# AMD Ryzen 3 3300X



## W1zzard (May 7, 2020)

AMD Ryzen 3 3300X crams all its cores into a single CCX. We tested the CCX impact in our review with impressive results, especially in games, where the new CPU design achieves great numbers that are close enough to more expensive Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 models, especially if you consider the cost savings.

*Show full review*


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## TheLostSwede (May 7, 2020)

That's really impressive for $120.
Looks like the budget choice to go for.
The 4000-series APUs ought to perform similar to this, based on the fact that they only have one CCD as well.


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## Hugis (May 7, 2020)

Thats some mighty impressive numbers there(looks like the go to for the budget consious), thanks Wiz for the reviews top stuff!( as allways)


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## FreedomEclipse (May 7, 2020)

TheLostSwede said:


> That's really impressive for $120.



I was thinking this too - I kept flipping back and forth between the CPU chart and gaming performance benchmarks multiple times just to reference stuff between it and the i5-8400. Even for the 9900. $120 for almost top tier levels of gaming performance is absolutely insane.

of course for longevity the R3 might not stand the test of time due to the core count. but at $120. Providing you got a solid motherboard you can grab a R5 or R7 CPU at a later date when prices drop. A really small price to pay if youre a gamer. 

Right here, Right now - its a winner for people that just game and surf the net.


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## bug (May 7, 2020)

For what you do with your desktop every day + gaming, this is a tad slower than the 3600(X) at half the price. Who can hate that?
Interesting enough, despite the core number difference, both still seem to draw the same amount of power.

Edit: To put it another way, $100-120 is now overkill if you only need to do some office work. (I know, it's missing an IGP, but still...)


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## ERazer (May 7, 2020)

time to upgrade my kiddos rig


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## Fourstaff (May 7, 2020)

Wow this is one little speed demon.


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## AnarchoPrimitiv (May 7, 2020)

I'll have to say, it's difficult watching this 3300x outperforming my 2700x in certain applications... I'm 100% upgrading when Ryzen4000/Zen3 is released, and I think I'll be moving up to a 4900/X (12 core) as it's apparent now that 8 cores won't remain as relevant for as long as I previously thought.  Which means I'll probably want to upgrade my Asus X470-F motherboard as well.... Which means I'll want upgrade from my PCIe 3.0 NVMe drive to a PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive..... I'll have to just ride out my 5700xt though... Even though I've got a feeling RDNA2 could definitely be a Zen moment for the GPU division. 

I'm very curious as to whether the single CCX in the 3300x and how it equated to a 12% performance boost in applications is something that will be applicable, in addition. The IPC uplift and frequency boosts, to Ryzen 4000/Zen3 when it's released as AMD is going to have 8 cores per CCX for the upcoming generation. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but if that performance uplift is applicable, then Zen3 could be seriously amazing.  They're already talking about at least a 15%-20% IPC uplift, perhaps 200-300Mhz frequency boost from moving to N7+, and PERHAPS a 12% uplift from cutting the number of CCX's in half?????

I'll admit, I don't know if what I've extracted from this review is applicable to Zen3, but if it is, that could be really cool.


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## Fleurious (May 7, 2020)

The temperature under load is interesting, why so hot compared to the other chips being tested?


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## bug (May 7, 2020)

AnarchoPrimitiv said:


> I'm very curious as to whether the single CCX in the 3300x and how it equated to a 12% performance boost in applications is something that will be applicable, in addition. The IPC uplift and frequency boosts, to Ryzen 4000/Zen3 when it's released as AMD is going to have 8 cores per CCX for the upcoming generation. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but if that performance uplift is applicable, then Zen3 could be seriously amazing.  They're already talking about at least a 15%-20% IPC uplift, perhaps 200-300Mhz frequency boost from moving to N7+, and PERHAPS a 12% uplift from cutting the number of CCX's in half?????
> 
> I'll admit, I don't know if what I've extracted from this review is applicable to Zen3, but if it is, that could be really cool.


The "uplift" is because inter-core communication doesn't have to go over IF. If Zen3 packs more cores onto a CCX, it will benefit from that. But once you go outside the CCX, higher latency will be back.


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## agatong55 (May 7, 2020)

Been waiting for these reviews, I cant wait to get one for my fiance new computer, I wonder though how much of an upgrade this would be over my 1600x, and would it actually be worth it.


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## Mats (May 7, 2020)

bug said:


> For what you do with your desktop every day + gaming, this is a tad slower than the 3600(X) at half the price. Who can hate that?


Well, the 3600 is not that expensive, it's about 170 USD/Euro. Anyway, both are excellent CPU's, you can't go wrong with either one.


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## bug (May 7, 2020)

Mats said:


> Well, the 3600 is not that expensive, it's about 170 USD/Euro. Anyway, both are excellent CPU's, you can't go wrong with either one.


Oh, they are. I was just saying, going with the 3300X gives you something almost as fast and leaves at least $50 in your pocket.


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## RedelZaVedno (May 7, 2020)

AnarchoPrimitiv said:


> I'll have to say, it's difficult watching this 3300x outperforming my 2700x in certain applications... I'm 100% upgrading when Ryzen4000/Zen3 is released, and I think I'll be moving up to a 4900/X (12 core) as it's apparent now that 8 cores won't remain as relevant for as long as I previously thought.  Which means I'll probably want to upgrade my Asus X470-F motherboard as well.... Which means I'll want upgrade from my PCIe 3.0 NVMe drive to a PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive..... I'll have to just ride out my 5700xt though... Even though I've got a feeling RDNA2 could definitely be a Zen moment for the GPU division.
> 
> I'm very curious as to whether the single CCX in the 3300x and how it equated to a 12% performance boost in applications is something that will be applicable, in addition. The IPC uplift and frequency boosts, to Ryzen 4000/Zen3 when it's released as AMD is going to have 8 cores per CCX for the upcoming generation. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but if that performance uplift is applicable, then Zen3 could be seriously amazing.  They're already talking about at least a 15%-20% IPC uplift, perhaps 200-300Mhz frequency boost from moving to N7+, and PERHAPS a 12% uplift from cutting the number of CCX's in half?????
> 
> I'll admit, I don't know if what I've extracted from this review is applicable to Zen3, but if it is, that could be really cool.


Hold your horses unless you want to throw away money. 8C/16T will do just fine in the next 5 years or more. There really is no need to upgrade to 12C/24T unless you're doing very specific heavily MT tasks. Parallel computing, especially task parallelism is very hard to incorporate into the game code. Game development software and game devs still need years to implement 16T into gaming properly. I can think of only 1 single game code today that utilizes 8T efficiently (Ashes of the singularity). Even games that are somewhat MT use only 2T for majority of the tasks and distribute only very specific tasks between more Ts. This will change with new generation of consoles, but change will be slow. I can imagine most games utilizing 8C and some 16T to some extend by the end of the lifetime of SP5/XboxX console generation, not before. 8C/16T with high frequency and high IPC will be more than enough until "SP6" comes out plus one or 2 years later.


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## Bee9 (May 7, 2020)

I wonder how Intel will react to this. The pricing is the retail price, isn’t it?




RedelZaVedno said:


> Hold your horses unless you want to throw away money. 8C/16T will do just fine in the next 5 years or more. There really is no need to upgrade to 12C/24T unless you're doing very specific heavily MT tasks. Parallel computing, especially task parallelism is very hard to incorporate into the game code. Game development software and game devs still need years to implement 16T into gaming properly. I can think of only 1 single game code today that utilizes 8T efficiently (Ashes of the singularity). Even games that are somewhat MT use only 2T for majority of the tasks and distribute only very specific tasks between more Ts. This will change with new generation of consoles, but change will be slow. I can imagine most games utilizing 8C and some 16T to some extend by the end of the lifetime of SP5/XboxX console generation, not before. 8C/16T with high frequency and high IPC will be more than enough until "SP6" comes out plus one or 2 years later.



Total war 3 kingdoms run 20 threads with my 3900x and the loading time , end turn time is reduced significantly. 
It helps a lot if you game and recording/streaming at the same time and still want to maintain 144fps.


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## RedelZaVedno (May 7, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> I wonder how Intel will react to this. The pricing is the retail price, isn’t it?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Uses 20 threads to what extend? I bet that you'd see 2 maybe 4 cores doing most of the tasks if you'd analyze tasks redistribution inside code. Parallel programming is a programmers nightmare. I've been working in a workgroup programming databases on servers mostly in Ada and C++. Databases are ideal candidates for MT as tasks are very similar, execution order is not that important and by running many threads at once, these applications are able to tolerate the high amounts of I/O and memory system latency their workloads can incur, but writing efficient MT code for something as diverse as game code is not an easy thing to do. If you stream, game and maybe render/encode in the background then yes, more cores is better, but for normal gamer who just wants to play single game with no task in the background 16TH will be more than enough in foreseeable future. The most demanding game coming in 2020 console generation will most probably be FS2020 and ideal specs for it are 2700x/32GB DDR4/RTX 2080... That's all one will need in the next 5 years for gaming under assumption that game is properly ported to PC, which most will be because new XBoX basically runs Windows OS.


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## W1zzard (May 7, 2020)

Fleurious said:


> The temperature under load is interesting, why so hot compared to the other chips being tested?


relatively high clock and voltage i think, or could be heat density, too



bug said:


> The "uplift" is because inter-core communication doesn't have to go over IF.


does communication within the same ccd even go over IF ?


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## Bee9 (May 7, 2020)

RedelZaVedno said:


> Uses 20 threads to what extend? I bet that you'd see 2 maybe 4 cores doing most of the tasks if you'd analyze tasks redistribution inside code. Parallel programming is a programmers nightmare. I've been working in a workgroup programming databases on servers mostly in Ada and C++. Databases are ideal candidates for MT as tasks are very similar, execution order is not that important and by running many threads at once, these applications are able to tolerate the high amounts of I/O and memory system latency their workloads can incur, but writing efficient MT code for something as diverse as game code is not an easy thing to do. If you stream, game and maybe render/encode in the background then yes, more core is better, but for normal gamer who just wants to play game with no task in the background 16TH will be more than enough in foreseeable future. The most demanding game coming in 2020 console generation will most probably be FS2020 and ideal specs for it are 2700x/32GB DDR4/RTX 2080... That's all one will need in the next 5 years for gaming if game will be properly ported to PC, which most will because new XBoX basically runs Windows OS.


I see 20% for all of 20 threads and the loading speed into battle has been cut by 40%. I had to specify the number of threads to use in the config file. However, as you say, if I only game, it’s a waste of processing power so I have 16 other python bots running in the background. My 3900x sitting at 99% usage most of the time.
I totally agree with you on the 8 cores cpu is enough. I always advise people to buy computer for their needs today and upgrade in the future because technology moves faster our jobs.

With the price of 3900x dropping in the future, I think it it a totally viable solution for people who do real work.


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## RedelZaVedno (May 7, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> relatively high clock and voltage i think, or could be heat density, too
> 
> 
> does communication within the same ccd even go over IF ?


Maybe a disabled CCX inside CCD still consumes some energy?


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## W1zzard (May 7, 2020)

RedelZaVedno said:


> Maybe a disabled CCX inside CCD still consumes some energy?


My power efficiency numbers contradict that


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## trparky (May 7, 2020)

What happened here?




I don't think I've ever seen this on a benchmark at TechPowerUp. Did something epically fail here?

I have to wonder; would this processor be an upgrade to someone who's a light user who already has a 2600X?


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## HD64G (May 7, 2020)

What a great value CPU this 3300X is! With any GPU beside 2080Ti lvl of performance, you get the 90-95% of the best gaming CPU available on the market today. For less than 25% of the price and with the included stock cooler.


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## W1zzard (May 7, 2020)

trparky said:


> Did something epically fail here?


yeah failed in one of the tests, so can't calculate a relative percentage


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## trparky (May 7, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> yeah failed in one of the tests, so can't calculate a relative percentage


Wow, that's a new one. Like I said, I don't think I've ever seen an outright failure of a benchmark here at TechPowerUp. It's always a low score, never a giant goose egg.


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## W1zzard (May 7, 2020)

trparky said:


> Wow, that's a new one. Like I said, I don't think I've ever seen an outright failure of a benchmark here at TechPowerUp. It's always a low score, never a giant goose egg.


The Pentium would simply crash all the time in Rage 2, no matter what I did


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## Ravenas (May 7, 2020)

Thank you for the review W1zzard.

For a strictly gaming CPU standpoint, I'm not sure it's possible to beat this CPU in terms of performance value and "horsepower" needed for gaming, even at high resolutions.

W1zzard one request that I have for CPU reviews, and I don't know if this is feasible for you... Is it possible to get Streaming/Gaming combo performance numbers?


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## Dyatlov A (May 7, 2020)

I will sell my 3950X, this better for gaming. Just give me an overclocked version!


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## Bee9 (May 7, 2020)

Dyatlov A said:


> I will sell my 3950X, this better for gaming. Just give me an overclocked version!


Oh no, don't sell your 3600X too. Poor thing.


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## Mats (May 7, 2020)

bug said:


> Oh, they are.


Nah, it was a direct reply to your claim that this one is half the price.


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## Turmania (May 7, 2020)

So how come much laughed intel i5 9600k in power consumption beats this,with a room to spare.


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## Jism (May 7, 2020)

> However, overclocking is complicated by the fact that the processor will boost very high out of the box. My maximum overclock, using 1.25 V, is lower than the maximum boost clock. Out of the box, at default settings, the CPU will run up to 1.36 V when all cores are loaded.
> 
> I tried this voltage setting, too, but could not even achieve stability at the maximum boost clock of 4.35 GHz in all our benchmarks. The underlying reason is that the processor will intelligently detect the type of load and adjust the frequency accordingly—sometimes lower, sometimes higher, but always stable. Fixed clock overclocking can't do that, so overclocking really isn't worth it on Ryzen 3 3300X.



No sir, you just encountered the FIS of the CPU, which is a protection layer to prevent the CPU from consuming too much current, which will fry the chip within months.

The clocks, voltages are based on current workload, how much power its pulling and what the temperature is. PBO is a safe by design feature that pretty much maxes out already the best possible clocks / voltages / current(s), hence the difference of clocks in AVX or FPU etc.

Apart from that a very compelling CPU with the right price.


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## thebluebumblebee (May 7, 2020)

@W1zzard , I know it would have been a lot more work, but it sure would have been nice to see the i7-7700K in this test.


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## RandallFlagg (May 7, 2020)

So...

Anyone else noticing how the i5-9400F, which can be had for $120 now, is beating this thing in most benchmarks and also consumes about 35% less power?

Just sayin...


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## Bee9 (May 7, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> Anyone else noticing how the i5-9400F, which can be had for $120 now, is beating this thing in most benchmarks and also consumes about 35% less power?


Can you point me to the store that sell it new for $120... Amazon and newegg runs for $160...








						Intel Core i5 9th Gen - Core i5-9400F Coffee Lake 6-Core 2.9 GHz (4.1 GHz Turbo) LGA 1151 (300 Series) 65W BX80684I59400F Desktop Processor Without Graphics - Newegg.com
					

Buy Intel Core i5 9th Gen - Core i5-9400F Coffee Lake 6-Core 2.9 GHz (4.1 GHz Turbo) LGA 1151 (300 Series) 65W BX80684I59400F Desktop Processor Without Graphics with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!




					www.newegg.com


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## 1d10t (May 7, 2020)

Wow...I mean wow, for the same price and less core this CPU outclasses my R5-2600 in 1440p gaming.


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## W1zzard (May 7, 2020)

thebluebumblebee said:


> @W1zzard , I know it would have been a lot more work, but it sure would have been nice to see the i7-7700K in this test.


Not a lot of extra work, but why? As I said on reddit: AMD kept parading the 7700k argument at everyone in briefings, I dropped 7700k out of comparisons a long time ago, so I saw no reason to put it back in. My review has lots of comparison CPUs that are actually relevant today.


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## RandallFlagg (May 7, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> Can you point me to the store that sell it new for $120... Amazon and newegg runs for $160...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Top right corner :


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## Bee9 (May 7, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> Top right corner :


I forgot to check microcenter. This only applies to US market where microcenter is available though. Poor Canadian. 
So if we take the combo, we can have the 9400F for $100 pretax. Sounds like a good idea for me.


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## RandallFlagg (May 7, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> I forgot to check microcenter. This only applies to US market where microcenter is available though. Poor Canadian.
> So if we take the combo, we can have the 9400F for $100 pretax. Sounds like a good idea for me.




Yeah, it is a good deal.  I was thinking about going to that, but a couple of disadvantages. 

1 - 1151 isn't going beyond 9th gen, so while there are upgrades out there they aren't up to current
2 - The i5-10400 is 6c/12t, and will only about $60 more than the sale price here (~ $180 MSRP).  It will prob be on sale at microcenter for -$20 or more pretty quickly and initial benchmarks show it being on par with an i7-9700 (non-k) - even beating it more than one bench
3 - 10400 has some ability to be overclocked, unlike the 9400

I'm wondering why release this now, if Ryzen 3 desktop chips are just around the corner.


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## dicktracy (May 7, 2020)

Runs too hot and loud for a quadcore. I rather get nextgen consoles than this...


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## Bee9 (May 7, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> I'm wondering why release this now, if Ryzen 3 desktop chips are just around the corner.


Timing and $. Some marketers want to saturate the market with products suitable for all budgets. New Ryzen will likely be released to capture higher end or mid tier audience first and the low budget skus will roll out later. That will be a couple months later.
Obviously those 3300x and 3100 is the defect of 3950x and 3900x. So they produce higher end products first then once the defects inventory is big enough, they release budget models with cores disabled.


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## RandallFlagg (May 7, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> Timing and $. Some marketers want to saturate the market with products suitable for all budgets. New Ryzen will likely be released to capture higher end or mid tier audience first and the low budget skus will roll out later. That will be a couple months later.
> Obviously those 3300x and 3100 is the defect of 3950x and 3900x. So they produce higher end products first then once the defects inventory is big enough, they release budget models with cores disabled.



Ahhh...  This may explain the bizarre thermals and power draw.   AMD has been very good about power and thermals with the 3000 series so far, but frankly this chip really blows in that area.  

The reviews all seem to be picking benchmarks that are highlighting it's strength vs multi-core / multi-thread chips.  Which is fine, until you get another chip that is fast but few cores.  And for the tasks this chip does well via overclocking, the i3-9350KF seems to do it better.

Example - see how many times the overclocked i3-9350KF is #1 on these benchmarks in Tom's review. 









						AMD Ryzen 3 3300X and 3100 Review: Low-End Gaming Gets a High-End Boost
					

$120 scores a potent chip




					www.tomshardware.com


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## thebluebumblebee (May 7, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> but why?


4c/8t comparison, and some people might be presented with the option of a used 7700K system vs building with this 3300X


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## Bee9 (May 7, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> AMD has been very good about power and thermals with the 3000 series so far, but frankly this chip really blows in that area.


They don't blow. It's physic. For 3900x, the heat is distributed through all 12 cores in a much bigger surface AND the workload is distributed too. With higher surface and lower overall load, the CPU tends to get cooler. With 3300X, you deal with a smaller surface area and the cores are taxed more often. That explains higher temperature. Oh, and I forgot the included 3300x cooler just is not as good as the RGB one came with the 3900x.


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## olymind1 (May 7, 2020)

I wish AMD would have released this 3300X last year, i would have bought it, instead of my 2600.


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## Neverdie (May 7, 2020)

Hi everyone!

I was waiting for this review as I am thinking about upgrading my ancient cpu. I game only on 1080p 60hz, my config is in system specs, nothing fancy here. To be honest, my dirty old i5 is still holding up pretty well in gaming. There are only two games where I found my cpu insufficient. First is Battlefield 1 multiplayer with 64 players on smaller maps (singleplayer and 32 player servers are totally fine). When things get intense with 64 players my framerate drops from around 80-90 down to 30-40 and that is very noticable, destroys aiming and fun factor. The other game is Insurgency Sandstorm. Now this one used to be bad in regards of optimization, but it got much better over time. In this game I have the same problem, intense multiplayer kills my framerate even with smaller amount of players. In these 2 games I see near constant 100% cpu utilization on all 4 cores. 
In other games I can still usually play with max graphic options with good framerates. To sum it up, my cpu works where 4 cores are enough, but when a game needs more, it runs out of juice.
The 3300x is very tempting for me, but I fear it would have similar problems, being a 4 core cpu. Yes I know there is smt and 8 threads with the ryzen, but I am not convinced if that would work well.
By the way I have a strange little experience about Battlefield 1 vs Battlefield V. I tried BF V on my system and it handled multiplayer noticably better than BF1, so I think they made optimizations to the game.
Just mentioning this because there is BF V test in this review, but no BF 1 and I don't know if BF V was tested in multiplayer anyway.
For me it would be interesting to see how this new cpu handles BF1 64 player multi and Insurgency sandstorm, maybe other cpu intense games. Personally I haven't found other games that really needed more than 4 cores yet.


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## Bee9 (May 7, 2020)

Neverdie said:


> The 3300x is very tempting for me, but I fear it would have similar problems, being a 4 core cpu. Yes I know there is smt and 8 threads with the ryzen, but I am not convinced if that would work well.


I think it all depends on your budget. How much money are you willing to spend? If I were to buy a CPU right now, I will go with a mid tier X570 board and a Ryzen 5 then upgrade later.


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## Neverdie (May 7, 2020)

Unfortunately I am on tight budget. I would buy a good B550 board with 2 x 8gb ddr4 ram and try to save on the cpu front with the 3300x. Maybe a few years later go for a higher core count ryzen 4000 cpu, when more cores are really badly needed.


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## Bee9 (May 7, 2020)

Neverdie said:


> Unfortunately I am on tight budget. I would buy a good B550 board with 2 x 8gb ddr4 ram and try to save on the cpu front with the 3300x. Maybe a few years later go for a higher core count ryzen 4000 cpu, when more cores are really badly needed.


You should be good with 3300x upgrade path. It will last for quite some time. Go for it.


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## Neverdie (May 7, 2020)

Maybe it would be interesting if Mr W1zzard could do some testing about smt on vs off on these 4 core little beasts.


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## HugsNotDrugs (May 7, 2020)

/cries in 6700k tears

What a time we live in where the once-mighty 4c8t CPUs are now demoted to budget offerings.


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## Raendor (May 7, 2020)

HugsNotDrugs said:


> /cries in 6700k tears
> 
> What a time we live in where the once-mighty 4c8t CPUs are now demoted to budget offerings.



and yet when I look at the gaming benchmarks I see no major uplift going for something like 3600 as an upgrade. It’s nice to see that level of performance for a bit over 100 though.


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## bug (May 7, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> does communication within the same ccd even go over IF ?


It does. The CCXs within the die talk over IF.
For the curious, Anandtech has some pretty nifty charts of latency for Threadripper or Epyc. It's so complicated, you wouldn't believe.


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## dicktracy (May 8, 2020)

Also, it's pretty weird with TPU's test system. Gamer Nexus seems to have more headroom with their 2080 ti, whereas TPU is held back by GPU bottlenecks.


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## lmille16 (May 8, 2020)

Me sitting here with a 3570k at 4.2...... whelp might be time to move it on to pasture....


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## trparky (May 8, 2020)

lmille16 said:


> Me sitting here with a 3570k at 4.2...... whelp might be time to move it on to pasture....


I moved that onto the pastures two years ago. Yes, I had a 3570K overclocked to 4.4 GHz. Sadly, it finally died; BSODs galore.


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## RandallFlagg (May 8, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> They don't blow. It's physic. For 3900x, the heat is distributed through all 12 cores in a much bigger surface AND the workload is distributed too. With higher surface and lower overall load, the CPU tends to get cooler. With 3300X, you deal with a smaller surface area and the cores are taxed more often. That explains higher temperature. Oh, and I forgot the included 3300x cooler just is not as good as the RGB one came with the 3900x.



All you really did here was explain a theory as to why it blows.  It still blows.  Look at the temperature charts.  

It's getting hotter than a 6C/12T 3600X (and the 3600X has higher boost clock), has power draw that is within 1W of that 3600X and actually 1W higher than a 1700X under load.  There's no way you can spin that, it blows.  You would have to buy an aftermarket cooler for this chip, which means the $120 price is an illusion unless you happen to have a good cooler sitting around.


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## Caring1 (May 8, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> It's getting hotter than a 6C/12T 3600X (and the 3600X has higher boost clock), has power draw that is within 1W of that 3600X and actually 1W higher than a 1700X under load.  There's no way you can spin that, it blows.  You would have to buy an aftermarket cooler for this chip, which means the $120 price is an illusion unless you happen to have a good cooler sitting around.


Nah, the stock cooler that comes with a 3600X or higher is larger than the stock non rgb cooler that comes with the lesser CPUs, so a stock cooler will still suffice.


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## ppn (May 8, 2020)

Between $120 R3 3300X and $157±10% I5 10400, I still choose the intel, sorry but 4 x cores, is really not a very good idea even if it works for now, it gets quickly obsoleted. And there will be ondie Memory controller versions of it with renoir and 4000 series. So it is just a useless defective chip pushed as great value now, but that is just what it looks like. a flop in the long run.


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## W1zzard (May 8, 2020)

dicktracy said:


> Gamer Nexus seems to have more headroom with their 2080 ti,


I think they're running reduced details, not highest settings?


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## nguyen (May 8, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> All you really did here was explain a theory as to why it blows.  It still blows.  Look at the temperature charts.
> 
> It's getting hotter than a 6C/12T 3600X (and the 3600X has higher boost clock), has power draw that is within 1W of that 3600X and actually 1W higher than a 1700X under load.  There's no way you can spin that, it blows.  You would have to buy an aftermarket cooler for this chip, which means the $120 price is an illusion unless you happen to have a good cooler sitting around.



Nah with practically 0% OC headroom and really strict power + thermal restrictions placed on the CPU, all you get with the stock heatsink on a 3300X is imperceptibly slightly lower performance than what reviewers get...Unless for some reason you put 1.5V onto the CPU for no good reason then it would die, but not because the temperature were high...


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## Chrispy_ (May 8, 2020)

Awww yisss.
You did the thing I was talking about where we get to see how much performance is lost between cores in different CCXs vs having them in the same CCX.
Great review.


----------



## Tsukiyomi91 (May 8, 2020)

I'm very impressed with how this 3300X performs despite only using a single Zen2 chiplet. Guess that used Intel processors are no longer relevant when this chip costs $120.


----------



## bug (May 8, 2020)

Tsukiyomi91 said:


> I'm very impressed with how this 3300X performs despite only using a single Zen2 chiplet. Guess that used Intel processors are no longer relevant when this chip costs $120.


Well, intels are still an option if you need an IGP. But being able to build a gaming rig around a $120 CPU is something else.


----------



## theonek (May 8, 2020)

well that wasn't expected when 4/8 cpu to be equal or even faster than 8/16 cpu's.... and very good gaming perfomance for no money.... amd, what have you done?


----------



## kapone32 (May 8, 2020)

Ravenas said:


> Thank you for the review W1zzard.
> 
> For a strictly gaming CPU standpoint, I'm not sure it's possible to beat this CPU in terms of performance value and "horsepower" needed for gaming, even at high resolutions.
> 
> W1zzard one request that I have for CPU reviews, and I don't know if this is feasible for you... Is it possible to get Streaming/Gaming combo performance numbers?


 The upcoming 10th gen I3 might compete.


----------



## dirtyferret (May 8, 2020)

HugsNotDrugs said:


> /cries in 6700k tears
> 
> What a time we live in where the once-mighty 4c8t CPUs are now demoted to budget offerings.



It's five years old ...and still performs great.



theonek said:


> well that wasn't expected when 4/8 cpu to be equal or even faster than 8/16 cpu's.... and very good gaming perfomance for no money.... amd, what have you done?



What will all the "future proof" fan boys think?!  Quick scour the internet for any micro stutter benchmarks!  Tech Jesus save us with your benchmarks!  Better performing cores = better gaming performance is blasphemy!!!


----------



## RandallFlagg (May 8, 2020)

I'm not sure why these results are surprising.  I'm going to guess due to the way it was framed by the reviewer.  If you do actual games, then high clock fewer core chips do win.   

Real games rarely use more than 4 cores effectively, there are only a few exceptions - like Ashes.  

What this review actually shows is how real games rely on IPC and clock speed, while synthetics like 3DMark rely on threads.  This and earlier reviews on the i3-9350K throw into question the usefulness of synthetics for anything other than GPU tests.

Add in that 3/4 the reviewers seem to be unaware that this i3 is this AMD chips direct competitor, and instead compare them to high core / high thread CPUs.   

This is some kind of cognitive bias.  In December 2019 Tom's says the i3-9350K is 'too little too late'.  Then in May 2020 they say the 3300x is 'just what gamers need'....  It looks to me like these merely prove that games are not actually all that reliant on multiple threads.  

4 very fast cores is what they need.

I'll leave ya'll with this, from Tom's, from December :

The 3300X in synthetics, it gets repeatedly pounded by the 3600 and 7700K, and even the 1600:






Now some real games with the 3300X vs 9350KF :


----------



## B-Real (May 8, 2020)

This is absolutely fantastic. The 3100 is faster than the 9100F in games when OCd and destroys it in CPU heavy programs (nearly 30% + when OCd) for an extra $25, while the 4/8 3300X is neck-to-neck with the 6/6 9400F in games and is ~7% faster in CPU heavy programs for $40 less!



RandallFlagg said:


> So...
> 
> Anyone else noticing how the i5-9400F, which can be had for $120 now, is beating this thing in most benchmarks and also consumes about 35% less power?
> 
> Just sayin...


The 9400F costs $160.  You can find it cheaper only at Microcenter. But if you check AMD CPU prices, they are also cheaper there than f.e. at Newegg. So check MC's prices of the 3300X when they hit the market. And to come with power consumption, really.....   For sure this doesn't have the best efficiency, but we are talking about 10-20W difference.



RandallFlagg said:


> Ahhh...  This may explain the bizarre thermals and power draw.   AMD has been very good about power and thermals with the 3000 series so far, but frankly this chip really blows in that area.
> 
> The reviews all seem to be picking benchmarks that are highlighting it's strength vs multi-core / multi-thread chips.  Which is fine, until you get another chip that is fast but few cores.  And for the tasks this chip does well via overclocking, the i3-9350KF seems to do it better.
> 
> ...


Tom's Hardware has always been biased towards Intel/NV.




ppn said:


> Between $120 R3 3300X and $157±10% I5 10400, I still choose the intel, sorry but 4 x cores, is really not a very good idea even if it works for now, it gets quickly obsoleted. And there will be ondie Memory controller versions of it with renoir and 4000 series. So it is just a useless defective chip pushed as great value now, but that is just what it looks like. a flop in the long run.


Hope you say the same for i3. 



kapone32 said:


> The upcoming 10th gen I3 might compete.



Yes, maybe. Until autumn (?) when Zen3 arrives.


----------



## Bee9 (May 8, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> All you really did here was explain a theory as to why it blows. It still blows. Look at the temperature charts.


I'm not trying to defend anything. Just explaining the fact. My apologies if that offends you or something.
If you think the 3300X blows, and it's a really bad CPU, then I respect your opinion. Nothing to debate over your opinion.


Here is my point of view:

Ryzen 5 3600 Pricing History





Core i3 9350KF Pricing history




So it makes sense to me that a Ryzen 5 3600 (priced at $170) and a Core i3 9350KF (priced at $170) will beat the Ryzen 3 3300X ($120) easily.
Regarding Ryzen 5 1600AF, it's basically a Ryzen 5 2600. I wish it's still available at $85... No where to be found at that price anymore. Demand / supply law takes it away from our hands. Right now, the market prices it at $145 in the US market. So if reviewers want to compare, they should compare processors at the same price point.

One more thing: the core i3 9350KF launched at $200 last year offering 4 cores 4 threads. 1 year later, the 3300X launched at $120, forcing Intel to drop price for upcoming Core i3 10th gen to match the $100 to $120 price point. That's a good news to me. Competition drives the price down and consumers can enjoy better products.

Edit: adding additional thought
I think when reviewers say gamers, they aim squarely at the budget segment who has very tight budget and will need to balance CPU - GPU power to get the most fps.


----------



## B-Real (May 8, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> I'm not sure why these results are surprising.  I'm going to guess due to the way it was framed by the reviewer.  If you do actual games, then high clock fewer core chips do win.
> 
> Real games rarely use more than 4 cores effectively, there are only a few exceptions - like Ashes.
> 
> ...



I see you are an Intel fanboy, but when you check 3300X and 9350KF without OC, in the really CPU-bound Far Cry 5, the 3300X is faster. And the 9350KF costs NEARLY $170. LOL, funny guy you are.

And you speak about thermals. Really, we speak of 67C? Is it high or what? You get 90C or near 100C with an OCd 9900K.


----------



## kapone32 (May 8, 2020)

Yes, maybe. Until autumn (?) when Zen3 arrives.
[/QUOTE]

Totally agreed my friend   if the 3300 is already faster than a 7700K then nothing in the I3 range will compete.


----------



## B-Real (May 8, 2020)

If someone is interested why the high power consumption, check Guru3D for Hilbert's review: the answer is X570 mobo.


----------



## Bee9 (May 8, 2020)

B-Real said:


> If someone is interested why the high power consumption, check Guru3D for Hilbert's review: the answer is X570 mobo.


Aww I see. Thanks for pointing this out. 
Btw, my wife just pulled a joke: I will turn off one of my 80W lightbulbs to save some power for my 3300X. LMAO.


----------



## Chrispy_ (May 8, 2020)

B-Real said:


> If someone is interested why the high power consumption, check Guru3D for Hilbert's review: the answer is X570 mobo.


I've built about 30 Zen 2 machines so far (4 a month since launch and a few extras) and only six of them have used X570 boards - Not really because of PCIe 4.0 but because availability of decent B450 was patchy at the time. I just can't be trusting 40mm fans on something as irritating to replace 3 years down the line as a motherboard.


----------



## Bee9 (May 8, 2020)

Chrispy_ said:


> I just can't be trusting 40mm fans on something as irritating to replace 3 years down the line as a motherboard.


This means a lot of trouble to many people. 
 I'm totally prepare to buy new motherboard 3 years down the road to upgrade.  It's within my upgrade cycle.


----------



## Totally (May 8, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> Top right corner :
> 
> 
> View attachment 154158



Not everyone lives near a microcenter. The average person is lucky just to have one in the same state, so microcenter's prices don't really mean anything.


----------



## trparky (May 8, 2020)

And here I am with a Microcenter just half an hour away. I feel so lucky.


----------



## Bee9 (May 8, 2020)

trparky said:


> And here I am with a Microcenter just half an hour away. I feel so lucky.


I can walk to a Microcenter. LOL. I'm more lucky than you are.


----------



## trparky (May 8, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> I can walk to a Microcenter. LOL. I'm more lucky than you are.


Now that's just bragging.


----------



## Bee9 (May 8, 2020)

trparky said:


> Now that's just bragging.


Oh come on. You know I'm just kidding right. I'm about 10 mins away from Microcenter and it's been a long line every day since Covid-19. I can't wait to see their pricing for the 3300X


----------



## trparky (May 8, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> it's been a long line every day since Covid-19.


Really? There's that many people still wanting to shop for electronics during this modern day plague?


----------



## Bee9 (May 8, 2020)

trparky said:


> Really? There's that many people still wanting to shop for electronics during this modern day plague?


Yes. I can see very long line especially during Friday and weekend. It takes approximately 2 hours to get in my local Microcenter.


----------



## trparky (May 8, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> Yes. I can see very long line especially during Friday and weekend. It takes approximately 2 hours to get in my local Microcenter.


Damn...


----------



## TheinsanegamerN (May 9, 2020)

trparky said:


> Really? There's that many people still wanting to shop for electronics during this modern day plague?


A plague whos death rate has been adjusted down almost daily at this point. More people are looking at the lower and lower fatality rate and are able to rationalize the risk VS their quality of life. Going from a 2-3% death rate to a .2% death rate will do that.  And with nothing else to do, why not build a gaming PC and enjoy the staycation?


----------



## dirtyferret (May 9, 2020)

trparky said:


> And here I am with a Microcenter just half an hour away. I feel so lucky.



I have four within an hour of me.


----------



## RandallFlagg (May 9, 2020)

B-Real said:


> I see you are an Intel fanboy, but when you check 3300X and 9350KF without OC, in the really CPU-bound Far Cry 5, the 3300X is faster. And the 9350KF costs NEARLY $170. LOL, funny guy you are.
> 
> And you speak about thermals. Really, we speak of 67C? Is it high or what? You get 90C or near 100C with an OCd 9900K.



Well no not really.  It's just difficult to find objective reviews.  I was hyped to see the Ryzen 4700/4800 laptop parts, only to find once released that their overall system performance was sub-par.  And I am not talking about gaming performance due to lower end GPUs, since gaming is maybe 5% of what I use my laptop for.  

To illustrate, I pull up PCMark (regular) for Laptops - which is not heavily affected by GPU - and there is not a single AMD based laptop in the top 100 results.  Not one.  There are laptops with GTX 1070s, so it's not even all the latest and greatest. From what I can tell, this is the case across the board for pretty much every category including desktops.  These review sites are not capturing something.

What I do with my system is intensive, but has little to do with media.  Right now, I have two visual studio sessions pulled up, SQL Server running and being accessed by one app, and MacOS running under VMWare Workstation.  One of the VS sessions is connected to the MacOS VM which is acting as an XCode server for Xamarin - this allows me to develop in VS C# .Net and the VS IDE and use the iOS API.  I can also run iOS apps in a simulator, which leverages the MacOS session.   I also have Factory Talk and RSLinx running which allow integration into machine control (industrial automation).  

So this type of thing stresses the entire system.  It's not just about encoding a video or some sound file.  I need a well-balanced system, and I think most users of all types need this.

So my conclusion is simply this:  AMD might make a fast CPU, but the surrounding system of chipsets / drivers / IO is sub-par when used together.


----------



## Bee9 (May 9, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> To illustrate, I pull up PCMark (regular) for Laptops - which is not heavily affected by GPU - and there is not a single AMD based laptop in the top 100 results. Not one. There are laptops with GTX 1070s, so it's not even all the latest and greatest. From what I can tell, this is the case across the board for pretty much every category including desktops. These review sites are not capturing something.


We are discussing 3300X pricing and you are bringing up irrelevant topic. 



RandallFlagg said:


> So this type of thing stresses the entire system. It's not just about encoding a video or some sound file. I need a well-balanced system, and I think most users of all types need this.


Can you point out what is  the specific weakness in AMD system for desktop part ? (Note: I'm not trying to defend anything or point fingers at you buddy, just curious what's about your workflow that makes AMD CPU inferior than Intel counterpart)


----------



## RandallFlagg (May 9, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> We are discussing 3300X pricing and you are bringing up irrelevant topic.



Like bringing up 9900k thermals to explain away 3300X bad thermals (which was done earlier)?



> Can you point out what is  the specific weakness in AMD system for desktop part ? (Note: I'm not trying to defend anything or point fingers at you buddy, just curious what's about your workflow that makes AMD CPU inferior than Intel counterpart)



I think the IO subsystem on AMD platforms is lackluster.  

RAM is part of it, they cannot clock up their RAM like Intel chipsets allow. it's apparent from things like PCMark where top intel systems are running 5Ghz DDR4 while top AMD systems can only squeak out 4Ghz - and usually only 3.8Ghz.  I suspect juggling RAM and disk IO in intense workstation tasks is inefficient as well.

The ability to handle this is important in workstation tasks like I described.  Look at how a Dell Precision T-series workstations are built with 4 and 6 channel DDR, with Xeons that have massive memory IO and huge L3 cache.   This is really important with all the context switching and memory swapping that goes on when running a VM and multiple apps both in the VM and in the host OS.


----------



## Bee9 (May 9, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> Like bringing up 9900k thermals to explain away 3300X bad thermals (which was done earlier)?


Don't fight fire with fire. Not going far with it and only bring negative experience. 



RandallFlagg said:


> I think the IO subsystem on AMD platforms is lackluster.


I see. So, AMD is quite not the system suitable for your workload. Have you checked out AMD Epyc series with 8 memory channel?


----------



## coozie78 (May 9, 2020)

On the subject of thermals how does the 3300X manage to pull 67C while the 2700X only reaches 62C when using the same Noctua cooler?
Just curious here.


----------



## RandallFlagg (May 9, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> I see. So, AMD is quite not the system suitable for your workload. Have you checked out AMD Epyc series with 8 memory channel?



I am just not in the market at that price point, we're talking about $10K+ workstations now.  That's fine at the office but this is my WFH laptop.

What I want is to get the best bang for the buck in a heavy duty desktop replacement laptop.  My 7700HQ isn't really cutting it anymore.  It's a Powerspec (microcenter) box which is really a rebranded Clevo.  

I was looking at some of the big brand laptops with various CPUs, including the Ryzens.  But after seeing their performance, I'm beginning to gravitate back to the Clevo types. 

Interestingly, there's a Prostar that has a 3700X in it.  Full desktop chip, no reviews though.


----------



## bug (May 9, 2020)

TheinsanegamerN said:


> A plague whos death rate has been adjusted down almost daily at this point. More people are looking at the lower and lower fatality rate and are able to rationalize the risk VS their quality of life. Going from a 2-3% death rate to a .2% death rate will do that.  And with nothing else to do, why not build a gaming PC and enjoy the staycation?


Except in the real world, death rate started around 4% and is now just shy of 7%: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
But don't let numbers fool you or anything.


----------



## Bee9 (May 10, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> What I want is to get the best bang for the buck in a heavy duty desktop replacement laptop.  My 7700HQ isn't really cutting it anymore.  It's a Powerspec (microcenter) box which is really a rebranded Clevo.
> 
> I was looking at some of the big brand laptops with various CPUs, including the Ryzens.  But after seeing their performance, I'm beginning to gravitate back to the Clevo types.
> 
> Interestingly, there's a Prostar that has a 3700X in it.  Full desktop chip, no reviews though.



I hope they will release more heavy duty laptops with AMD cpu in the future. Intel has been doing lobby and slept with many laptop manufacturers for years that it’s hard for them to make the switch to AMD. It may takes 1 to 2 years to plan ahead (Part of my work is to do corporate forecasting so I know first hand how much inertia Intel has created for OEM). Laptop manufacturers need to get their cash cow going and then turn to your market later on.

Nevertheless, with AMD pushing hard, you will enjoy better pricing for both intel and amd in the near future, which is an amazing news, isn’t it?


----------



## RandallFlagg (May 10, 2020)

Bee9 said:


> I hope they will release more heavy duty laptops with AMD cpu in the future. Intel has been doing lobby and slept with many laptop manufacturers for years that it’s hard for them to make the switch to AMD. It may takes 1 to 2 years to plan ahead (Part of my work is to do corporate forecasting so I know first hand how much inertia Intel has created for OEM). Laptop manufacturers need to get their cash cow going and then turn to your market later on.
> 
> Nevertheless, with AMD pushing hard, you will enjoy better pricing for both intel and amd in the near future, which is an amazing news, isn’t it?



Agree.  I have a lot of respect for Lisa Su and what she has done at AMD.  Her history is that of a hard core engineer, not a finance or marketing type.  I know that Intel has pissed away their process tech lead, the result of having marketing/finance types at the helm for years.  It looks to me like they may lose part of the retail midrange laptop and part of the corporate laptop market as a result.  This is where they are strong now, and those are the two largest markets.  

Having said that... Ice Lake will dominate the ultra thin and light category.  The MacBook Air 2020 was just released and has the new Ice Lake chips, the increase in CPU performance vs the Skylake versions of the Air from 2019 and prior is massive.  We're talking going from 748 for the fastest 2019 to 1104 for the 2020 Air in single thread Geekbench.  This is a 10W chip though, Ice Lake doesn't matter in 15W+ uses.  In the sense that Intel was unable to use this on their desktop and server chips due to the process node issues, AMD got very lucky.


----------



## Paganstomp (May 10, 2020)

after seeing this I'm quite happy with an i5-9600KF and I am glad that I didn't pull the trigger on any of those overpriced i9-9900's!


----------



## Tsukiyomi91 (May 10, 2020)

@bug If I were to build a low-baller PC that's meant solely for gaming, the 3300X would be my first pick without thinking twice. Top it off with a B550 board, 16GB RAM, GTX1660 Super, a cheap 500GB NVMe PCIe SSD boot drive, 550W PSU & a decent case, I would spend no more than $900 for the entire build while keeping on par with a used Core i7-3770K that costs 2.5x more than the 3300X.


----------



## Frick (May 10, 2020)

trparky said:


> Really? There's that many people still wanting to shop for electronics during this modern day plague?



A bit off topic, but yeah. People have the time. Home remodeling is huge right now, in Sweden anyway. Computer stuff on swedish ebay got more expensive when covid-19 hit. Some business are thriving because of the virus.


----------



## sutyi (May 10, 2020)

RandallFlagg said:


> This is some kind of cognitive bias. In December 2019 Tom's says the i3-9350K is 'too little too late'. Then in May 2020 they say the 3300x is 'just what gamers need'.... It looks to me like these merely prove that games are not actually all that reliant on multiple threads.



Welcome to magical world of value, where the pricing your product either makes it "Just what budget gamers need!" or "Too little too late..." 

Current pricing:

9350KF ~ 170USD/155EUR (4C/4T + needs a Z390 board if you want to OC)
3300X ~ 120USD/130EUR (4C/8T)
3600 ~ 175USD /177EUR (6/12T)

Here in Hungary it is pretty much the same story pricing wise, but the price difference is relatively small between 3300X and 3600 I would rather buy the latter for a 20% price bump and get 50% more cores and threads so I don't have to bother taking my rig apart in case next gen console stuff will be more CPU heavy.


----------



## Dyatlov A (May 10, 2020)

B-Real said:


> I see you are an Intel fanboy, but when you check 3300X and 9350KF without OC, in the really CPU-bound Far Cry 5, the 3300X is faster. And the 9350KF costs NEARLY $170. LOL, funny guy you are.
> 
> And you speak about thermals. Really, we speak of 67C? Is it high or what? You get 90C or near 100C with an OCd 9900K.



Is Core i3 9350KF has HT? If not, than will be interesting the next gen with it at 5GHz.


----------



## Bee9 (May 10, 2020)

Dyatlov A said:


> Is Core i3 9350KF has HT? If not, than will be interesting the next gen with it at 5GHz.


Nope. Core i3 9350KF Is 4 cores 4 threads.


----------



## ahujet (May 11, 2020)

Glad to see that you've kept the 720p benchmarks, not a lot of people bench 720p, because they don't understand the purpose of it.


----------



## W1zzard (May 11, 2020)

ahujet said:


> Glad to see that you've kept the 720p benchmarks, not a lot of people bench 720p, because they don't understand the purpose of it.


No worries, it's not going away


----------



## las (May 13, 2020)

I'd rather pick up a 2600 then. 4c/8t is simply not enough for most stuff these days. Especially not if you're playing newer games.


----------



## Ripcord (May 13, 2020)

las said:


> I'd rather pick up a 2600 then. 4c/8t is simply not enough for most stuff these days. Especially not if you're playing newer games.


I agree its fine if your are playing a single player game, but how many of those do you see around, when you start adding voice apps like discord and team-speak and/or streaming then those extra cores really start to show their worth.


----------



## RandallFlagg (May 14, 2020)

Ripcord said:


> I agree its fine if your are playing a single player game, but how many of those do you see around, when you start adding voice apps like discord and team-speak and/or streaming then those extra cores really start to show their worth.




Agree.  The thing is the way benchmarks are run, they try to run one application in isolation (even if it is multi-threaded).  So, they close everything that might 'interfere' with or make results 'inconsistent'.   This is not a real world scenario, as much as they may want to pretend that it is.

In the real world, how many people have a web browser, discord, email, messaging apps, virus scan \ defender, steam client, maybe ubisofts client, nvidia experience helper apps, and probably far more running while playing a game?  I think almost all of them run that way.  Only a small fraction of OCD types will mess around with making their system 'pure' for a game.


----------



## bmacsys (May 15, 2020)

trparky said:


> Really? There's that many people still wanting to shop for electronics during this modern day plague?



So your idea to fight the "modern day plague" is to stop living?


----------



## trparky (May 15, 2020)

bmacsys said:


> So your idea to fight the "modern day plague" is to stop living?


I'd be buying more important things like food in times like this. Thankfully I already have a setup for gaming, so I don't have to ask myself if I need food or gaming.


----------



## bug (May 15, 2020)

trparky said:


> I'd be buying more important things like food in times like this. Thankfully I already have a setup for gaming, so I don't have to ask myself if I need food or gaming.


You're implying people buying electronics don't buy food? 
Also, a little distraction is also in order if you want to keep your sanity. This could be electronics for some, reading a book for others or maybe finishing that garden project you were postponing since forever. There's nothing amiss here.


----------



## bmacsys (May 15, 2020)

trparky said:


> I'd be buying more important things like food in times like this. Thankfully I already have a setup for gaming, so I don't have to ask myself if I need food or gaming.



I am sure people who are buying electronics gear aren't going without buying food.


----------



## tomfuegue (May 16, 2020)

Fantastic review, as always.


----------



## Exxor (Jun 8, 2021)

I'm fairly certain the reviewer got a lower silicon quality 3300X, but I was able to achieve a stable 4.35GHz overclock. My motherboard set its voltage between 1.375v to 1.4v. But yes, this CPU is quite incredible for its price point.


----------



## Deleted member 205776 (Jun 11, 2021)

Exxor said:


> I'm fairly certain the reviewer got a lower silicon quality 3300X, but I was able to achieve a stable 4.35GHz overclock. My motherboard set its voltage between 1.375v to 1.4v. But yes, this CPU is quite incredible for its price point.


1.375 - 1.4v... for Zen 2? Is this just a test or daily driver?

If it's the latter, can I have that chip to put on my keychain when it dies in like a few months?


----------



## Exxor (Jun 12, 2021)

lol My mistake. Its running at 1.3v. I have the clock manually set, and it runs at 4.35 all day long at 1.3v. Though when I set it to auto, and had PBO set to 200MHz, it would reach 4.45 at 1.4v, almost 1.5v. So I'm leaving the manual clock as is.


----------



## Deleted member 205776 (Jun 12, 2021)

Exxor said:


> lol My mistake. Its running at 1.3v. I have the clock manually set, and it runs at 4.35 all day long at 1.3v. Though when I set it to auto, and had PBO set to 200MHz, it would reach 4.45 at 1.4v, almost 1.5v. So I'm leaving the manual clock as is.


Two things.
1. I wouldn't try to manually OC Zen 2 and above. The CPUs are good enough at clocking on their own when paired with a good board with solid power delivery, good cooling and updated OS/BIOS/Chipset drivers.
2. 1.3v is still not a voltage I'd run on Zen 2 manual OC.

Auto and PBO are a different story. The Zen 2 safety mechanisms (Voltage Fitness Regulator) are still in place even when PBO is on, so the CPU always get a voltage it deems safe. But once you start manually OCing you disable all those safety features and the CPU's life is in your hands. Even if you think 4.3 at 1.3v is safe, Zen 2 7nm is not as good as Intel 14nm at taking voltage. 1.25v is much more safe.

Did you see that 1.4v and almost 1.5v during an all core test, or only during idle single thread? If it's the latter, it's safe.

Wanna find out your safe manual OC voltage? Put the CPU on stock settings, and run Prime95 Small FFT with AVX disabled while HWiNFO is running in the background, and watch the SVI2 TFN voltage.
Most Zen 2 chips that I've done this on (including my friends' experiments too) have their safe voltage at around 1.25v.


----------



## Exxor (Jun 12, 2021)

Emily said:


> Two things.
> 1. I wouldn't try to manually OC Zen 2 and above. The CPUs are good enough at clocking on their own when paired with a good board with solid power delivery, good cooling and updated OS/BIOS/Chipset drivers.
> 2. 1.3v is still not a voltage I'd run on Zen 2 manual OC.
> 
> ...


If that's the case, the motherboard I currently have isn't doing my 3300X any good at all. Because having it set to default without PBO sets it default to run between 1.375 to 1.4 all the time. While idle, and under full load. Not to mention it runs hotter at the default settings. Only when I have it manually set to an all-core clock is when the voltage and temperatures drop. Default under a full load brings the CPU up and over 70C. And when I manually set it, it barely makes 60C. Just in case, my motherboard is the ASUS B350M-E. And I also made absolutely sure that my OS, BIOS, and chipset drivers are all up to date beforehand.

Edit: Also, what safe voltage is it for the SVI2 TFN?

Edit Edit: I took a look at the voltages as I was running Prime95, with AVX turned off, the main core voltage is 1.275, and the SoC and VID voltages are 1.1.


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