the time has come my friends it has been an exciting journey covering AMD's
Ryzen CPUs we start off the year with Ryzen 7 which offered fantastic
multi-core performance while also being relatively inexpensive a few weeks later
Ryzen 5 came to the horizon showcasing great performance compared to intel's
mainstream set of processors like the i5 7500 and 7400 in some cases it even
knocked out intel's $350 7700k which was awesome say hello to Ryzen 3 this
is AMD steak on a sub $150 CPU or CPUs because we'll be taking a look at two of
them the 1300X and the 1200 we'll put them through their paces compared to
Intel's low-end I three variants and sort of judge for ourselves or analyze
where it stands within the market especially for gamers on a budget but
before that a quick message from our sponsor the end XD hue + sliding control
hub is now available in the white frame to complement the white NZXT monta case
or other white theme builds for best hardware color coordination with enough
extensions included and is used to control the four very bright RGB LED
strips or the air RGB fans all through the hue + hub check it out in the
description below alright before I move on if you're
interested in learning a lot more about the bass lines and architecture and its
various intricacies I recommend you head over to a launch day coverage because it
has everything covered link will be in the description down below at the top of
AMD's Ryzen 3 stack is the 1300X priced at $130 which sports for physical
course and for threats 2 megabytes of l2 cache and 8 megabytes of l3 it's very
much similar to the baseline Ryzen 5 1400 CPU except that processor has eight
threads and lower bass boost coke clock speeds basically this is a 1400 without
SMT enabled from a price to performance ratio the 1300X could run head-to-head
against the Ryzen 5 1500X scenarios that don't necessarily require a large
number of course AMD has given a very generous 3.5 gigahertz base clock speed
for this CPU and it can also run at a nominal 3.6 K Hertz on all its course
provided adequate cooling is supplied meanwhile the two core booster 8 hits
3.7 gigahertz while AMD's extended frequency range
or xfr can pump things up to 3.9 gigahertz if we start throwing single
thread workloads at it on the other hand AMD's Ryzen 3 1200 looks about the same
except it has significant cuts to its frequencies its base cloth of 3.1
gigahertz is still quite low and unlike the 1300X which allowed for a higher
all Core speed that base line would still remain at 3.1 gigahertz until only
when 2 cores are required when that happens you should see it boosted 3.4
gigahertz since this isn't an X series part of the 200 megahertz of additional
Headroom for xfr is cut down to just 50 megahertz so this CPU will run at a
maximum of only three point four five gigahertz even in single product tasks
while this may all sound confusing here's a quick chart which shows how
both of these processors react in different scenarios
now when compared to what Intel offers the 1300X is $130 price point aligns
with the $140 four thread i3 7300 cpu whereas the 110 dollar Ryzen 3 1200
would go against the $120 i3 7300 CPU in addition with TDP s-- of just 51
watts the Intel i3 processors seem to be quite
a bit more efficient as well that doesn't mean that wiesen 3 would require
beefier PSU it would just run a few degrees warmer than Intel but that would
be a topic for another video on paper the thread counts on both Intel and
Andes processors look quite similar but AMD could have an advantage here since
their quad thread layout is achieved through 4 physical cores whereas the i3
CPUs are actually dual-core chips that have SMT enabled remember SMT can add
some latency into the equation another bonus feature is that Ryzen 3 is fully
unlocked so you can overclock it without a problem but if you we're on Team Blue
you will need to pull out $160 for the i3 7350k which honestly still doesn't
make any sense these days at least not with Ryzen 5 around just to quickly go
over memory support since it remains something of a minefield AMD has indeed
improved memory compatibility and stability with their latest micro code
updates but they still support twenty-four hundred megahertz with dual
rank ddr4 and 26 66 megahertz with single rank modules you can get higher
frequencies through overclocking or potentially using Ryzen certified memory
kit but for maximum compatibility I'd recommend sticking to 2666
megahertz and tightening timings to achieve better performance now with
Ryzen 3 processor is achieving affordable levels there is no doubt that
AMD's b350 platform is a perfect companion for these chips these
motherboards have quickly become mainstream for folks who want access to
all the benefits that Ryzen has to offer like native nvme storage connected
directly to the CPU and a chipset that boasts USB 3.1 gen2 capabilities AMD has
also included a full stack of overclocking options on their more
affordable motherboards which is so refreshing to see when compared against
intel's much expensive z270 platform do note that X370 does have support for
dual graphics cards at x8 speeds a few more chipset drive SATA ports and two
more USB 3.1 gen2 on nodes but the vast majority of users won't need that extra
productivity anyways be through fifties real selling factor is its price with
most well equipped examples going for between 80 to 110 dollars
take this gigabyte b350 mitx motherboard for instance it's got all
the bells and whistles that most gamers on a budget are looking for like dual
channel memory support a 2 PCI slot USB 3.1 gen2 type a built-in RGB lighting
and much more it's a solid foundation that one can build an amazing system
moving forward you know what's even awesome
unlike the higher-end Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 lineups all Ryzen 3 processors come
with weight stealth coolers now many tend to disregard this inclusion but if
you're strictly and I mean strictly on a budget these coolers are quite decent
and it should even provide some more thermal Headroom for overclocking I
would not consider picking up an aftermarket solution simply because you
could use that money towards other components like a faster GPU or a
nice-looking case ultimately it's your call and now I think it's about time to
reveal the benchmarks so prepare your bodies are you ready BAM
let's kick things off with a little bit of Ida a benchmark suite that
uses high-level algorithms to simulate different processing scenarios here we
see that the 1300X and 1200 compete pretty well against the i3 7300 and i3
7100 respectively except in Photoworks which tends to use a single
core other benchmarks show the usual Ryzen highlights and multi-threaded
environments particularly in a DES decryption and hashing algorithms these
Cinebench multi-core results have quite a strong showing for AMD's and new chips
with the 1300x handily beating intel's 7300 and actually coming close to the i5
7500 the Ryzen 3 1200 did pretty well too but there's a massive gap between
the Ryzen 3 CPS due to the 1200 very low frequencies moving up to PC mark and
there's not really much different to talk about with the 1300X and 1200
trading below the Intel i3 series depending on the workload W prime backs
us up too but again the 1300X shows some amazing results while the 1200 lags
quite far behind even though it does beat the 7100 by a narrow margin
moving on to single core results and this is an area where AMD's Zen
architecture may have made some big inroads but it still can compare to what
Intel can offer it is great to see these very affordable processors competing
with higher end Ryzen CPUs but Intel really does dominate here next up we
have some benchmarks a few more of you may be able to relate to 7-zip shows the
Ryzen 3 processors exactly where we would expect them ahead of the 7300 and
7100 meanwhile Adobe Premiere really likes those two rising processors since
they score very well in our 4k media encoder video test as a matter of fact
with a little bit of overclocking the 1300X shouldn't have any problem
achieving results that are pretty close to the Ryzen 5 1400
however blender shows that the Ryzen 3 1200 just can't keep up with the
competition due to its lower clock speeds that's a bit of a problem since
these rendering tests have been a strength for AMD luckily the 1300X
performance very well given its price Corona has pretty much the same results
as blender with the 1200 lagging behind the 1300X really showing some strength
but when we move on to programs like GIMP which uses between 1 and 2 full
worker threads as it processes an image things don't look good for Ryzen
processors however this is absolutely nothing new since intel has always been
ahead in lightly threaded workloads hand brakes video conversion tool seems to be
a great fit for AMD's since the 1300X and 1200 both come up with some amazing
results as a matter of fact not only does the Ryzen 3 1300X handily beats
the i3 7300 but it also comes close to matching the 8 core FX 8370 guys that's
pretty awesome even pov-ray shows these very good
numbers so it looks like there are certain applications that really do
benefit from for physical cores while others seem to prefer intel's higher
clock speeds and SMT winrar is a bit of a mess for AMD unfortunately since it
has integrated optimizations for Intel processors and it only uses a few
processing threads that's the perfect storm for AMD and they lose by a big
margin and now onto some game tests starting with 5 strike and the scores
are actually very very good indeed the Ryzen 3 1300X keeps ahead of the i3
7300 while the 1200 does the same against the Intel 7100 the DX 12 times
by benchmark brings things a bit closer but even in that situation the AMD
processors are still able to come out with a narrow win but what does that
really mean for in-game tests well let's find out
Ryzen just can't seem to catch much of a break in games and despite being a game
that was heavily sponsored by AMD's battlefield 1 shows the Ryzen 3
processors very close to the back of the chart here the i3 7300 is more than 10
percent faster on average than the 1300X and the i3 7100 is nearly 15 percent
faster than the 1200 Deus ex sees a graphics cards become a lot more of a
bottleneck so the top end of the processor is between the Ryzen 5 1400
and i7 7700K literally offer the same performance
that includes the surprisingly fast Ryzen 3 1300X as well the 1200 shows
some respectable results - I have a funny feeling that we will see these new
Ryzen 3 processors in quite a few entry-level more
and FPS rates so performance and overwatch is pretty important well
neither Ryzen 3 CPU can directly compete with the i3 processors they do
put up quite the effort that twelve hundred dose in plea doesn't have these
stock clock speeds necessarily for adequate gaming performance Call of Duty
on the other hand exhibits a game engine frame rate cap so pretty much all the
processors perform equally so let's move on
much like Call of Duty doom has an in engine rendering cap that limits
performance to two hundred films per second however while the Ryzen 3
1300X is able to keep up with the big boys as is the more
affordable Ryzen3 1200 rounding out the game testing is a bit
of an oddity even though Grand Theft Auto game engine
is dx11 based it absolutely loves two things many threads and Intel processors
that means the Ryzen 3 1300X and 1200 come a bit short against the usual eye
crease but not by a huge margin as for power consumption I wanted to spend a
bit of time explaining these results there is no denying both of these new
Ryzen 3 processors are quite efficient but they are also showing what happens
when quad-core parts go up against dual cores remember these are essentially
eight core chips that have half their logical processor nodes cut and that
itself leads to some efficiency losses as a result against Intel i3's Ryzen 3
really doesn't fare all that well in the power consumption department this isn't
to say the Ryzen 3 is inefficient since its its electricity when compared to AMD'
lineup of 6 and 8 core chips but it won't win many performance per watt
competitions against Intel ok so now on to overclocking and I definitely have a
lot of fun playing around with a 1300X and the 1200 let's start with a 1300 I
got it to about 4 gigahertz with a core voltage or offset voltage of 0.15 and an
SOC voltage offset of 0.1 0 the sentiment score is significant compared
to the stock score that we were able to achieve I was only able to get the 1200X
to about 3.7 with a core offset voltage of 0.14 and an SOC voltage of
0.1 0 and unfortunately I wasn't able to memory or overclock the memory for
some reason even 2666 or even 2400 my cards did not work so it is something
that AMD still need to address I guess we just have to wait for
motherboard or bundle board updates for the for that BIOS for the respected BIOS
in my case I was using the ASUS prime B350 plus it's nice an option for a
B350 based motherboard but I guess you know since this is a new series of
processors we just have to wait for a future update to fix memory overclocking
oh hey there NCI XCOM is Canada's leading a tailor for anything your mind
desires just keep within those categories which are plenty and get
tempted by the weekly deals visit ncx calm for all them sweet deals alright
guys so this has been a long one so I'm going to wrap it up here with fear my
own thoughts and recommendations personally I enjoyed my time testing the
Ryzen 3 1300X and 1200 which is actually sitting at my test bench over
there it exactly shows how AMD is going after Intel where it counts while also
providing excellent performance for people on a budget now before you hop
into the Ryzen 3 bandwagon there are some things that you need to be aware of
for the most part these processors will be beaten by Intel's I 3 Series in
gaming and some lightly threaded applications and simply the nature of
the Ryzen versus Kaby Lake equation right now but I personally feel like
Ryzen 3 offers a better value for gamers than what an i3 good you see
overall platform cost is extremely important and when one of these new AMD
processors is combined with a b350 motherboard it becomes nearly impossible
to beat for someone on a budget remember that unlike the i3 series Ryzen 3
processors can easily make up any performance deficiency by overclocking
and overclocking is fully supported on B350 even though both of these
processors have their strengths and weaknesses
I feel like Ryzen 3 1300X is a lot more appealing than the 1200 it's high
frequencies go a long way towards competing against the i3 7300 and at
some points it even starts knocking on the I five seventy five hundreds door
honestly I can't recommend the Ryzen 3 1200 simply because the 1300X
only cost $20 more you could suck provides a few Starbucks coffees to
afford that because I think that from its stock performance to its
overclocking Headroom and price the 1300X is still one of the best
processors available in the market today and that's one of the reasons why we're
giving it the Hardware Canucks dam good end to end good value award well that
concludes this review of Ryzen 3 I hope you enjoyed let me know what you guys
think about these new processors in the comments down below i'm Eber with
Hardware Canucks thank you so much for watching make sure to subscribe for more
similar content stay tuned for a very cool ITX Ryzen
build guide for under $1000 it's what in the works but yeah stay tuned for that
video and we'll see you in the next one