The AMD Ryzen 3 3300X and 3100 CPU Review: A Budget Gaming Bonanza
by Dr. Ian Cutress on May 7, 2020 9:00 AM ESTCPU Performance: New Tests!
As part of our ever on-going march towards a better rounded view of the performance of these processors, we have a few new tests for you that we’ve been cooking in the lab. Some of these new benchmarks provide obvious talking points, others are just a bit of fun. Most of them are so new we’ve only run them on a few processors so far. It will be interesting to hear your feedback!
NAMD ApoA1
One frequent request over the years has been for some form of molecular dynamics simulation. Molecular dynamics forms the basis of a lot of computational biology and chemistry when modeling specific molecules, enabling researchers to find low energy configurations or potential active binding sites, especially when looking at larger proteins. We’re using the NAMD software here, or Nanoscale Molecular Dynamics, often cited for its parallel efficiency. Unfortunately the version we’re using is limited to 64 threads on Windows, but we can still use it to analyze our processors. We’re simulating the ApoA1 protein for 10 minutes, and reporting back the ‘nanoseconds per day’ that our processor can simulate. Molecular dynamics is so complex that yes, you can spend a day simply calculating a nanosecond of molecular movement.
Crysis CPU Render
One of the most oft used memes in computer gaming is ‘Can It Run Crysis?’. The original 2007 game, built in the Crytek engine by Crytek, was heralded as a computationally complex title for the hardware at the time and several years after, suggesting that a user needed graphics hardware from the future in order to run it. Fast forward over a decade, and the game runs fairly easily on modern GPUs, but we can also apply the same concept to pure CPU rendering – can the CPU render Crysis? Since 64 core processors entered the market, one can dream. We built a benchmark to see whether the hardware can.
Smooth#canitruncrysis pic.twitter.com/k7x31ULndF
— ๐ท๐. ๐ผ๐๐ ๐ถ๐ข๐ก๐๐๐ ๐ (@IanCutress) May 4, 2020
For this test, we’re running Crysis’ own GPU benchmark, but in CPU render mode. This is a 2000 frame test, which we run over a series of resolutions from 800x600 up to 1920x1080.
Crysis CPU Render Frames Per Second |
||||||
AnandTech | 800 x600 |
1024 x768 |
1280 x800 |
1366 x768 |
1600 x900 |
1920 x1080 |
AMD | ||||||
Ryzen 9 4900HS | 11.50 | 8.75 | 7.44 | 6.83 | 5.21 | 4.30 |
Ryzen 5 3600 | 9.98 | 7.84 | 6.69 | 6.15 | 4.75 | 3.92 |
Ryzen 3 3300X | 8.42 | 6.52 | 5.43 | 5.01 | 3.92 | 3.07 |
Ryzen 3 3100 | 7.50 | 5.78 | 4.87 | 4.5 | 3.54 | 2.77 |
Intel | ||||||
Core i7-7700K | 7.63 | 5.87 | 4.95 | 4.55 | 3.57 | 2.79 |
Core i7-9750H | 6.78 | 5.17 | 4.37 | 3.99 | 3.12 | 2.46 |
Dwarf Fortress
Another long standing request for our benchmark suite has been Dwarf Fortress, a popular management/roguelike indie video game, first launched in 2006. Emulating the ASCII interfaces of old, this title is a rather complex beast, which can generate environments subject to millennia of rule, famous faces, peasants, and key historical figures and events. The further you get into the game, depending on the size of the world, the slower it becomes.
DFMark is a benchmark built by vorsgren on the Bay12Forums that gives two different modes built on DFHack: world generation and embark. These tests can be configured, but range anywhere from 3 minutes to several hours. I’ve barely scratched the surface here, but after analyzing the test, we ended up going for three different world generation sizes.
Interestingly Intel's hardware likes Dwarf Fortress.
We also have other benchmarks in the wings, such as AI Benchmark (ETH), LINPACK, and V-Ray, however they still require a bit of tweaking to get working it seems.
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ksec - Thursday, May 7, 2020 - link
It was only yday I asked on forum what is happening to Intel 7nm CPU. We know Tiger Lake is coming, then there is Alderlake. And that is it.Again, despite all these, AMD needs to "sell" better. The results from their quarterly report are no way near good enough.
outsideloop - Thursday, May 7, 2020 - link
Hardware Unboxed includes the 9th Gen i3 and i5 parts against these new Ryzens, in their testing.CrystalCowboy - Thursday, May 7, 2020 - link
About the test setup: No PCIe 4.0 graphics cards. No PCIe 4.0 NVME SSD. You are handicapping these CPUs by not letting them take full advantage of their features. If an older or lesser CPU cannot support these features, well then it deserves to score lower for it. You did use DDR4-3200 RAM, thanks for that.Ian Cutress - Thursday, May 7, 2020 - link
Users with a $99 CPU are going to use a PCIe 4.0 SSD? really?How do I keep the storage element consistent between tests then, to make sure I'm actually testing the CPU? How do I keep that storage constant for CPUs 10 years ago?
Makaveli - Thursday, May 7, 2020 - link
Yup Ian,That complaint is ridiculous, almost no one is going PCIe 4 storage in a budget build.
MDD1963 - Thursday, May 7, 2020 - link
can't wait for a water block equipped X570 for $800 and the R3-3100 to get the best OC's possible with muh PCI-e 4.0 storage......!!!! :) (Who cares if PCI-e 4.0 drives sometimes fare 1-3% worse than the 970 EVO in some real world comparisons!)eastcoast_pete - Friday, May 8, 2020 - link
Maybe it's because after buying a PCIe 4 capable MB and a PCIe 4 SSD, I wouldn't have any money left to buy a CPU for more than $ 100? Kidding, of course, this challenge makes no sense.That aside, it would be interesting to see what kind of CPU can actually make good use of PCIe 4 capable MBs and fast storage.
Deicidium369 - Friday, May 8, 2020 - link
$500 Car w/ $10,000 rimsMDD1963 - Thursday, May 7, 2020 - link
Yes, PCI-e 4.0 SSDs would have help *so much* on ... gaming frame rates.... <exaggerated overtly obvious eye roll> :)eastcoast_pete - Thursday, May 7, 2020 - link
Thanks Ian! If possible, please add some performance numbers for the current i3 and i5 in. Right now, AMD owns the below $200 space for desktop CPUs. Also, data from other websites that had some i5-9100 on hand show that the 3100 A.K.A AMD's leftover dies, are outperforming Intel's offerings here.Really hope Intel steps up, and soon. I'm hoping to buy something later this year, so whoever gives me the most bang for my buck gets my money.