AMD Ryzen 3 3300X Review: The New Budget Gaming King

Today, we’ll be having a look at the Ryzen 3 3300X, after a month-long delay. The review will consist of our standard 11-game benchmark suite comparing the 3300X with the older members of the Matisse family as well as contemporary Intel parts. The second section will comprise of content creation and productivity benchmarks such as Cinebench, V-ray, Kraken, 7-zip, etc. Let’s begin:

Test Bench

• GPU: NVIDIA RTX 2080 Super FE
• Motherboard: ASRock X570 Taichi
• RAM: G.Skill Trident Z Royal 8GB x 2 @ 3600MHz CL16
• Storage: WD Black 4TB
• PSU: Corsair HX1000i

AMD Ryzen 3 3300X vs 3100

Before we head on the benchmarks, I’d like to talk a bit about the Ryzen 3 family. On paper, the only difference between the two is with respect to the operating clocks. However, in reality, the CCX configuration or topography of the 3100 and 3300X are completely different.

While the 3100 combines two active CCXs with two cores active in each, the 3300X uses just a single CCX with all four cores active and the other CCX is disabled. This means that the latter features tighter core-to-core latencies and a unified 16MB L3 cache chunk, resulting in better gaming performance. You can read more about the differences between the two CPUs here.

AMD Ryzen 3 3300X: Gaming Benchmarks

Comparing the Ryzen 3 3300X against the Ryzen 5 3600X, 3700X, and 3900X, it’s glaring to see that most games still fail to make proper use of higher-end CPUs. The averages of all four processors are within 5% of one another, and while the lows are superior for the 8-core and 12-core parts, the deltas aren’t really significantly. This just shows how little progress games have really made on this front, most likely due to the Jaguar cores powering the present-gen consoles. We expect this will change with the next-generation consoles which are based on AMD’s Zen 2 cores.

Benchmarks continue on the next page

Comparing the Ryzen 3 3300X to Intel’s Core i5-9400 and i3-9100, the former mostly comes out on top with the 9400F leveling with it in some games like Far Cry 5 where scaling is limited. It’s clear that AMD designed the 3300X with gaming in mind and it shows.

Content Creation and Productivity

The multi-threaded benchmarks which include content creation, file compression, encoding and browsing, all see the Ryzen 3 3300X take the fight to Intel. The presence of SMT means that the 3300X is even comparable to the higher-end Core i5-9600K and at times even the 9700K. Regardless, in the Matisse family, the 3300X is at the bottom of the chart (not including the 3100) which is expected considering the lower thread count.

Conclusion: 1080p Gaming @ $125

The Ryzen 3 3300X is a surprisingly capable processor. Not only does it level with the higher-end Ryzen 3000 parts in gaming, but it also beats rival Core i3 and i5 chips. In content creation and everything else, it gives the Intel competition a run for its money, delivering markedly higher performance, all the while costing less. For budget gaming, this is the new gold standard, leaving you with enough spare cash to opt for a high-end GPU.

We’ll be measuring the power draw and overclocking both the 3100 as well as the 3300X in a separate post. Stay tuned for that!

PS: In case you’re wondering why the newer Core i3-10100 or 10300 weren’t tested, it’s cos we haven’t been able to procure them. Neither has anyone we know (yet). Blame Intel’s PR team for that.