Custom PC - UK (2020-08)

W

e haven’trevieweda CPUthatcostsunder£100
fora longtimenow,buttheRyzen3 3100doesn’t
justofferquad-coreperformancefor£99– you
getSimultaneousMultithreading(SMT)too,soyoualsoget
supportforeightthreads.It’sanequivalentspectoAMD’s
Ryzen5 1500X,whichoriginallyretailedfor£190.
That’ssomeserioushorsepower,especiallyconsidering
thatthisis a fullyfledged7nmZen2 CPU.Whileyoumight
beabletobuyanolder6-coremodelonthecheap,it’salso
important to remember the big leaps in single-threaded and
gaming performance that Zen 2 brought with it.
As we mentioned on p26, the two new CPUs have a
slightly different configuration under the heatspreader. The
slightly more expensive Ryzen 3 3300X offers much higher
frequencies at stock speed, reaching 400MHz higher in peak
boost, with the cheaper CPU topping out at just 3.9GHz and
sporting a 200MHz lower base frequency.
Even if you can claw back some of that clock speed by
overclocking it, the chips aren’t equal in terms of physical
configuration either. The Ryzen 3 3100’s four cores are spread
across two Core Complexes (CCX), which introduces latency
as the cores communicate with each other. All four cores
on the Ryzen 3 3300X are located on a single CCX, so the
cheaper CPU is a little hamstrung, even if you also get the
same 2MB L2 Cache and 16MB L3 cache on both CPUs.
The 3100’s single-threaded performance in Cinebench
R20 was some way off the pace of the Ryzen 3 3300X, at
445 points compared to 495, and it was 200 points slower
in the Cinebench multi-threaded test too. Likewise, it was

AMDRYZEN3 3100 / £99 incVAT

SOCKET AM4 CPU

significantlyslowerintheimageediting

test,whichstressessingle-threaded

performance,whereonlytheCorei5-9400

wasslowerinourgraphsonp29.TheIntel

CPUwasa bitquickerinourheavilymulti-

threadedHandbrakevideoencodingtestas

well,buttheoverallsystemscorehadthe

AMDCPUaheadoftheIntel6-coreCPU.

Atstockspeed,theRyzen3 3100was

onlya littleslowerthanitsmoreexpensive

sibling,butoverclockingit to4.6GHzusing

a vcoreof1.3625Vonlyyieldedmodest

gains,especiallyinFarCryNewDawn,whereit endedupa

longwaybehindtheRyzen3 3300X.Thesystemscorerose

from180,891to 198879 onceoverclocked,butthatwasstill

nearly10,000pointsbehindtheRyzen3 3300Xintheimage

editingtest.Atstockspeed,thepeakloadpowerdrawsat

at153W,risingto183Wonceoverclocked,soyoucertainly

won’tneeda particularlypowerfulPSU.

Conclusion

TheRyzen3 3100offerssimilarperformancetotheRyzen

3 3300Xingamesatstockspeed,aswellasCinebench’s

multi-threadedtest.However,everywhereelse,themore

expensiveRyzen3 wassignificantlyquickerandabsolutely

worththeextracash.YoushouldonlyconsidertheRyzen 3

3100 if you’reonanextremelytightbudget,astheRyzen 3

3300Xis betterineverywayandoffersfarbettervalue.

ANTONYLEATHER

SUPPLIER scan.co.uk

GOODRECEPTION

+Competitivewith

6-coreIntelchips

+Goodoverclocking

headroom

+Bargainprice

WEAKSIGNAL

• Slowerinsome
  gamesthan
  IntelCPUs


• Ryzen3 3300Xmuch
  quickerin sometests


• Overclockingdoesn’t
  boostspeedmuch

OVERALLSCORE

78 %

PERFORMANCE

33 / 50

FEATURES

14 / 15

VALUE

31 / 35

SPEC

Base frequency

3.6GHz

Max boost frequency

3.9GHz

Core

Zen 2

Manufacturing process

7nm

Number of cores

4 x physical (8 threads)

IGP

None

Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT)

Ye s

Cache

16MB L3 cache, 2MB L2 cache

Memory controller

Dual-channel DDR4, up to

3200MHz

Packaging

AMD Socket AM4

Thermal design power (TDP)

65W

Features

Precision Boost 2, Precision Boost

Overdrive, FMA3, F16C, SHA, BMI /

BMI1 + BMI2, AVX2, AVX, AES, SSE4a,

SSE4, SSSE3, SSE3, SSE2, SSE

VERDICT

Very overclockable and a great price, but the Ryzen 3 3100

suffers from high latency and lowly stock frequencies.