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AMD’s new Ryzen 3 processors are the $100 chips your budget gaming rig needs

Chuong Nguyen
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AMD is expanding its third-generation Ryzen desktop processor family with the quad-core Ryzen 3 3100 and Ryzen 3 3300X CPUs. While these new silicon are more affordably priced starting at $100, they still pack plenty of performance.

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Based on AMD’s Zen 2 architecture, the company claimed that the Ryzen 3 3100 delivers up to 20% better 1080p gaming and 75% better content creation performance when compared to the competing Intel Core i3-9100. This is the same microarchitecture used in the AMD’s new Ryzen 4000 mobile processors as well.

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“Taking advantage of the AMD world-class portfolio of technologies, these new Ryzen 3 desktop processors bring the groundbreaking ‘Zen 2’ core architecture to business users, gamers, and creators worldwide, leveraging Simultaneous Multi-threading (SMT) technology for increased productivity,” the company said in a statement. AMD claimed that its latest desktop processors are the fastest Ryzen 3 chips ever made.

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Priced at $99 for the Ryzen 3 3100 and $120 for the Ryzen 3 3300X, these new processors finally bring AMD’s 7nm architecture to a price point under $200. The chipsets will be available at various retailers when they launch in May.

Though AMD offered direct performance comparison between the Ryzen 3 3100 and Intel’s Core i3-9100 in a variety of benchmarks, the company did not do this for the more premium 3300X. However, the performance of the 3300X should give AMD an even bigger advantage against Intel’s mainstream processor.

With Intel readying its 10th-gen Comet Lake series processors launch, we’ll have to see if Ryzen 3’s performance leadership will still hold up against newer competition.

Both Ryzen 3 processors use a four-core, eight-thread design and a maximum 65-watt TDP. The Ryzen 3 3100 has a base clock speed of 3.6GHz and a boost speed of 3.9GHz, while the Ryzen 3 3300X starts at a slightly higher 3.8GHz base clock speed and can go up to 4.3GHz.

These processors have 18MB cache, which helps reduce memory latency for faster gaming performance. AMD’s Ryzen family scales up to a premium 16-core, 32-thread design on the Ryzen 9 3950X made for performance seeking gaming enthusiasts.

In addition to the Ryzen 3 processors, AMD also announced that its B550 chipset will be coming in June. Compared to AMD’s premium X570 chipset, B550 gives AMD gamers a cheaper option to obtain PCIe 4.0 performance and speeds. Thanks to PCIe 4.0 support, the B550 delivers twice the bandwidth when compared to the older B450 design, AMD stated.

The AMD B550 will be available beginning June 16 from ODM partners, like ASRock, Asus, Biostar, Colorful, Gigabyte, and MSI.

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Chuong Nguyen
Chuong Nguyen
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Silicon Valley-based technology reporter and Giants baseball fan who splits his time between Northern California and Southern…
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