AMD Ryzen 3 1300X Review

Reviews
By ,
published

Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.

Grand Theft Auto V, Hitman & Shadow of Mordor

Grand Theft Auto V

We measure performance during Grand Theft Auto V's F-16 flight sequence with the built-in benchmark.

Image 1 of 6

Grand Theft Auto V tends to be Intel-friendly, but Ryzen 3 hands the Core i3 another defeat. After some tuning, the -1300X even beats AMD's six-core Ryzen 5 1500X, essentially matching the 4C/8T 1400 up at 3.9 GHz.

The Pentiums languish at the bottom of our chart, while the $117 Core i3-7100 has a tough time justifying its slight advantage over the $91 G4620.

Hitman (2016)

Image 1 of 6

Hitman's Glacier engine scales well with core/thread count, giving the SMT-capable Ryzen models easy wins. The Core i3s triumph over a stock Ryzen 3 1300X, though overclocking propels the new Ryzen into a more compelling position.

Notice in the frame time chart that the 1500X and 1400 offer much lower frame times (green and blue lines at the bottom), highlighting this title's preference for extra threads. 

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Image 1 of 6

Shadow of Mordor debuted in 2014, and like most older DX11 titles, it is primarily single-threaded. That means it naturally favors Intel's higher frequencies and IPC throughput. The Core i3-7300 establishes a convincing lead, which Ryzen 3 1300X simply cannot overcome (even after overclocking).


MORE: Best CPUs


MORE: Intel & AMD Processor Hierarchy


MORE: All CPUs Content

Paul Alcorn
Paul Alcorn
Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech

Paul Alcorn is the Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.

See more CPUs Reviews
108 Comments Comment from the forums
  • yankeeDDL
    Wow.
    I don't remember when it was last time when we saw a review where, practically, in every chart AMD was at the top, and Intel at the bottom. It is refreshing really. Hopefully this will drive Intel to cleanup the mess it created in 5+ years of unchallenged leadership, and get its acts in order.

    I'm enjoying the moment though. With my Ryzen 5 1600 :)
    Reply
  • blackmagnum
    This is the product segment my slim wallet has been waiting for. I just hope that Intel will fight back with a price war. Now bring in the Ryzen+IGP for office gaming!
    Reply
  • SS_1__
    The only mainstream chips Intel makes worth buying are the G4560 and 7700k, AMD has the rest of the product stack.
    Reply
  • mjslakeridge
    The thing I found interesting from the review is that the disabled cores still receive power (second to last page of the review). Now we just need to figure out how to enable the "hidden" cores!
    Reply
  • bloodroses
    While I wasn't impressed with the Ryzen 5, their 7 and 3 are really putting the hurt on Intel. Good job AMD for getting back into the race. :) Let's hope they can do the same against Nvidia so true competition will finally be back.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    19988753 said:
    Hopefully this will drive Intel to cleanup the mess it created in 5+ years of unchallenged leadership, and get its acts in order.
    There isn't a whole lot that Intel can do about it other than drop prices for a given amount of cores and threads, though you can expect Intel to hold on to premium pricing for its IPC, clock frequency and lower power advantages.

    What I'm really curious to see for the mainstream/office segment is the Ryzen-Vega APUs.
    Reply
  • madmatt30
    Amd are just absolutely smashing it this year.
    Which is a great great thing after Intel's dominance & stranglehold for the last 6 years.

    Intel price war ??
    No that's not going to happen if it hasn't already ,they're way too arrogant to ever do that.
    Reply
  • ajac09
    OH YEAH!!! AMD AMD AMD!
    Reply
  • redgarl
    One of the best CPU of the year with the 1600x. I still take my 1700x over them, but if you are under budget, there is no questions.

    Too bad their Vega card seems like another Fury. I sold my stock and wait for the first benches before rebuying it. Also, indication is that RX will cost 600-650$ and barely beating a 1080 GTX. However Vega core are going to be incridilbe with AMD APU on the laptop segment. Nvidia MXM cards are going to be a bad investment and cost a fortune while everything will be on the same chip for AMD.
    Reply
  • dudmont
    If AMD wants to grab business/oem market, they should come out with a very low end graphics card, something that costs 40$(preferably 20$) or less, that they could bundle with these Ryzen 3s and sell as a one stop solution. So long as it performed similarly to intels IGPs, and the price was competitive, their performance advantage would give them a shot at stealing sales. For them to really get market share, which is where these Ryzen 3s sit, they need to be able to offer something to more than just gamers on a budget.
    Reply