AMD Ryzen 3 3100 & 3300X CPU Review

AMD has been going from strength to strength in recent years. The launch of their multi-award-winning Ryzen 1st Gen CPUs was a big turning point for the company. They made some minor improvements for the 2nd Gen CPUs, but it's this superb 3rd Gen that's really pushed them into the lead. The 3xxx CPUs have blown us (and others) away since they launched. However, now we have two new models, the Ryzen 3 3100 and the Ryzen 3 3300X that look set to disrupt the affordable CPU market. Not only do they offer great prices, they look set to tangle with some more expensive Intel CPUs such as the i7-7700K. AMD Ryzen 3 3100 & 3300X At just $99 the Ryzen 3 3100 is a promising option for affordable PC builds. It offers a competitive 4-cores and 8-threads design, with a boost speed of up to 3.9 GHz. However, it's the 3300X that has us most excited, as it's offering up a higher boost of 4.3 GHz, and while it may appear to be a slightly faster version of the 3100, it's a bit more than that. These CPU's feature a different CCX configuration. The Ryzen 3 3100 is a 2_2 configuration, with two cores per CCX. The Ryzen 3 3300X is a 4.0 configuration, was all the cores on a single CCX. That means less core-to-core latency, and a unified L3 cache for the 3300X, which will improve performance more than just a simple MHz increase. Next-Gen Of course, AMD is reaping the benefits of their other technologies, even on these more affordable CPUs. Zen Core Architecture, the 7nm FinFET design, great compatibility thanks to the AM4 socket, and of course, PCIe Gen 4.0. What's also impressive is that both these CPUs have a TDP of just 65W, so even a small or stock cooler should be up to the job of keeping them running great. Coolers The CPUs come with the standard Wraith coolers. Nothing too crazy, but again at just 65W TDP, it's all these CPUs really need! Of course, we'll be applying our usual Noctua coolers for the purpose of these reviews and fair testing. AMD Information, Chipsets, Motherboards and More As you can see, these new CPUs will work on X470, B450, and X570. That's pretty decent, and you can throw on the new B550 chipset too as we move forwards. How We Test Update: Please note that as of December 2019, we began a new testing methodology. As such, it's is still under development, and not all older CPUs have been retested yet. For older results, please refer to our CPU review section and their respective reviews. Here at eTeknix, we endeavour to disclose vital information regarding the benchmarking process so that readers can quantify the results and attempt to replicate them using their hardware. When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of motherboard, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there’s always a margin for error when using any software. Therefore, your experience may vary. Testing Your Own System We typically focus on commonly available benchmarks so that you too can run the same benchmarks on your own system. We hope this makes it easy for our readers to gauge the performance improvement available to them when they upgrade their own systems. Gaming Tests All games are run at their specified resolutions using the "high" settings or equivalent. We avoid using the Ultra settings as these often offer diminishing returns for performance vs visuals. Test Benches Zen 2 ProcessorAll AMD Ryzen 3000 SeriesMotherboardASUS Crosshair VIII HeroMemory2 x 8GB TEAMGroup NightHawk RGB DDR4-3000GraphicsNVIDIA RTX 2080 SUPER FEStorageSeagate Firecuda 510 1TBPower SupplyPhanteks Revolt Pro 850WSoftwareWindows 10 Professional 1909DriversNVDIA GeForce 445.87 WHQL Zen ProcessorAll AMD Ryzen 2000 & 1000 SeriesMotherboardASUS B450-F GamingMemory2 x 8GB TEAMGroup NightHawk RGB DDR4-3000GraphicsNVIDIA RTX 2080 SUPER FEStorageSeagate Firecuda 510 1TBPower SupplyPhanteks Revolt Pro 850WSoftwareWindows 10 Professional 1909DriversNVDIA GeForce 445.87 WHQL Coffee Lake ProcessorAll Intel 8th & 9th GenerationMotherboardASUS Maximus XI Hero (WiFi)Memory2 x 8GB TEAMGroup NightHawk RGB DDR4-3000GraphicsNVIDIA RTX 2080 SUPER FEStorageSeagate Firecuda 510 1TBPower SupplyPhanteks Revolt Pro 850WSoftwareWindows 10 Professional 1909DriversNVDIA GeForce 445.87 WHQL Kaby Lake ProcessorAll Intel 7th GenerationMotherboardGigabyte Z270X-Gaming 9Memory2 x 8GB TEAMGroup NightHawk RGB DDR4-3000GraphicsNVIDIA RTX 2080 SUPER FEStorageSeagate Firecuda 510 1TBPower SupplyPhanteks Revolt Pro 850WSoftwareWindows 10 Professional 1909DriversNVDIA GeForce 445.87 WHQL LGA 2066 ProcessorAll Intel 8th, 9th & 10th GenerationMotherboardGigabyte Z270X-Gaming 9Memory2 x 8GB TEAMGroup NightHawk RGB DDR4-3000GraphicsNVIDIA RTX 2080 SUPER FEStorageSeagate Firecuda 510 1TBPower SupplyPhanteks Revolt Pro 850WSoftwareWindows 10 Professional 1909DriversNVDIA GeForce 445.87 WHQL Synthetic Benchmarks Straightaway, you can see there's quite a big difference between the Ryzen 3 3100 and the Ryzen 3 3300X. The lower latency, higher clock speeds and more unified cache of the 3300X push it comfortably into the lead here, but that was to be expected. What's good is what the 3300X pulls ahead of the 7700K in 3DMark, and even the 3100 is not far off, but also thrashes the i5 7500 in 3DMark. Intel and AMD trade blows back and forth throughout, but it's clear that AMD are putting the pressure on here when affordable CPUs are taking down popular premium Intel CPUs. The 3300X, 7700K and 8700K were all very closely matched in PCMark 10 Express, and the 3100 pulled ahead of the i5 7500 in this test also. Both the 3100 and 3300X took a lead on the 770K in the demanding WPrime test too, which is bloody amazing actually. However, the newer 8700 and 9700K were ahead, but again, we expected this too. Ryzen 3 3100 3DMark FireStrike - 194083DMark TimeSpy - 9550PCMark 10 Express - 6003Unigine Superposition 1080p Extreme - 7070GeekBench - 1139/5065WPrime - 5.802/175.358Super Pi Mod - 09:58 Ryzen 3 3300X 3DMark FireStrike - 208323DMark TimeSpy - 9679PCMark 10 Express - 6843Unigine Superposition 1080p Extreme - 7121GeekBench - 1281/5436WPrime - 5.361/161.77Super Pi Mod - 08:57 Online Benchmarks For Octane, Kraken and XPRT the 3300X and the 7700K were really close yet again. The 7700K held the lead by a small margin in the first two, but lost the lead by an even smaller margin in the last one. What's surprising though is that the 330X matched the 9900K in WebXPRT. The 3100 was slower, but again, it's not exactly dragging its heals either, for a budget CPU, it's got some guts to it. Ryzen 3 3100 Google Octane 2.0 - 36273Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - 1036.5WebXPRT 3 v2.93 - 226 Ryzen 3 3300X Google Octane 2.0 - 40980Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - 897.2WebXPRT 3 v2.93 - 254 Compression & Rendering As we move into some more technical tests, we're really putting the Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300X out of their comfort zone. It's unlikely anyone will be doing much high-end rendering and 4K conversions with these CPUs. However, they still hold up surprisingly well. 7z resulting is great, but that could be the newer chipsets having improved storage throughput. For the most part though, these two CPUs and the 7700K are rubbing shoulders. For CineBench, the 7700K does fall behind a bit, I'm actually surprised to see the 3300X deliver some killer single core scores too. 200 points is broadly similar to that of the 3800X! The same with R20, the 3300X delivered a whopping 493 points on single core, with the 3900X still leading the pack at 512, that's not a huge difference on the single core score. Ryzen 3 3100 7zip 19 Compression/Decompression - 34398/43488Corona 1.3 - 03:58 MinutesBlender - 06:07 MinutesCineBench R15 - 179/1011CineBench R20 - 448/2349Handbrake 4K - 36.2 FPSV-Ray - 6378 Ryzen 3 3300X 7zip 19 Compression/Decompression - 39647/47636Corona 1.3 - 03:32 MinutesBlender - 05:37 MinutesCineBench R15 - 200/1091CineBench R20 - 493/2521Handbrake 4K - 36.9 FPSV-Ray - 7213 Memory Memory results are a difficult thing to compare from one CPU to the other, as supported speeds, memory banks, chipsets have a lot of sway vs the CPU on their own. However, we can see that both the 3100 and the 3300X are running well within specification here. The read, write and copy speeds are competitive and while the latency is higher than Intel, it's what we expected to see based on previous results. Ryzen 3 3100 SiSoft Sandra 2020 - 32.611Aida 64 read/write/copy - 43279/23947/42413Aida 64 Latency - 80.3ns Ryzen 3 3300X SiSoft Sandra 2020 - 35.53Aida 64 read/write/copy - 43107/23948/42490Aida 64 Latency - 80.6ns Gaming Performance Now we're onto the cool stuff, as I'm sure many of the people purchasing these CPUs will indeed be gaming on them. Right away, there's clearly still a good difference between the 3100 and the 3300X. The 3100 delivered some very respectable performance of its own, beating out the Ryzen 7 1700X, which is actually the CPU I still use in my main gaming rig! However, the 3300X did fantastic, trading some small wins and small losses with the 7700K once again. Ryzen 3 3100 Shadow of the Tomb Raider - 106Far Cry: New Dawn - 66/91Metro Exodus - 48.66/94.99World of Tanks - 41855/32913 Ryzen 3 3300X Shadow of the Tomb Raider - 123Far Cry: New Dawn - 80/106Metro Exodus - 48.61/101.63World of Tanks - 43679/34272 Temperatures and Power As I've said earlier, these CPUs only have a TDP of 65W so to expect them to get hot would be silly. The 3100 and 330X topped out at just 57c and 67c respectively. Compare that to the 64c and 81C of the 8700K and 7700K. The power consumption was superb too, with just 103 and 117 watts for each CPU, which is again a lot less than the 141 watts of the 7700K. Even while overclocked, the two CPUs were very easy to handle, topping out at 77C, which is toasty, but there's a performance improvement as you'll see on the next page. Overclocking Overclocking these CPUs is pretty straight forward. As you can expect from ANY Ryzen CPU, they're fully unlocked and it's as simple as changing the multiplier in the BIOS or using the Ryzen Master Utility to dial in the required settings. We managed to take the Ryzen 3100 to 4.6 GHz on all cores, and the 3300X to 4.6 GHz on all cores. So, you might expect them to perform the same, right? Wrong! You can clearly see the benefits of the 3300X and its CCX and shared memory design as it still retains a comfortable lead. 3DMark scores saw a noticeable improvement. Overclocked, the 3300X was scoring really well throughout. However, you'll have to manage the increased heat so an aftermarket cooler would be needed. I can't see many people pushing these CPUs that hard though, they work great as they are and given their affordable prices, a big after market cooler seems like a big push for that price range. How Much Does it Cost? Both of these CPUs are launching from today, but of course, we have to consider the lockdown issues with stock. Most retailers should have stock, but keep in mind it may be sporadic and the launch may be staggered in some regions. Also, shipping times may be very different, but I guess we're all getting used to such things (to some degree). The Ryzen 3 3100 is the most affordable of the bunch, costing just £99.99 in the UK. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 3 3300X is showing at just £114.99 in the UK. In the US you can find them for $99 and $120 respectively. Overview It seems AMD is out to disrupt the affordable CPU market, and to some extent, it has worked. The CPUs are great, I have absolutely no issues there. However, I think the 3300X is the one that's going to get all the glory. The 3100 is fantastic in its own right and on any other day, it would be getting some more praise. However, the 3300X is not that much expensive, but it is clearly a better CPU. The 3100 is very close, but for the sake of £15, I can't see the point of it if I'm brutally honest. I suspect the price range may widen in the coming months though, who knows. Cores All cores are not created equally I guess. It seems the 3100 uses 2 cores per CCX, and it has two of them. Technically that means it can be made from higher end CPUs that don't meet specifications, say, a 6 core model which could then have some cores disabled to make a 3100. We've seen that as an effective method in the past for CPU markets. However, the 3300X is pretty much bespoke with a single 4-core CCX in there, and it does reap the benefits of that with the lower latency and shared cache. What's amazing is that the single core performance is astonishing. They may have fewer cores than the AMD flagships, but they're broadly the same cores. That's enough to give even some of the best Intel CPUs a thrashing on single-core performance. Gaming & Beyond I'm pleasantly surprised with the gaming performance of both of these CPUs. The per-core performance is great, and the fact that just about every game likes a quad-core configuration means these CPUs performance well across the board. They'll pair up with affordable GPU and high-end GPUs quite comfortably. Of course, I still think the 3300X is the one to go for if you're purely buying these for gaming. Should I Buy One? There are a LOT of great AMD options out there right now. The older generation CPU prices are dropping steadily and are very tempting. That being said, the performance and price of the new CPUs is fantastic and I strongly recommend either of these CPUs, albeit, I'm leaning heavier towards the 3300X. With them offering support for PCIe Gen 4 on newer chipset motherboards, they're doing a lot more than what Intel are offering at this price range right now. Ryzen 3 3100 Ryzen 3 3300X