Battle for the Mainstream
We take a look at the AMD Ryzen 3 processors launching today.
With today's release of the Ryzen 3 processors, AMD completes the circle of the mainstream Ryzen processor family. Starting with the 8-core Ryzen 7 that disrupted the high end of the market, followed by the Ryzen 5 that shook up the Core i5 segment, Ryzen 3 goes after the world of the Core i3 targeting budget PC builders, gamers, and even enterprising business consumers willing to build their own machines or looking for information here on what to select.
We already learned about the Ryzen 3 products launching today, the 1300X and the 1200, from a video that AMD CEO Lisa Su posted a couple of weeks ago. But pricing and performance were still an unknown, both of which we are going to show you in great detail today. What can a $129 and $109 processor get you with four true cores?
As you'll soon see, the Ryzen 3 product family competes against the Intel Core i3 line in terms of pricing but is definitely a concern for the Core i5 family when it comes to multi-threaded workloads. Let's dive into the specifications and see what AMD has put together for us.
Specifications
The devil is in the details and as we will see the core counts and clock speeds of Ryzen 3 make it very compelling for a wide range of consumers.
| Ryzen 3 1300X | Ryzen 3 1200 | Pentium G4560 | Core i3-7100 | Core i3-7350K | Ryzen 5 1600X | Ryzen 5 1500X | Core i5-7600K | Core i5-7500 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Zen | Zen | Kaby Lake | Kaby Lake | Kaby Lake | Zen | Zen | Kaby Lake | Kaby Lake |
| Process Tech | 14nm | 14nm | 14nm+ | 14nm+ | 14nm+ | 14nm | 14nm | 14nm+ | 14nm+ |
| Cores/Threads | 4/4 | 4/4 | 2/4 | 2/4 | 2/4 | 6/12 | 4/8 | 4/4 | 4/4 |
| Base Clock | 3.4 GHz | 3.1 GHz | 3.5 GHz | 3.9 GHz | 4.2 GHz | 3.6 GHz | 3.5 GHz | 3.8 GHz | 3.4 GHz |
| Turbo/Boost Clock | 3.7 GHz | 3.4 GHz | - | - | - | 4.0 GHz | 3.7 GHz | 4.2 GHz | 3.8 GHz |
| Cache | 8MB | 8MB | 3MB | 3MB | 4MB | 16MB | 16MB | 6MB | 6MB |
| Memory Support | DDR4-2400 Dual Channel |
DDR4-2400 Dual Channel |
DDR4-2400 Dual Channel |
DDR4-2400 Dual Channel |
DDR4-2400 Dual Channel |
DDR4-2400 Dual Channel |
DDR4-2400 Dual Channel |
DDR4-2400 Dual Channel |
DDR4-2400 Dual Channel |
| TDP | 65 watts | 65 watts | 54 watts | 51 watts | 60 watts | 95 watts | 65 watts | 91 watts | 65 watts |
| Price | $129 | $109 | $80 | $119 | $149 | $229 | $189 | $239 | $204 |
Both the Ryzen 3 1300X and the Ryzen 3 1200 are four-core, four-thread CPUs, marking the first time we have seen a Zen-based design not utilize the company's implementation of SMT. AMD made the decision to target the Core i3 family that largely uses dual-core HyperThreaded configuration with a "four true core" mentality, counting on the ability of native cores to scale better than Intel's SMT implementation. Intel's advantage lies in both IPC (instructions per clock) and that the Core i3 processors all hit much higher frequencies than the Ryzen 3 equivalents. The Core i3-7350K for example runs at 4.2 GHz so that even without Turbo technology, it will be running 500-1000 MHz faster than the Ryzen solutions across the board.
The Core i3 and even the Core i5 CPUs we are looking at today max out at DDR4-2400 for officially memory speeds, and the Ryzen 3 CPUs will hit DDR4-2400 officially with easy jumps to higher clock rates like DDR4-3200. Because of the fabric interconnect differences between the Ryzen and Core i3/i5 processors, that additional memory speed actually means quite a bit more to the AMD hardware; something we have observed and commented on many times in the recent past.
TDP is an interesting discussion as both Ryzen 3 parts are labeled as 65 watts. Actual measured power draw wasn't so homogenous and in our previous Ryzen testing. The required power draw for Ryzen exceeds that of equivalent Intel hardware. The Core i5 CPU has a TDP of 65 watts but the Core i3 processors only claim 60-51 watts of power.
The Ryzen 3 1300X has a price tag of $129, putting it squarely between our Core i3-7100 and Core i3-7350K. The Ryzen 3 1200 is only $20 less but that puts it under the price of the 7100, but still another $20 higher than the Pentium G4560. It will be interesting to see how the performance picture plays itself out.
Both of the Ryzen 3 retail boxes will ship with a Wraith cooler in the box.
The Platforms
The AM4 socket remains unchanged as do the platforms that Ryzen 3 can operate in. The X370, B350, and A320 chipsets can all run the Ryzen 3 hardware though because of the pricing scheme, its likely we would only see buyers use A320 or B350 motherboards in these builds.
For those of us on a budget, a Ryzen 3 CPU with an A320 motherboard (which range in the ~$60 area) can provide a great value. Compared to the higher end chipsets, the A320 lacks multi-GPU support and CPU overclocking capability - if you aren't interested in getting your hands dirty with settings adjustments, the A320 will offer the same memory and performance capability while saving you $20-30 over matching B350 offerings. (Note that while CPU overclocking is locked out of A320, memory overclocking and XFR are still supported.)
Core to Core Latency Testing
Though I had no inclination that this area of interest would change or shift with Ryzen 3 compared to the Ryzen 7 or Ryzen 5 hardware, we ran the core-to-core latency application on the Ryzen 3 1300X CPU to see if it fell in line with expectations.
The results are where I thought they would end up - when running the memory at 2400 MHz (the same we used as default with Ryzen 7/5), the CCX to CCX latency creeps past the 130ns mark. Because of the four core configuration we have a pair of discrete cores on each CCX enabled, showing us the lower, expected latency timings when communicating across the same CCX.
Performance expectations for workloads like 1080p gaming based on this data should be very similar to the Ryzen 5, which was also two cores per CCX, though with SMT enabled.
So the new 1300 and 1200
So the new 1300 and 1200 parts are still harvested 2-CCX chips with the extra issue of not supporting high RAM frequencies. Wow… I would expect nothing less from AMD; a truly useless product! It’s well known that cross-CCX latency is the main culprit behind Ryzen’s poor performance in gaming and data-intensive applications. The 1300 losses to Intel’s dual core 7300 in games and most other benchmarks.
You mean the i3 7350K, which
You mean the i3 7350K, which not only is pricer but also needs a cooler and a Z170 board if you want to overclock. The R3 CPUs on the other hand can hit 3.9/4.0 GHz with the stock cooler….
i mean sure its not like they
i mean sure its not like they couldnt do it right? Because what do they know about microarchitectures and stuff like these? You tell them big engineer
the 7300 doesn’t show up in
the 7300 doesn’t show up in this review the 7350k does which is a 150 dollar part which requires a z270 board to overclock compared to the 130 for the 1300x and 110 for the 1200 which can overclock with b350 boards that cost substantially less. The 7350k is about 10 dollars less than an R5 1400 which is a 4 core 8 threaded part. You have to remember to take the cost into account and for the price those extra true cores could make quite the difference in how a fully loaded machine with background processes and multitasking will work for you. I really hope that PC reviewers start taking into account the cost of the supporting motherboard with the reviews. I understand not having the time to do the OC tests though. Several other review sites have those figure and you’ll see them running near the 7350k for that much lower system price point.
read other reviews, the
read other reviews, the “latency” of CCX for Ryzen 3 is next to negligible compared to Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7, the performance they have is VERY comparable to what they are targeting performance/price vs Intel 7k line of Core i3, overclocked the Ryzen 1300x is very much directly comparable to core i5 which are far more “oomph” and more expensive, basically, less cores to abuse the CCX/Infinity Fabric, the less “bottleneck” number 1, number 2 AMD has done much optimizing through microcode update since Ryzen 7 came out and the “latency” is vastly reduced from where it started off at months ago, so again, read other reviews..
What is 7300 is it not dual core with SMT i.e is native dual core but hyperthreaded, all the reviews I seen thus far said quite simply, 1300x is very much a match if not surpassing and worse case scenario with games/apps that are very reliant on high clock speed or Intel Bias titles, the comparable “at stock” speed Intel chip is ~2-5% faster, add in the overclock to 1300x which them “cheap” 7k series are unable to do, the tables turn to AMD favor by having more raw clock speed.
Your $ your choice, but it pays to do the reading over many places to best form legit opinions, or you are IMO just a putz ^.^
Intel’s new mesh
Intel’s new mesh interconnect/fabric also makes some latency trade-offs in order to get that scalability for more cores going forward. So there will be some increased latency on any of the newest Intel SKUs also. AMD can also at the 7nm process node engineer 6 cores to a CCX instead of 4 cores and maybe save on the need to take any extra latency inducing hops outside of the CCX unit’s bounds or modular(Zeppelin/newer) die’s bounds. It’s always going to require some sorts of latency tradeoff unless both Intel and AMD go towards even more complicated mesh topologies.
Also the more cores the more opportunities for latency hiding of compute workloads. Just look at AMD’s and Nvidia’s GPU’s and both GPU makers are well versed in engineering latency hiding in software/and hardware over thousands of shader processing cores.
Maybe some larger L3 caches will be employed also along with some 3D stacked HBM2/HBM-newer memory with even wider than 1024 bit buses to each HBM stack that placed is closer to the processor/processor die complexes to cut down on latency. Even making use of larger capacity 3D stacked/diffused L3/L2 caches with TSV connections directly into the processor’s cores.
The larger and more numerous the CPU core counts become the more GPU like the CPU’s logical design/interconnects will have to become. Intel still has that Larrabee project IP and AMD has that GPU IP to create newer CPU designs that have 32 and above CPU core counts per MCM/Die/Interposer whatever module designs. Silicon based Interposers, the active not the passive designs, are starting to be discussed more with entire complex interconnects that are able to connect any types of CPU/GPU/other processor dies together with active silicon interposers that have the logic and the traces that make up the whole complex coherent interconnect fabric etched onto the silicon interposer. So whole complete computing systems dies can be attached to the active silicon interposer based interconnection fabrics for all manner of processing needs.
Why are their not Overclock
Why are their not Overclock test for this review?
No overclock review, which
No overclock review, which will be the main focal point for budget gamers.
Poor show.
Its a ryzen, which means it
Its a ryzen, which means it will OC up to ~4 GHz and hit a brick wall both on air and liquid.
Then? Seems to be a decent
Then? Seems to be a decent boost from 3.4/3.7 Ghz and can be done on the stock cooler in some cases, as Tom Hardware and Hardware Unboxed managed to do so.
I concur.
I concur.
We just ran out of time
We just ran out of time before this release due to other things we were doing. We are going to update with our results on that soon!
Awesome, thanks! I guess
Awesome, thanks! I guess there is no need for my previous comment then XD.
I agree, I am kind of
I agree, I am kind of disappointed, I expected overclocked results as well because that is what I will be buying this for. toms-hardware and hardware unboxed/techreport included OC results and they make the CPUs look MUCH more impressive!
I wish you would make that
I wish you would make that glorious frametimes and percentile graphs similar to your GPU tests. It would be very interesting to see how frametimes goes between AMD 4C/4T and Intel 2C/4T, especially in games such as GTA5.
We should probably do that.
We should probably do that. But MOST of the time, in our CPU testing results, commenters usually want things more simple.
in before
in before #Ryzen_SEGV_Battle
and here’s the processor clockspeed breakdown that’s missing from this article.
│ Ryzen 3 1300x │ Ryzen 3 1200
─────────┼──────────────────┼─────────────────
Base │ 3.5GHz │ 3.1GHz
All │ 3.6GHz │ 3.1GHz
2-Core │ 3.7GHz │ 3.4GHz
XFR │ 3.9GHz │ 3.45GHz
Great, thanks!
Great, thanks!
Hey Ryan, i think the RAM
Hey Ryan, i think the RAM frequency specs for Ryzen are not correct. Ryzen supports 2666MHz with Single Rank Modules, not 2400MHz. 2400MHz is only supported when Dual Rank comes in to play.
I believe you are correct,
I believe you are correct, but that hasn't changed in the Ryzen family, correct?
I’m Really interested in
I’m Really interested in building a AMD based low cost APU PC using an AM4 motherboard! And now that Bristol Ridge APU SKUs are up for non OEM purchase, can PCPer benchmark any BR/AM4 low cost builds with a look towards the future when there will be plenty of available Zen/Vega APUs to update these BR/AM4 APU systems to Zen/Vega APU systems?
“AMD Releases Bristol Ridge to Retail: AM4 Gets APUs”
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11669/amd-releases-bristol-ridge-to-retail-am4-gets-apus
Well, no. But again, Ryzen
Well, no. But again, Ryzen allows for (two) 2666 Single Rank! Modules while your Specs comparison table mentions only 2400MHz. Since most of the cheaper RAM modules (afaik) are Single Rank rather than Dual Rank (or depending on the capacity (8+GB sticks are more likely to be DR than 4GB), it would be fair to mention that, or explicitly state that 2400MHz are supported for (two) Dual Rank Modules.
Now on to more of the
Now on to more of the Zen/Vega Ryzen APUs based systems. And there is already some new news on that front. But I’m really waiting on a 35-45 watt 4 core/8 thread, with the highest clocked/highest nCU count integrated GPU, Zen/Vega top end laptop APU SKU in a NON-[thin and light] laptop form factor.
I hope that there will be some high wattage mobile Zen/Vega Ryzen APU SKUs for those that want more of a workhorse laptop that does not throttle prematurely for lack of a proper laptop cooling solution. With none of that single channel to DDR4 memory nonsense.
I do not think that there will be any HBM2 enabled APUs this time around for any first generation Zen/Vega APUs. But maybe when the latter half of 2018 gets here there may be some HBM2 enabled APUs from AMD, and some mobile Workstation Grade Zen(more than 4 cores) APUs also built on an Interposer with a much fatter Vega, or Navi, based GPU die and dual HBM2 stacks.
I liked that this review had
I liked that this review had some of the ‘higher end’ processors – Ryzen 5 6-cores and i5-7600K for comparison. Not equally priced, but good for reference on what the next $60-100 added to your system can bring..
I think AMD has done a
I think AMD has done a wonderful job with Ryzen, not limiting the end user from performance available which seems to be ~4.1-4.@Ghz clock limit at most.
Would have been nice to see them maybe “tweak” the less core/thread chips a touch better to cull the die of what is not needed, likely this would have incured a slightly larger cost, but likely would have also resulted in less power need to feed the unused portions which still apparently while deactivated for example on Ryzen 3 is the exact same die on Ryzen 7, explains why power is so similar.
Now as far as TDP. FFS, TDP is NOT nor ever has been POWER IN WATTS, that is cooling required to keep the chip be it cpu, graphics, dram etc properly cooled to maintain the makers design spec. so if it says 65w TDP if you followed AMD or Intel or Nvidia or any other makers “test” system example 20c air ambient air with a 65w capable cooler load, it would maintain that cpu, gpu or whatever at proper temperatures ~65-80% “duty cycle” indefinitely for the expected life of the product.
If you are going to review products, that is fine we always need as many reviews being done as possible to see the products in question to better decide if it should or should not be purchased for our needs, but seriously, if you do not know what a rating is, then you should not use it as a “its only rated at 65w TDP so why then is it using above this amount?” type thing.
All that being said, AMD more often than not has always been very “realistic” with their numbers verging on making them higher rather than lower, Intel on average usually underestimates almost like a perfect test bed type thing, and Nvidia is Nvidia, they rely on fancy VREG and such to maintain power use more often than not if they say “180w” when loaded in the real world they tend to go over the rating, that is in my opinion and my experience.
Anyways, to sum it up once again TDP is NOT WATTAGE, it is cooling required.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_design_power
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_CPU_power
The thermal design power (TDP), sometimes called thermal design point, is the maximum amount of heat generated by a computer chip or component (often the CPU or GPU) that the cooling system in a computer is designed to dissipate in typical operation. Rather than specifying CPU’s real power dissipation, TDP serves as the nominal value for designing CPU cooling systems.[1]
The TDP is typically not the largest amount of heat the CPU could ever generate (peak power), such as by running a power virus, but rather the maximum amount of heat that it would generate when running “real applications.” This ensures the computer will be able to handle essentially all applications without exceeding its thermal envelope, or requiring a cooling system for the maximum theoretical power (which would cost more but in favor of extra headroom for processing power).[2]
Some sources state that the peak power for a microprocessor is usually 1.5 times the TDP rating.[3] However, the TDP is a conventional figure while its measurement methodology has been the subject of controversy. In particular, until around 2006 AMD used to report the maximum power draw of its processors as TDP, but Intel changed this practice with the introduction of its Conroe family of processors.[4]
A similar but more recent controversy has involved the power TDP measurements of some Ivy Bridge Y-series processors, with which Intel has introduced a new metric called scenario design power (SDP)
AMD implementation is on average more accurate to rate ACTUAL power consumed.
TDP is a “guessing game” more oft than not if you are using a reference to how much power the cpu/gpu will use, hotter it gets, may mean more power even though TDP of product technically has not changed and conversely colder it gets may mean less or more as well TDP not changing, there is to my knowledge NOTHING that will tell you directly actual power consumed on the fly besides very expensive equipment.
Am done, put a different way, Ryzen spire cooler, designed for 65w TDP (cooling power) and it does exactly what it should be doing, keeps the cpu in “spec” for cooling requirements, and the Ryzen line in general are very advanced cpu that have all kinds of fancy sensors built into them, so they can vary the voltages, clock rates speed on cache etc to maintain power usage therefore heat output very well.
Love the extensive
Love the extensive Performance/dollar graphs!
Different review from
Different review from ANANDTECH
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11658/the-amd-ryzen-3-1300x-ryzen-3-1200-cpu-review/3
Pentium G4560 – Grandmother
Pentium G4560 – Grandmother pc
Intel i3 7100 – Light office pc
AMD r3 1200 (OC@3900) – Entry level enthusiast & cheap gaming pc
AMD r5 1600 (OC) – Mainstream pc
Intel i7 7700k – Top gaming pc
AMD r7 1700 (OC) – Sane top productivity pc & high gaming pc & entry server
AMD threadripper || Intel Xeons – app adjusted or high end servers
“Pentium G4560 – Grandmother
“Pentium G4560 – Grandmother pc” ?
No. It’s a budget enthusiast part. No one is gona buy one of these for a grandma, there are plenty of embedded A8/10 or Atom cpu/board combo’s for far less money. The G4560 is for those who want to save every possible penny to spend more on GPU. And it’s fine for a dedicated gaming rig.
Atom for “rich” web browsing
Atom for “rich” web browsing … old people are generally slow, but some of them are also impatient 🙂 I think Pentium is not so expensive, it’s family after all, you can be more generous 🙂
Two my last home desktops were build by pentiums, I’m definitely aware of their potential. But real 4 core CPU for 20-30$ more has besides everything mentioned in reviews also unmeasurable but substantial effect on responsiveness, so I think it should become entry level for enthusiasts.
P. S. Maybe I forgot media pc, also suitable for Pentium or intel i3 CPUs.