The AMD Ryzen 3 3300X and 3100 CPU Review: A Budget Gaming Bonanza
by Dr. Ian Cutress on May 7, 2020 9:00 AM EST*We are currently in the middle of revisiting our CPU gaming benchmarks, but the new suite was not ready in time for this review. We plan to add in some new games (Borderland 3, Gears Tactics) and also upgrade our gaming GPU to a RTX 2080 Ti.
Gaming: Final Fantasy XV
Upon arriving to PC earlier this, Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition was given a graphical overhaul as it was ported over from console, fruits of their successful partnership with NVIDIA, with hardly any hint of the troubles during Final Fantasy XV's original production and development.
In preparation for the launch, Square Enix opted to release a standalone benchmark that they have since updated. Using the Final Fantasy XV standalone benchmark gives us a lengthy standardized sequence to record, although it should be noted that its heavy use of NVIDIA technology means that the Maximum setting has problems - it renders items off screen. To get around this, we use the standard preset which does not have these issues.
Square Enix has patched the benchmark with custom graphics settings and bugfixes to be much more accurate in profiling in-game performance and graphical options. For our testing, we run the standard benchmark with a FRAPs overlay, taking a 6 minute recording of the test.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
| AnandTech | IGP | Low | Medium | High |
| Average FPS |  |
 |
 |
 |
| 95th Percentile |  |
 |
 |
 |
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
249 Comments
View All Comments
Spunjji - Monday, May 11, 2020 - link
Those were the days!stardude82 - Thursday, May 7, 2020 - link
What I get from this is my 9 year old Sandy Bridge i7 is probably good enough for modern games when not playing with a $1000 video card.Spunjji - Monday, May 11, 2020 - link
Quite correct, if it's overclocked. There are a few exceptions, though, and there will be more over the next few years. Sandy was a beast.stardude82 - Thursday, May 7, 2020 - link
Hey, Ian, for my edification, what happens if you turned HT/SMT for one of the quad-cores? Do modern games tank?boozed - Thursday, May 7, 2020 - link
It's been a while since I've seen game benchmarks at 800x600!watzupken - Thursday, May 7, 2020 - link
It is impressive that a low end AMD chip soundly beat the ex flagship, 7700K. The 3300X is certainly the better option to go for between the 2 entry level Ryzen.Alexvrb - Thursday, May 7, 2020 - link
I have to chuckle a bit when I see Dwarf Fortress as a "new" benchmark. I doubt it uses any modern processor to its fullest.Ian Cutress - Friday, May 8, 2020 - link
Over the last couple of years it's been requested a few times. I finally got around to sorting out a benchmark for it and adding it into our automated script. Seems to work almost flawlessly on any system I'm testing it on. That big gen test can take 1hr+ though.Deicidium369 - Friday, May 8, 2020 - link
Dwarf Fortress is the gaming equivalent to dentists - pure sadismSpunjji - Monday, May 11, 2020 - link
The results seem to indicate that it prefers clock speed over either threads or IPC.