AMD Ryzen 3 3100 & 3300X Quad-core CPU Performance Review

Benchmarking a CPU may sound like a simple enough task, but in order to deliver accurate, repeatable results, strict guidelines need to be adhered to. This makes for rigorous, time-consuming testing, but we feel that the effort is worth it.

This page exists so that we can be open about how we test, and give those who care about testing procedures an opportunity to review our methodology before flaming us in the comments. Here, you can see a breakdown of all of our test machines, specifics about the tests themselves, and other general information that might be useful.

Let’s start with a look at the test platforms. For AMD’s AM4, we’re using ASRock’s X570 TAICHI, while for Intel’s Z390, we’re using ASUS’ ROG STRIX Z390-E GAMING. For this particular review, we didn’t test AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper or Intel’s Core X-series, as both of these reviewed chips don’t need them to help paint a fuller picture. No one eying a $120 CPU is going to suddenly decide on one that costs over $1,000.

As for Intel’s 10th-gen, we have two chips we’ll be benchmarking in full soon, but again, neither of those would help the performance picture here, since neither one competes directly with these Ryzen 3 chips. We sadly do not have any current generation Intel i3 and i5 processors at hand for a price-point comparison.

Our AMD platform is configured simply: XMP for DDR4-3600 is enabled, and that’s enough to get the performance we expect. On the Intel platform, XMP is also enabled, but the ASUS MultiCore Enhancement feature which auto-overclocks the CPU is disabled. The memory speed for Intel is also decreased to DDR4-3200, because we couldn’t get 3600MHz stable this go-around (despite hitting it before). In the future, we’re likely to stick to 3200MHz memory across-the-board(s), because we’ve also had flaky performance on AMD AM4 before.

On the security mitigation front, nothing is explicitly done outside of having the most up-to-date EFI and chipset driver installed on every motherboard. Systems are effectively default, and whichever security mitigations are applied will be automatic ones applied by the motherboard firmware or driver vendor. All platforms are run with 64GB (16-18-18) memory configurations.

Here’s the full breakdown of the test rigs:

Techgage’s CPU Testing Platforms

Testing Considerations

For our testing, we use Windows 10 build 18363 (1909) with full updates. Here are some basic guidelines we follow:

• Disruptive services are disabled; eg: Search, Cortana, User Account Control, Defender, etc.
• Overlays and / or other extras are not installed with the graphics driver.
• Vsync is disabled at the driver level.
• Power profiles used: High / Ultimate Performance for Intel, Ryzen Balanced for AMD.
• OSes are never transplanted from one machine to another.
• We validate system configurations before kicking off any test run.
• Testing doesn’t begin until the PC is idle (keeps a steady minimum wattage).
• All tests are repeated until there is a high degree of confidence in the results.
• Benchmarks of modern workloads matter, so we always try to use up-to-date software.

Encoding Tests

Encoding: Adobe Lightroom

Encoding: Adobe Premiere Pro

Encoding: Blackmagic RAW Speed Test

Photogrammetry: Agisoft Metashape

Music Encoding: LameXP

Adobe Lightroom Classic
Adobe Premiere Pro
Agisoft Metashape
Blackmagic RAW Speed Test
HandBrake
LameXP

(You can click each name to go straight to that result.)

Rendering Tests

Rendering: Autodesk Arnold in Maya

Rendering: Blender

Rendering: Chaos Czech Corona Renderer in 3ds Max

Rendering: Chaos Group V-Ray Next in 3ds Max

Rendering: Luxion KeyShot

Rendering: MAXON Cinebench

Rendering: MAXON Cinema 4D

Rendering: POV-Ray

Rendering: V-Ray Next Benchmark

Arnold (Maya 2019) (Also relevant to: 3ds Max, C4D, Houdini, Katana, Softimage)
Blender
Cinebench
Corona (3ds Max 2019) (Also relevant to: C4D)
KeyShot (Also relevant to: 3ds Max, Maya, Creo, SketchUp, SolidWorks, NX, Rhino)
POV-Ray
V-Ray Next (3ds Max 2019) (Also relevant to: C4D, Houdini, Maya, Rhino, SketchUp)
V-Ray Benchmark
SiSoftware Sandra 2020

(You can click each name to go straight to that result.)

If you think there’s some information lacking on this page, or you simply want clarification on anything in particular, don’t hesitate to leave a comment.