AMD actually outdid themselves once they launched their Ryzen 3000 CPUs final yr, and the Ryzen 5 3600 was a specific spotlight. It was wonderful worth within the face of Intel’s costlier (and cooler-less) Core i5-9600K, and it’s been my processor of selection in each my best gaming CPU rankings and my RPS Rig construct ever because it got here out. Somehow, although, they’ve managed to give you one thing even higher than the Ryzen 5 3600 for nearly half the value. Enter the Ryzen 3 3300X, the brand new Ryzen 5 and Core i5 killer that prices simply $120.
We’ve been ready a very long time for AMD’s third Gen Ryzen Three CPUs to pitch up, however judging by the 3300X’s benchmark outcomes, it’s been greater than definitely worth the wait. As you’ll quickly see under, this Four core / Eight thread processor not solely goes toe to toe with the 6 core / 12 thread Ryzen 5 3600 for general gaming efficiency, nevertheless it additionally provides the $200 Core i5-9600Okay an actual run for its cash, too.
Of course, it could be remiss of me to not point out the truth that Intel are about to launch a complete new swathe of desktop gaming CPUs later this month within the type of their 10th Gen Comet Lake CPUs. Only a handful of them are literally on account of launch in May, admittedly, however that small quantity does embody the Core i5-9600Okay’s successor, the Core i5-10600Okay. As a end result, it’s troublesome to say proper now whether or not the Ryzen 3 3300X will have the ability to maintain on to its ‘killer’ standing come the tip of the month, however given the Core i5-10600Okay is because of value a relatively extravagant $262 at launch, I’m fairly sure that its ‘bargain’ standing will stay firmly intact.
Clocked at a large 3.8GHz with the power to spice up as much as 4.3GHz, the Ryzen 3 3300X is, to place it mildly, an absolute beast of a quad-core CPU. As you’ll quickly see within the graphs under, AMD’s $120 chip places in a fully stonking efficiency relating to 1080p gaming, making it a wonderful basis for budget-conscious PC builders.
Of course, as I’ve talked about in earlier CPU evaluations, testing a processor’s gaming efficiency remains to be a little bit of a difficult endeavor, as a number of in-game benchmarks both don’t check your CPU correctly or simply aren’t very correct within the first place. Fortunately, a handful of gaming benchmarks have gotten quite a bit higher at this not too long ago, with the likes of Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, Forza Horizon 4, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and the Total War games all offering an in-depth have a look at your CPU’s efficiency in addition to what your graphics card is doing.
However, there are different components that may have an effect on gaming efficiency as nicely comparable to your graphics card, the kind of RAM you’ve acquired and what sort of storage you’ve acquired your games put in on. I’ve tried to mitigate these results as a lot as I can through the use of an NVMe SSD for my games storage in addition to right this moment’s best graphics card, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. I’ve additionally examined it with my RAM’s default velocity of 2133MHz and at its overclocked velocity of 3000MHz.
And the outcomes… nicely, simply have a look at them. In each game going, the Ryzen 3 3300X is neck and neck with the Ryzen 5 3600, and even edges in entrance of it in Forza Horizon 4. The Core i5-9600Okay remains to be a good manner out in entrance in a number of instances, however after I examined the Ryzen 3 3300X once more with my RAM clocked at 3000MHz, it closed the hole fairly significantly, hitting a mean of 114fps in Tomb Raider, 113fps in Total War, 147fps in Forza Horizon Four and an an identical 71fps in Assassin’s Creed.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t in a position to check the Core i5-9600Okay at this RAM velocity final yr, so it’s troublesome to say whether or not it could have obtained an analogous type of carry. All issues thought-about, although, the Ryzen 3 3300X nonetheless places in a mighty spectacular efficiency for those who ask me, and is unquestionably a significantly better purchase than its equally new sibling, the Ryzen 3 3100.
The Ryzen 5 3600 nonetheless comes out on prime for common desktop efficiency, however once more the hole isn’t as massive as you may suppose. Indeed, after I ran Cinebench R20’s single core check, it was the Ryzen 3 3300X on the prime of the pile, ending the check with a rating of 498 in comparison with the Ryzen 5’s 452 and the Core i5-9600Okay’s 429. It couldn’t catch the Ryzen 5 3600 on multicore efficiency (which isn’t stunning, given the Ryzen 5 3600 has 6 cores and 12 threads at its disposal), however its rating of 2460 remains to be quicker than its Core i5 competitors.
That’s an unimaginable feat for a $120 CPU, and it’s arguably one of the crucial spectacular CPUs I’ve ever examined. As I mentioned earlier, I’ll be ready with bated breath to see how Intel’s 10th Gen Comet Lake CPUs stack up by comparability, however AMD have very a lot thrown down the gauntlet right here with the Ryzen 3 3300X, and I’ll be very stunned certainly if any of their similarly-priced Core i3 CPUs will have the ability to match it. Yes, the Core i5-9600Okay nonetheless wins the numbers game relating to general gaming efficiency, however when it comes to worth for cash, the Ryzen 3 3300X has it crushed fingers down. It’s so good, in reality, that it’s my new CPU of selection within the RPS Rig, and my new funds AMD CPU champion in my best gaming CPU rankings.
