Just days after leaks started emerging, AMD has officially announced two Ryzen 3 CPUs based on the 7nm Zen 2 core architecture, namely the Ryzen 3 3100 and the 3300X. The new Matisse CPUs have landed just as Intel is about to launch its 10th Gen Comet Lake-S desktop lineup. While officially AMD is pitching the Zen 2 based quad-core chips against the existing 9th Gen Core i3 and i5, it’s pretty clear that they’ll primarily be fighting the upcoming Comet Lake designs in the months to come.
| MODEL | CORES/ THREADS | TDP | BOOST/BASE FREQ | L3 | MSRP | Launch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMD Ryzen™ 3 3300X | 4C/8T | 65W | 4.3/3.8GHz | 18MB | $120 | May 2020 |
| AMD Ryzen™ 3 3100 | 4C/8T | 65W | 3.9/3.6GHz | 18MB | $99 | May 2020 |
Both the Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300X are quad-core parts with SMT, bringing the thread count up to eight. The L3 cache is also identical on both chips with 18MB. The core difference is with respect to the clocks. The 3300X has a base and boost of 3.8GHz and 4.3GHz, respectively while the 3100 is limited to 3.9GHz (boost) and a base frequency of 3.6GHz.
There are a few other key differences between the two parts, but we’re not ready to discuss them just yet. Like most of the other Matisse processors, these too have a base TDP of 65W. The Ryzen 3 3100 will be priced at $99, while the 3300X will go for $120. The CPUs are expected to launch sometime in May.
With the Ryzen 3 1200 upgraded to the Zen+ design, the sub-$100 market has become a lot more competitive these days. In addition to the 1200 at $49 and the the 3100 at $99, you’ve got the hex-core Ryzen 5 1600 AF and Intel’s Core i3-9100F both going for $75-80. It’ll be interesting to see where the Comet Lake-based hyper-threaded i3s will be placed.
B550 Motherboards: PCIe 4 For the Masses
As already discussed earlier, the B550 chipsets will launch alongside the 3rd Gen Ryzen 3 processors, with limited PCIe 4 support. Unlike the X570 boards, the new PCIe standard won’t be available across all lanes, and instead be limited to the x16 slot and the NVMe socket.
