AMD’S THIRD-GENERATION Ryzen CPUs
boast higher clock speeds and more
cores than the first and second-gen
parts. In fact, Zen 2 CPUs are so good
that AMD almost doesn’t need the faster
offerings—its second-string 3700X is
perfectly capable of running the offense,
and it isn’t quite as demanding when it
comes to signing bonuses and contracts.
For those teams (aka PCs) with salary cap
concerns that can’t quite justify chasing
the 3900X, the 3700X is a versatile QB that
can throw a quick short pass, scamper
downfield for a modest gain, or even
launch the long ball when required.
When it comes to playing football—in
other words, running PC games—there’s
not a huge difference between the 3700X
and the 3900X. In fact, there’s hardly
any difference at all. Out of 10 games
tested, it’s effectively a tie, with the 3900X
hanging on to a scant 0.5 percent lead
in frame rates. That’s well within the
margin of error, and that’s with an RTX
2080 Ti at 1080p; move up to 1440p or 4K,
or downgrade to a slower GPU, and the
gap would almost completely disappear.
What about Intel’s Core i9-9900K?
That chip is measurably faster, by around
9 percent in games, but again only when
looking at the fastest GPU and a modest
1080p resolution. It also costs about $200
more, once you factor in aftermarket
cooling. Hit the showers and leave the
field of games behind, and differencesBuilding a better mainstream eight-core chip
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
9
VERDICT AMD Ryzen 7 3700XSUPER BOWL Efficient;
fast; affordable.
PRO BOWL Weak overclocking potential;
still slower in games.
$329, http://www.amd.comSPECIFICATIONSBase/Turbo Clock 3.6/4.4GHz
Cores/Threads 8/16
Lithography 7nm
Cache 32MB L3
Memory Support 128GB DDR4
Memory Channels 2
Max PCIe Lanes 16
Graphics N/A
TDP 65WAMD Ryzen 7 3700X Intel Core i9-9900K
Blender 2.80 Beta BMW (pps) 3,041 3,280
Cinebench R15 Single (Index) 204 221
Cinebench R15 Multi (Index) 2,119 2,073
POV-Ray 3.7.1 Single (pps) 508 624
POV-Ray 3.7.1 Multi (pps) 4,569 5,477
PCMark 10 (Index) 7,169 7,820
Metro Exodus (fps) 93 95
Division 2 (fps) 145 152
Total War: Warhammer II (fps) 99 108BENCHMARKSBest scores are in bold. Our test bed consists of an Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero Wi-Fi (X570) motherboard, 16GB
of G.Skill TridentZ Royal DDR4-3600, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, and a Gigabyte Aorus NVMe Gen 4 1TB SSD.
All games are tested at their highest graphical profile, at 1080p.between the 9900K and 3700X become
even less noticeable. If you really need
that final 5 percent performance boost
and are willing to pay for it, you’re
probably already looking at the 3900X
instead, which remains out of reach of
Intel’s mainstream parts, thanks to AMD
currently packing 50 percent more cores.DRAFT PICK
All of the Zen 2 architectural updates
are definitely a factor, and TSMC’s 7nm
process gives AMD a manufacturing
lead over Intel for the first time in... ever.
Look no further than power use, where
the 3700X topped out at 179W for heavily
multithreaded workloads compared to
the 9900K’s 242W. Intel’s 10nm node
is now shipping, and may ultimately
prove similar or perhaps even superior
to TSMC’s 7nm, but it’s only in laptop
parts and that doesn’t look set to change
anytime soon. Instead, the 10th Gen
14nm Comet Lake Intel processors will
keep Intel’s desktop play-off hopes alive.
Which still feels incredibly weird.
Maybe Intel will drop prices on its CPUs
a bit, probably there will be a 10-core
mainstream CPU, but until and unless
that happens, the plucky underdog AMD
continues to make waves in the world
of processors. It’s also ready for PCIe
4.0 graphics cards and storage, neither
of which really appears to be all that
necessary right now. Still, everythingelse being equal, why wouldn’t you want
the newer, faster interface?
With third-generation Ryzen, AMD
effectively sounds the death-knell
for HEDT platforms. We love extreme
performance, and the idea of 28-core and
32-core HEDT processors is still exciting.
But when you can get eight-core chips
for $329, and 12-core chips for $499, is it
really worth the added cost? Are any of us
really doing enough to warrant upgrading
to a more expensive mobo, memory, CPU,
and PSU? HEDT becomes a niche within a
niche for non-workstation users.
Ryzen 7 3700X is a great CPU overall,
and it’s arguably the sensible choice for
most users. Why blow a ton of cash on
your CPU and then have to cut back on your
graphics card, storage, motherboard,
and/or memory? Bang for the buck is
always better if you step down a notch
or two from the top-of-the-line parts.
Maximum PC often leans more toward
raw performance, but there’s nothing
wrong with backing off a bit and getting
a potent part at a reasonable price.
Just don’t plan on massive overclocks,
because you’re better off sticking with
stock performance this round (see “Tech
Talk” on page 15). –JARRED WALTONin the lab
74 MAXIMUMPC OCT 2019 maximumpc.com