AMD has rocked the very foundation of Intel’s commanding lead in the market with its Zen architecture-based Ryzen family of processors. With the initial launch of the Ryzen 7, competition is once again to Intel and has revitalized AMD’s presence significantly. The Ryzen 7 8-core family along with the HEDT-oriented Threadripper have been doing fairly well to contend with their direct competition but the real competition is where the gaming and mainstream consumer will mostly fall into and that’s where the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 family of AMD’s new processors fall into.
Today we’ll take a look at the CPU as well as gaming performance of the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 processors and see how they fare in our most-demanding CPU-intense titles and benchmarks. We’ll also take a look at how they scale in multithreaded benchmarks.
In this review we’ll focus on the Ryzen 3 family of processors featuring true quad-core parts. Read on to find out more.
The Ryzen 3 Family
The Ryzen 3 currently consists of 2 SKUs: the Ryzen 3 1200 and the Ryzen 3 1300X. The R3 1200 runs at a stock speed of 3.1Ghz while the R3 1300X has a 3.5Ghz stock frequency. Thanks to XFR, the R3 1200 can go up to 3.45Ghz which is just a 50hz tick upwards of its normal maximum boost frequency. The Ryzen 3 1300X is a bit more capable with a 3.9Ghz maximum frequency.
All Ryzen processors have the same number of PCIe lanes but the chipset will dictate what kind of configuration you can run with especially with SLI. The X370 chipset and B350 chipset will both offer multiplier OC support but only the X370 will be capable of having guaranteed SLI and Crossfire although some B350 chipset may have pure Crossfire support.
AMD rolled into 2018 by announcing price cuts across the board on its entire product stack, something that Intel has rarely done despite its tumultuous 2017 marred with issues. Back to AMD, going forward they will be pricing their CPUs as listed above which sees massive 100$+ reducitons on the upper end of the stack while the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 will see some considerable price cuts as well. This puts it in even more ideal positions to clamp down on the market by sheer value alone and attract more customers from a purely price advantage.
CPU Performance Benchmarks
System Setup
AMD
Processor: AMD R7 1800X/R5 1600X/R3 1300X/R3 1200 Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair VI Hero Memory: Gskill Trident Z DDR4-3200 16GB Graphics Card: ZOTAC GTX 1080 Ti AMP! Edition Power Supply: Seasonic P1000 Storage: WD Blue SSD 1TB Monitor: ViewSonic VX2475SMHL-4K Cooler: DeepCool Captain 240EX
INTEL
Processor: Intel Core i7-7700K Motherboard: ASUS MAXIMUM IX APEX Memory: G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-3200 32GB Kit Graphics Card: ZOTAC GTX 1080 Ti AMP! Edition Power Supply: Seasonic P1000 Storage: WD Blue SSD 1TB Monitor: ViewSonic VX2475SMHL-4K Cooler: Thermaltake Water 3.0 Riings 360mm
Rendering Benchmarks
Arithmetic Benchmarks
System Benchmark
Memory Benchmarks
Gaming Benchmark – Test Setup
For this test we’ll focus on the gaming performance both our processors. Do note that we have specially selected benchmark runs for CPU testing vs. GPU testing so these vary from our GPU benchmark results. To see more details about the benchmark sequences, please see our game benchmark method guide.
Frame rates and frame times of a 60-second game play were recorded using FRAPS v3.5.99. The test results are the average of 3 benchmark runs. Since this is a GPU review, we benchmarked the area of the games that put heavy load on the GPU.
All our test runs are repeatable, click the links below for area and details. Read our benchmarking methodology.
Crysis 3 – Post Human
Grand Theft Auto V – Palomino Highlands
The Witcher 3 – Woesong Bridge
Rise of the Tomb Raider – Valley Farmstead
DOTA2 – Shanghai Major Finals, Game 2, Team Secret vs Team Liquid (23:45 – 24:45)
The games and corresponding image quality settings used are shown in their respective tabs.
Note: Some proprietary technologies of NVIDIA like PCSS, HBAO+, and HairWorks work on AMD GPU’s BUT to maintain uniformity amongst GPUs, these have been turned OFF.
Gaming Benchmark – Rise of the Tomb Raider
The reboot of the gaming phenomenon Tomb Raider puts players in Lara Croft’s hiking boots as we pick-up from the last game. Featuring upgraded graphics, DX12 support and new image quality improvements, this game challenges new hardware with its graphical offering.
DirectX11
Anti-aliasing: FXAA
Very High settings
Ambient Occlusion: On
Pure Hair: On
Vignette Blur: Off
Motion Blur: Off
Bloom: On
Tessellation: On
Screen Space Reflections: On
Lens Flares: On
Film Grain: Off
Gaming Benchmark – The Witcher 3
CD Projekt Red’s latest installment in the Witcher saga features one of the most graphically intense offering the company has to date. As Geralt of Rivia, slay monsters, beasts and men as you unravel the mysteries of your past. Vast worlds and lush sceneries make this game a visual feast and promises to make any system crawl at its highest settings.
Frame Rate: Unlimited
Nvidia HairWorks: Off
Ultra Settings
Motion Blur: Off
Blur: Off
Anti-aliasing: On
Bloom: On
Sharpening: High
Ambient Occlusion: SSAO
Depth of Field: On
Chromatic Aberration: Off
Vignetting: On
Light Shafts: On
Gaming Benchmark – DOTA2
The most popular game on Steam and the biggest competition in eSports; DOTA 2 is powered by the Source 2 engine. The game is fairly light on low to medium settings but maxed out with heavy action on screen especially during clashes can really stress most systems especially with Reborn update. This is a game where frame times matter as responsiveness is very important in high-stakes competition.
DirectX9 (default)
Best-Looking slider setting (Ultra)
FPS_MAX 240
Vsync OFF
Temperature and Power
In this test we’ll measure how much manufacturer-set BIOS settings affect temperature and power draw.
We really don’t put too much stock on individual component temperatures as they will vary depending on usage and we do not benchmark using extreme loads anymore as they’re not reflective of real world applications. To stress the CPU, we use a 20-minute run of AIDA64 stress test. We recorded the peak CPU temps and cross-match HWINFO and AIDA64 readings. For power readings, we measure the peak system draw.
Conclusion
With the Ryzen 3 1300X and Ryzen 3 1200 offering the best value quad-core in the market right now, there’s certainly plenty to look out for whatever the company has in store in the future. But focusing what we have on hand, the Ryzen 3 processors offer compelling value in the entry level market particularly for those who need the quad-core processing power but are still budget-restricted.
Looking at it from a purely performance perspective, the Ryzen 3 processors are still outclassed in single-threaded performance by Intel and even in quad-core scenarios in gaming but looking at the price advantage, the benefits of a quad-core in optimized applications coming in from the future or just the sound of a true-quad core to general consumers, will surely be the more appealing choice.
For those looking to build low-power PCs, the lack of an IGP will be the biggest weakness of the Ryzen 3 processors and provided they reside in the value segment, it was more of making the most out of a position where they did not want to go with an older GPU solution which they already have in their Bristol Ridge APUs.
With Intel cutting back on the Pentium G4560, they have literally opened the doors for the Ryzen 3 to shine. Paired with at least a GTX 1050 Ti or a Radeon RX570, the Ryzen 3 processors offer competitive gaming performance. If you’re looking to build a decent, true-quad core gaming setup or multimedia build, the Ryzen 3 processors are a great foundation for a build.
4 Comments
1st
1st
Romejun Vergara read.
Romejun Vergara read.