AMD Ryzen 3 1200 and 1300X Review

The latest Ryzen CPUs have been targeting the enthusiast/prosumer portion of the market, now gearing up to blow the lid off of the mainstream, we take a look at Ryzen 3.

Product on Review: Ryzen 3 1300X and Ryzen 3 1200
Manufacturer: AMD
MSRP: R3 1300X – UK: £124.99, US: $139
R3 1200 – UK: £104.99, US: $119

Many would have been excited by AMDs Ryzen release, driving the market and competition forward, though didn’t quite feel the need to upgrade due to not having £300+ to blow on a CPU, or simply because an 8c/16t CPU will be total overkill for their needs, but maybe you were tempted by Ryzen 5? If price is what concerns you most, then entering from just £104.99, you can get a Ryzen 3 CPU along with a great B350 motherboard for around £200 total. Tempted yet?

The Ryzen 3 1200 is a 4 core/ 4 thread CPU coming in with a base clock of 3.1GHz but features a 2 core boost to 3.4GHz, and XFR pushing it that little extra to 3.45GHz. Following this, the Ryzen 3, 1300X is clocked slightly higher at 3.5GHz, and features an all-core boost to 3.6GHz, a 2 core boost to 3.7GHz, and an XFR boost to 3.9GHz. Each has a total of 10MB cache (8MB L3 + 2MB L2) and features a 65W TDP, so are shipped with the Wraith Stealth cooler.

As Ryzen 3 is based on the same architecture as the Ryzen 5/7, you will also benefit from all the latest technologies AMD have crammed into these CPUs, including Pure Power (intelligent power management) and Precision Boost (works in tandem with Pure Power and the Infinity Fabric to get data and fine tune the clock speed, allowing for a much more responsive boost in frequency), as well as the XFR (llowing for additional performance if cooling allows it), and Neural Net Prediction (where the CPU predicts the behaviour of applications, priming it for incoming workloads). It would also be worth giving a nice reminder that both CPUs have an unlocked multiplier for overclocking on the B350 and X370 platform.

AMD on Ryzen

As AMD’s grand reentry to the “performance” segment of the PC gaming market, and as fresh competition for consumers in an otherwise stale segment, the AMD Ryzen™ 3 processor family represents an important moment in PC gaming history.

The industry climate for AMD Ryzen™ 3 processor is especially important, as enthusiast PC gamers have increasingly lamented its stagnant condition. Years of incremental upgrades, rising costs, artificial segmentation, and shrinking performance per dollar have left many users clamoring for a competitive alternative like the AMD Ryzen™ 3 processor.

The AMD Ryzen™ 3 processor was developed with these concerns in mind. Years of important user feedback was distilled into a product family with elite caliber single-thread IPC, multi-thread scalability, an ultra-modern platform, universally unlocked voltage and multipliers, competitive perf/W, and tremendous value. While no one quality stands above the rest, the sum is impressive: the AMD Ryzen™ 3 processor is easily the most versatile and gamer-friendly solution in recent memory.

Technical Specifications

The Ryzen 3 line up

Specifications
Model: Ryzen 3 1200
# of CPU Cores: 4
# of Threads: 4
Base Clock Speed: 3.1GHz
Max Turbo Core Speed: 3.4GHz
Total L1 Cache: 384KB
Total L2 Cache: 2MB
Total L3 Cache: 8MB
Unlocked: Yes
Package: AM4
Thermal Solution: Wraith Stealth
Default TDP: 65W

Memory
Memory Interface: DDR4
Memory Channels: 2

Key Features
Supported Technologies
“Zen” Core Architecture
AMD SenseMI Technology
AMD Ryzen Master Utility
AES
AVX
FMA4
Virtualization

Model: Ryzen 3 1300X
# of CPU Cores: 4
# of Threads: 4
Base Clock Speed: 3.5GHz
Max Turbo Core Speed: 3.7GHz
Total L1 Cache: 384KB
Total L2 Cache: 2MB
Total L3 Cache: 8MB
Unlocked: Yes
Package: AM4
Thermal Solution: Wraith Stealth
Default TDP: 65W

Memory
Memory Interface: DDR4
Memory Channels: 2

Key Features
Supported Technologies
“Zen” Core Architecture
AMD SenseMI Technology
AMD Ryzen Master Utility
AES
AVX
FMA4
Virtualization

For more information about Ryzen 7 and the platform features, Click Here.

Both CPUs are shipped with the Wraith Stealth cooler, which should do the job as these are both 65W TDP CPUs.

Test Setup & Testing

CPUs being tested
AMD Ryzen 3 1200 (3.1/3.4GHz) Summit Ridge
AMD Ryzen 3 1200 (3.9GHz OC) Summit Ridge
AMD Ryzen 3 1300X (3.4/3.7GHz) Summit Ridge

Test Setup
Cooling Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4
Motherboard GIGABYTE GA-AX370-GAMING 5
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000MHz
Graphics Radeon RX 480 8GB
Storage Corsair Force LE 480GB
PSU Corsair RM 750X 80 Plus Gold Certified PSU

Compared against
AMD Ryzen 5 1400 (3.2GHz) Summit Ridge
AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (3.2GHz) Summit Ridge
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 (3.0GHz) Summit Ridge
AMD Ryzen 7 1700X (3.4GHz) Summit Ridge
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X 3.6GHz) Summit Ridge
AMD FX-8350 (4.0GHz) PileDriver
Intel Core i5-7700K (4.2GHz) Kaby Lake
Intel Core i5-7600K (3.8GHz) Kaby Lake
Intel Core i7-6950X (3.0GHz) Broadwell-E
Intel Core 7-6900K (3.2GHz) Broadwell-E
Intel Core i7-5960X (3.0GHz) Haswell-E
Intel Core i7-6700K (4GHz) Skylake

Benchmarks

Cinebench R15 – CPU/OpenGL Score
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
SiSoftware SANDRA – CPU & Memory benchmarks
POV-RAY – CPU benchmarks
TrueCrypt – CPU benchmarks
AIDA64 – CPU benchmarks & Memory
PCMark 8 – Creative & Photoshop
3DMark FireStrike – 3D Benchmark
Games – Rise of the Tomb Raider & Total War: WARHAMMER

Other Software

Temperature Analysis: Aida64/Ryzen Master
Stress Testing Software: AIDA64 Stability Test
CPU Specification Monitoring: CPU-Z
Performance Monitoring: MSI Afterburner

Temperatures & Overclocking

Recently we revisited our temperature testing as, when we did our initial testing, we didn’t have a bracket for the AM4 platform for the Corsair H115i, we have now included the result for the 1800X here, and will update our future results to fall in line with the Intel chips which were all tested using an AIO liquid cooler.

Overclocking
The latest BIOS from GIGABYTE open up several new options for overclocking, specifically with the memory timings. The Ryzen 3 chips are capable of using 3000-3200mhz memory no problem, and will help give some minor performance improvements. Overclocking the CPU proved to be a little strange as we found that any manual voltage on the VCORE resulted in an underperforming R3 1200 CPU, though this could be a BIOS issue. Using AUTO voltage, the 1200 CPU managed to reach 3.9GHz, with 3333MHz memory no sweat. *EDIT* The overclocking issue has been fixed with a BIOS update**

Benchmarks: Power Consumption

It’s interesting to note the power consumption across all processors. Although they are using a combination of different motherboard chipsets, energy results can fluctuate between manufacturers due to the features and specifications that are integrated. First of all, for the idle tests the system is cold booted into Windows and no additional applications are executed – the watts are noted on the external energy monitor we use and then the system is loaded with 3DMark FireStrike – watts are again monitored for the duration of the test and the highest rated wattage result is then noted down. Below are the results of this energy test.

Ray Tracing Performance – POV-Ray 3.7

Persistence of Vision Raytracer’s PovRay is a free and open source 3D animator application with versions for computers with different operating systems.

This product allows users to build their custom 3D worlds with excellent quality despite their computer’s hardware. It has adjustable options for levels of radiance, refraction, and reflection. Calculation time may vary depending on the computer model, but PovRay can adapt to many computer builds, and is supported by the open source community.

AES Encryption Performance – TrueCrypt 7.1a

TrueCrypt is a discontinued source-available freeware utility used for on-the-fly encryption (OTFE). It can create a virtual encrypted disk within a file or encrypt a partition or (under Microsoft Windows except Windows 8 with GPT) the entire storage device (pre-boot authentication).

Encoding Performance – X264 HD

Simply put, this test measures how fast your machine can encode a short, DVD quality MPEG-2 video clip into a high-quality x264 video clip. What’s x264, you ask? It’s more or less the next-generation Xvid/DivX codec. I think it’s ideal for a benchmark because the application (x264.exe) reports fairly accurate compression results (in frames per second) for each pass of the video encoding process, and it uses multi-core processors very efficiently.

Processing Features Performance – AIDA64

AIDA64 Product Page

This simple integer benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and the misprediction penalties of the CPU. It finds the solutions for the classic “Queens problem” on a 10 by 10 sized chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores. For example — with HyperThreading disabled — the Intel Northwood core processors get higher scores than the Intel Prescott core based ones due to the 20-step vs 31-step long pipeline. CPU Queen test uses integer MMX, SSE2 and SSSE3 optimizations.

Memory Transfer Performance – AIDA64

AIDA64 Product Page

Memory bandwidth benchmarks (Memory Read, Memory Write, Memory Copy) measure the maximum achiveable memory data transfer bandwidth. The code behind these benchmark methods are written in Assembly and they are extremely optimized for every popular AMD, Intel and VIA processor core variants by utilizing the appropriate x86/x64, x87, MMX, MMX+, 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2, SSE4.1, AVX, and AVX2 instruction set extension.

The Memory Latency benchmark measures the typical delay when the CPU reads data from system memory. Memory latency time means the penalty measured from the issuing of the read command until the data arrives to the integer registers of the CPU.

Processing Power Performance – Cinebench R15

CINEBENCH can measure systems with up to 64 processor threads. This test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects which in turn contain more than 300,000 polygons in total, and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights, shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. The result is displayed in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor.

Bandwidth Performance – SiSoftware SANDRA

SANDRA isn’t always a benchmark that is included in hardware reviews but I believe it shouldn’t be ignored. SANDRA provides a vigorous package that tests your system in a rather large array of benchmarks. There are many aspects of benchmark that can be executed. We will be considering – CPU and memory tests.

Image Editing Performance – PCMark 8 Photoshop

PCMark 8 Product Page

Developed in partnership with Benchmark Development Program members Acer, AMD, Condusiv Technologies, Dell, HGST, HP, Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Samsung, SanDisk, Seagate and Western Digital, PCMark 8 is the latest version in FutureMark’s popular series of PC benchmarking tools. Improving on previous releases, PCMark 8 includes new tests using popular applications from Adobe and Microsoft.

Overall System Performance – PCMark 8

PCMark 8 Product Page

VR Performance – VRMark

VRMark Product Page

VRMark includes two VR benchmark tests that run on your monitor, no headset required, or on a connected HMD. At the end of each test, you’ll see whether your PC is VR ready, and if not, how far it falls short.

3D Performance – 3DMark FireStrike

3DMark FireStrike Product Page

Fire Strike is our new showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. It is our most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today. Fire Strike will only be available in the Windows editions of 3DMark initially.

Gaming Performance – Rise of the Tomb Raider & Total War: WARHAMMER

It’s important for us to perform a number of game benchmarks as well as the synthetic tests because gamers will want to know if there are any significant benefits. So here we have two recent gaming titles.

Conclusion

In our testing, Ryzen 3 has thrown up some dramatically interesting results, and when you consider the updates and optimisations AMD has made since the release of the Ryzen family, it is understandable. Price to compete against the i3 7300 and the i3 7100, the Ryzen 3 1200 and 1300X throw up some remarkable numbers where they compete against some of the most expensive CPUs in the market, specifically in regards to 3D gaming performance! This could be seen as the Ryzen 3 CPU having a slightly stronger single threaded performance due to having no SMT.

Our testing has revealed that the Ryzen 3 line up has brought what is close to i5/i7 level performance down to a very affordable level, considering that the potential platform cost (Motherboard, CPU and RAM) could be from around just £250, there is real incentive to upgrade, especially if you are stuck on a dithering dual core system.

There are some things worth noting, one is that we observe that the Ryzen 3 CPUs aren’t quite as power efficient as the Intel offerings under load, however, our recent line of motherboard tests have found that the GIGABYTE X370 Gaming 5 motherboard uses around 15-30 more watts than the competitors (likely due to the number of LED lights it has), and so the actual power draw may fairly lower than what is represented in the results. Regardless, the figures aren’t too far from the same ball park as the Ryzen 7 CPUs. Another thing worth noting is that like the rest of the current Ryzen family, the Ryzen 3 CPUs do not have an integrated GPU, which may not suit some mainstream users and others that like to fall back on such convenience where necessary, though this will unlikely be an issue for gamers which are likely to opt for a more competent discrete graphics card.

Aside from those few points, the Ryzen 3 CPUs are another volley of shots fired at the blue team. The 1200 CPU is set to be the chip for the confident overclocker and gamer, while the 1300X gives reassurance and peace of mind for those that would prefer to run at out-the-box settings, giving an awesome array of core boosts.

Ryzen 3 bursts into the mainstream with quad-core performance that, until now, has been largely inaccessible for many people. Gamers rejoice, there has never been a better time to move to the PC!

Pros
+ Low platform cost
+ Easy to overclock
+ Sense MI technologies
+ Very low thermal output
+ Great for gamers
+ Competitive mainstream performance

Neutral
+- No RGB Wraith cooler (Why not make them more accessible AMD?)

Cons
– No iGPU

Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.