The AMD Ryzen 3 1300X and Ryzen 3 1200 CPU Review: Zen on a Budget
by Ian Cutress on July 27, 2017 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- AMD
- Zen
- Ryzen
- Ryzen 3
- Ryzen 3 1300X
- Ryzen 3 1200
Conclusion
For as much hype and excitement that has been generated around Zen and the Ryzen products so far, with everything focused on the high-end when we hit the lower elements of the stack and the volume parts, not much ‘excitement’ is to be had. We’ve already gone through the new fancy microarchitecture and the platform, and what matters at this end of the spectrum is a pure performance per dollar metric. So far the Ryzen 7 parts have certainly hit that goal, especially when originally compared to Broadwell-E when the Ryzen 7 parts per launched. For the Ryzen 3, the direct competition is Kaby Lake, and CPUs with a much higher IPC. But where Intel has two cores, AMD has four.
Diving straight into the graphs, the Single Thread performance graph is as follows. All data is shown relative to the performance of the Ryzen 3 1300X.
For the AMD CPUs, the 1300X and 1500X are near in base/turbo frequency (3400/3700 vs 3500/3700) and so score about the same, and the Ryzen 3 1200 at 3100/3400 scores about 13% lower.
The Intel CPUs here show a distinct curve from the Pentium G4560 at 3.5 GHz through the Core i3s at 3.9 GHz, 4.0 GHz and 4.1 GHz. The Core i5 7400 scores a lot lower here, with its base frequency of 3.0 GHz and a turbo up to 3.5 GHz.
For the multi-thread performance:
We shopped the graph here at +20% otherwise it would look odd, but the Ryzen 5 1500X with simultaneous multithreading gets a +40% boost over the 1300X, while the Ryzen 3 1200 sits again at around -12%. All the dual core intel parts lag behind here compared to AMD’s quad cores, although the Ryzen 3 1200 and the Core i3-7300 are closely matched – but the Ryzen wins on price by being ~$40 cheaper. The Core i5-7400, competes against the Ryzen 3 1300X here as they are both quad cores, and the Intel wins despite the lower frequency due to higher IPC – which comes at a $50+ premium.
For our combined all-in-one graph, we included our mixed workload data and weighted the results 40:50:10 for single:multi:mixed thread workloads.
If we ignore the Ryzen 5 1500X in the top right corner, there are a few stories here.
First is that the Ryzen 3 1200 does not look like an attractive option. It performs +2-3% of the Pentium but is $30 more expensive, and the Core i3-7100 beats it by 8% for only a sub-$10 cost.
Then there is the Ryzen 3 1300X. Compared to the Core i3-7300/7320 and the Core i5-7400, it clearly wins on performance per dollar all around. Compared to the Core i3-7100 though, it offers almost 5% more performance for around $10-15 more, which is just under 10% of the cost. Depending on budgets, each one could be an attractive option.
We’re still working through our gaming testing as this review goes live, and we’ll add graphs for that in a bit.
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Oxford Guy - Thursday, July 27, 2017 - link
"The Ryzen 3 1200 brings up the rear of the stack, being the lowest CPU in the stack, having the lowest frequency at 3.1G base, 3.4G turbo, 3.1G all-core turbo, no hyperthreading and the lowest amount of L3 cache."That bit about the L3 is incorrect unless the chart on page 1 is incorrect. It shows the same L3 size for 1400, 1300X, and 1200.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, July 27, 2017 - link
And this:"Number 3 leads to a lop-sided silicon die, and obviously wasn’t chosen."
Obviously?
Oxford Guy - Thursday, July 27, 2017 - link
"DDR4-2400 C15"2400, really — even though it is, obviously, known that Zen needs faster RAM to perform efficiently?
Joel Hruska managed to test Ryzen with 3200 speed RAM on his day 1 review. I bought 16 GB of 3200 RAM from Microcenter last Christmastime for $80. Just because RAM prices are nuts right now doesn't mean we should gut Ryzen's performance by sticking it with low-speed RAM.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, July 27, 2017 - link
"This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy"Maybe you guys should rethink your logic.
1) You have claimed, when overclocking, that it's not necessary to do full stability testing, like with Prime. Just passing some lower-grade stress testing is enough to make an overclock "stable enough".
2) Your overclocking reviews have pushed unwise levels of voltage into CPUs to go along with this "stable enough" overclock.
So... you argue against proof of true stability, both in the final overclock settings being satisfactorily tested and in safe voltages being decided upon.
And — simultaneously — kneecap Zen processors by using silly JEDEC standards, trying to look conservative?
Please.
Everyone knows the JEDEC standard applies to enterprise. Patriot is just one manufacturer of RAM that tested and certified far better RAM performance on B350 and A320 Zen boards. You had that very article on your site just a short time ago.
Your logic doesn't add up. It is not a significant enough cost savings for system builders to go with slow RAM for Zen. The only argument you can use, at all, is that OEMs are likely to kneecap Zen with slow RAM. That is not a given, though. OEMs can use faster RAM, like, at least, 2666, if they choose to. If they're marketing toward gamers they likely will.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, July 27, 2017 - link
"Truth be told I never actually played the first version, but every edition from the second to the sixth, including the fifth as voiced by the late Leonard Nimoy"You mean Civ IV.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, July 27, 2017 - link
And, yeah, we can afford to test with an Nvidia 1080 but we can't afford to use decent speed RAM.Yeah... makes sense.
Hixbot - Thursday, July 27, 2017 - link
Are you having a conversation with yourself? Try to condense your points into a single post.Oxford Guy - Friday, July 28, 2017 - link
I don't live in a static universe where all of the things I'm capable of thinking of are immediately apparent, but thanks for the whine.Manch - Friday, July 28, 2017 - link
Really snowflake? You're saying he is whining? How many rants have you posted? LOL The difference between 2400 and 3200 shows up more on the higher end processors bc bigger L3 & HT err SMT. The diff in CPU bound gaming is 5-10% at most with the Ryzen 7's. Smaller with the 5's. Even more so with the 3's. Small enough to the point that it would not change the outlook on the CPU's. Also consider that if Ian change the parameters of his test constantly it would also skew numbers more so and render bench unreliable. Test the Ryzen 7's with 2133 then the 5's with 2400 then the 3's with 3200? Obviously anandtechs test are not the definitive performance bench mark for the world. What it is, is a reliably consistent benchmark allowing you to compare diff cpus with as little changed as possible as too not skew performance. Think EPA gas mileage stickers on cars. Will you get that rating? maybe. What it does is it gives you comparative results. From there its fairly easy to extrapolate the difference. Now I'm sure they will as they have in the past update there baseline specs for testing. You're running off the rails about how much the memory effects are. Look at all the youtube vids and other reviews out there. Difference yes. A lot? meh I also believe anandtech has mentioned doing a write up on the latest agesa update since its had a significant impact(including memory) on the series.Oxford Guy - Friday, July 28, 2017 - link
"You're saying he is whining? How many rants have you posted?"Pot kettle fallacy.