AMD has announced the Zen 2-powered Ryzen 3 3100 and Ryzen 3 3300X. These budget chips may be slightly lower clocked than the $350 Core i7 7700K, but they are serious gaming CPUs, support PCIe 4.0, and are compatible with fast M.2 PCIe SSDs. Three years is obviously a long time in the computing world.

Three years ago, AMD introduced the first Ryzen CPU to the world. At the time, the top gaming processor was the Core i7 7700K. Intel's four-core, eight-thread CPU was used as a gaming chip, and its affordable price of $350 put it at the top of most CPU buying guides. They were fast enough for gaming and had enough threads to handle more serious tasks. [Three generations of Ryzen CPUs have appeared in the meantime, and while it's fair to say that the first generation had its problems (patchy memory support and lackluster gaming performance), the latest generation has confined those issues to the history books. AMD Ryzen 3000 CPUs are now in very good shape and the entire stack through the entire stack, making it a true alternative to Intel.

Intel still has a slight edge in the gaming arena, and the forthcoming Comet Lake Core i9 10900K will hold the title of "fastest gaming processor," but only by consuming a tremendous amount of power. Elsewhere, Intel has announced a new iteration of its 14nm production node, along with the rest of the 10th generation roundup, which will increase its own core count and make HyperThreading support a welcome return across the product line. The Core i3 10100, in particular, is a melting pot for AMD's new four-core, eight-thread chip.

In this somewhat strange market, AMD has decided to release two low-price-focused chips that punch above their price point. Both feature SMT (simultaneous multi-threading), and these quad-core chips can handle eight threads simultaneously. Basically, they are at the same level as that venerable Core i7 7700K, but at about one-third the price. Overclocking performance is inferior, but for the amount of money demanded, it is reasonable.

In addition to the Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300X, there is another excellent offering from AMD in the form of the B550 chipset. This means that if there is a problem with these CPUs today, the only way to get the most performance out of them is to use an X570 motherboard, which starts at $250, twice the price of the CPU. support will not be available.

Pricing for these B550 motherboards has not yet been revealed, but given that B450 motherboards start in the $75 range, we expect these motherboards to be in the roughly $100-125 range. Looking at the value proposition of these chips, I have that in mind rather than having to drop money on an X570 at the same time.

Both CPUs come with the Wraith Stealth cooler, which is the shortest version of the Wraith available and does not have the RGB lighting of the top-end coolers, but like all Wraiths, does the job well. This cooler is not designed for serious overclocking, but in our tests, temperatures reached only 66°C at full load on the 3300X and 64°C on the 3100. Both temperatures are perfectly acceptable. They are not noisy coolers either.

Of interest to those trying to save cash would be the Eco mode, which effectively lowers the TDP (and performance) of the 3100 and 3300X from 65W to 45W. This is useful if the machine is always on or if you simply want to reduce power consumption.

Another point worth noting is that the Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300X, despite having the same number of cores and threads, are actually configured quite differently. While the Ryzen 3 3100 has two active cores per CCX, the Ryzen 3 3300X has all four cores in one CCX (the other is redundant). This reduces the potential latency between cores, giving the 3300X an additional advantage at higher clock speeds.

Before we get into the testing, a quick note about the benchmarks: due to the coronavirus, much of the usual testing hardware is locked up in the office, as are we. This mainly affects the graphics cards we use for testing, so instead of using the 2080 Ti for benchmarking as usual, we decided to use our trusty GTX 1070: a Core i7 7700K (4 cores, 8 threads, $350 at launch) and a Core i5 8400 (6 cores, 6 threads, $182 at launch). However, Intel's 10th generation processors are nearing launch, so more benchmarks are expected when they finally appear.

What we can glean from these benchmarks is that the Ryzen 3 3300X outperforms both the 7700K and the 6-core 8400, scoring much higher in serious tests such as Cinebench R15, X264 v5.0, PCMark, and in gaming. It maintains its lead. Sure the difference is small, in some cases within the margin of error, but the important thing is that it's not slow.

The Ryzen 3 3100 also performs impressively, but its core configuration seems to have a negative impact on gaming. It is still a good chip, but not as good as its big brother's performance. Given that there is only a $20 difference between the two CPUs, the Ryzen 3 3300X is a better option.

Recent Ryzen 3000 processors have not marveled at their overclocking capabilities, and the same can be said here. In fact, overclocking does not contribute much to performance. Both chips are unlocked, so if you want to play around with the clocks to get the most performance out of them, that's at least an option.

While overclocking is possible in the BIOS, the whole process is a bit easier with the AMD Ryzen Master software; Precision Boost can increase the clock fairly easily, and Auto can increase the clock even more. Or you can get into the mire of manual overclocking.

In our tests, we tried these on a 3300X. It is possible that more powerful coolers could be used, but for now, these chips appear to be true to the general idea that this generation of Ryzen does not overclock very much. Importantly, however, they don't need to.

In summary, the Ryzen 3 3300X is an impressive chip; AMD has taken its excellent Zen 2 architecture and given it new life for budget-conscious gamers. It's fast, supports PCI Express 4.0, has enough cores and threads for today's games, and isn't too expensive. To make this value proposition really make sense, a B550 motherboard is needed, and such a board should be available soon.

Is the Ryzen 3 3300X the best processor ever? No, of course not. This is a budget CPU with half the number of cores of our most recommended CPUs. But even so, it is still an incredible CPU for gaming, and there is currently nothing that can match it for this amount of money. In fact, the next best bet would be the 6-core, 12-thread Ryzen 5 3600. At least, that will be the case until the Core i3 10100 comes along.

Should I consider building a system around the 3300X? Absolutely. Processor prices have been going up for a while now (as power increases to be fair), but these two chips reset that. Combined with a cheap motherboard, a cheap but speedy SSD, and affordable memory (the faster the better), you'll have the perfect base to connect your favorite graphics card to. something like an AMD 5600 XT would be a solid yet affordable system .