPU section.

As you can see the Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300X do well in the bandwidth tests with one outlier Write test score is about half of what you would expect. This was covered earlier in the Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 7 3700 X review. As usual, they both have fairly high latency when compared to the Intel offerings due in large part to AMD’s use of separate cores and I/O dies.

The CPU tests show the Ryzen 3 3300X is holding up well compared to the i7-7700k despite a slight speed disadvantage. The Ryzen3 3100 was quite dominant throughout the testing with the AIDA64 CPU benchmarks thanks to its overclocking headroom.

During the floating-point tests both AMD CPUs did well, not quite besting the 6-core i5-9400F but they did give the i7-7700K a good thrashing. Even without an overclock the Ryzen3 3100 went toe-to-toe with Intel’s previous flagship CPU.

Real-World Tests

Next, we will move on to something a bit more tangible/productivity-based with compression, rendering, and encoding benchmarks.

During our multi-core testing, Ryzen 3 3100 held its own at stock besting the i5-9400F in all but one test. Once overclocked it and the Ryzen 3 3300X cleared the field by a good margin.

Pi-Based Tests

Moving on from all the multi-threaded goodness above, we get to some Pi and Prime number based tests. SuperPi and WPrime, specifically.

This time Intel pulled ahead in the Super Pi tests which has always been a good benchmark for Intel. WPrime, on the other hand, goes to AMD. The multi-threaded workload here really shows off the strength of the Ryzen 3 CPUs and its SMT efficiency.

Looking back over all these results we can see that the 13%, stable overclock on the Ryzen 3 3100 really gave it an advantage over the rest of the pack.

Game Results

As far as the games go, tests were done at 1920×1080 according to our Graphics Testing Procedure linked earlier. The CPUs are all at defaults with the exception of the overclocked results for the Ryzen 3 3100.

As you can see above in the gaming tests, even with an overclock the Ryzen 3 3100 couldn’t match it’s bigger brother. This is due to its interior layout not sharing cache across core complexes. Both Intel CPUs put on a good show here, just keep in mind we were using 3200 MHz RAM with the 9400F. Typically this CPU would be paired with an H or B series motherboard limiting memory speeds to the platform’s maximum specification (DDR4 2666) so performance may be slightly different in that case.

In 3DMark Fire Strike the results are very close across the board except for the Physics test. Both Ryzen 3 CPUs edged out the competition and they scored nearly the same in the graphics portion leaving them all nearly equal in the results.

Ryzen 3 Power Consumption and Temperatures

For the following two tests we have included stock and overclocked results for both of the Ryzen 3 CPUs. Both CPUs were given a maximum of 1.35 V which allowed the 3100 to reach 4.4 GHz and the 3300X ran at 4.35 GHz. These were the highest speeds we could reach and still run Prime95 without overheating.

In the graph below we tested power use of the system across multiple situations from idle, to Prime 95 Small FFT (with FMA3/AVX). The Ryzen 3 3100  pulled the most power during the Prime 95 Small FFT test with the system pulling 182 W from the wall. The gaming result included with SOTR shows north of 400 W, but keep in mind the 1080 Ti is a 250 W GPU. Even paired with this big GPU a quality 500 W power supply would be adequate.

Temperatures were well-controlled with the EVGA 240 mm CLC, I saw no throttling despite the fact we were hitting 96°C during the Prime95 Small FFT test. Both CPUs got quite hot during the Prime 95 test using only 1.35 V but the small FFT test really hammers a CPU so this is to be expected.

Pushing the Limits of AMD’s Ryzen 3

For overclocking we used the EVGA 240 mm CLC to show real-world gains using average cooling. We started with the Ryzen 3 3300X, the CPU was practically tapped out before we even started. Manually overclocking we managed 4.35 GHz using 1.35 V (recommended maximum) which pushed the cooler to its limits during the Prime95 small FFT test hitting 94°C. This is just below the maximum rated boost clock of 4.4 GHz but even at stock we only managed a 4.35 GHz boost on a couple of cores at best.

The Ryzen 3 3100, on the other hand, managed a 500 MHz overclock with the same voltage pushing the all-core speed up to 4.4 GHz which ran at 96°C during the Prime95 small FFT test. This was a stable overclock and all the test results were included in the graphs above. It’s like both of these CPUs are able to overclock further with improved cooling but keep in mind these are budget level processors so expensive cooling isn’t likely in the cards.

Since this is Overclockers.com, we pushed things a bit further. This time 1.4 V was my limit with the Ryzen 3 3100 and stability testing wasn’t in the cards. With the same EVGA cooler, we managed to reach 4.575 GHz which was stable enough to complete Cinebench R20 and a few other benchmarks.

Now this one is just because we can: We bumped the voltage up to 1.45 V and attached a sub-ambient water loop to the system. This time the Ryzen 3 3100 managed to benchmark at 4.8 GHz, which is very impressive from where I sit. Of course, this isn’t going to be 24/7 overclocking, but for quick benchmarks it’s very capable – managing to run Cinebench R20 which is quite hard on a CPU.

Conclusion

Overall, the performance of AMD’s third-generation Ryzen 3 CPUs is quite impressive and they come with a reasonable price tag. The i5 9400F is $160 currently, and compares very well in performance, particularly in gaming where it took the lead (is that premium worth it?). The new Ryzen 3 CPUs will be widely available on May 21st. The Ryzen 3 3300X will be listed for $129.99 and the Ryzen 3 3100 at $99.99 with most online sellers. Take one of these CPUs paired with a B550 motherboard and an RX 5500 XT and you’ll have a nice 1080p gaming rig built around the 7 nm TSMC process with PCIe 4.0 capabilities, it sounds like a win-win in my book.

When looking at the $100 price tag for a Ryzen 3 3100 and its overclocking potential I think it’s safe to say we have a real performance per dollar winner here. Value, performance, and just plain fun we have no issues giving Zen2 Ryzen 3 a big thumbs up and Overclockers Approved!

Shawn Jennings – Johan45

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