Maximum PC - USA (2020-09)

R&D

56 MAXIMUM PC SEP 2020 maximumpc.com

ZAK STOREY, EDITOR

WITH AMD’S RYZEN 3300X FINALLY LANDING on

our shores, we just knew we had to throw it into

a full-on system build to get the most out of it,

and its accompanying new chipset, B550. It’s not

every day that AMD launches a brand-new budget

chipset quite like this series, and certainly not

with such fanfare, so we decided to put together

a little budget(ish) build to see exactly what we

could get out of this fledgling quad-core, eight-

thread processor.

So yes, at its heart we have the Ryzen 3 3300X

processor. Compared to today’s many-threaded

monsters littering the consumer ecosphere, a

quad-core processor certainly does look small-

fry in comparison, especially as we’ve already

had the 3200G from AMD as well. However,

there’s some significant differences between

the 3300X and its iGPU cousins that are well

worth mentioning. First and foremost, it is in fact

based on the Zen 2 7nm architecture, unlike the

iGPU variants that are secretly 2nd-gen Ryzen

in disguise on 12nm. Additionally, it features the

full complement of 24 PCIe lanes (16 for graphics,

four for the DMI, and four for a direct M.2 SSD

interconnect), unlike the iGPUs, which only have

half the number of graphics lanes. Thirdly, and

perhaps more importantly, it also comes with

support for PCIe 4.0 straight out of the gate. The

only downside? No integrated graphics of course.

Oh and then there’s the price—$127. Yup, Go back

three years, and to get something similar you’d

be paying near three times the cost.

So the question is: Is this the new affordability

king of the gaming ecosystem? Time to find out.

THE CONCEPT

LENGTH OF TIME: 1-2 HOURS

Black and Red

LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: EASY

We’re getting back to the basics with this

classic sub-$1200 gaming PC