AMD launches its range of affordable Ryzen 3 processors

AMD has been enjoying a resurgence this year with its launch of its high-end Ryzen 7 processors in March and mainstream Ryzen 5 CPUs in April, and now it has officially launched its entry level Ryzen 3 processors.

This new generation of Ryzen processors will be aimed at people building budget PCs who want to benefit from the advancements the Zen microarchitecture, which Ryzen 3 is based on, brings to PCs. These bonuses include a 52% increase in instructions per clock.

Initially there will be two Ryzen 3 processors released, and both will be quad-core CPUs with four threads and power draws of 65W.

The base CPU is the Ryzen 3 1200, which is clocked at 3.1GHz which can boost to 3.4GHz, while the more powerful Ryzen 3 1300X has a base clock of 3.5GHz, and a boost of 3.7GHz.

Benchmark results

While we’ve known about Ryzen 3 for a while now, with the official launch AMD has disclosed more detail about the new CPU, including a suite of benchmark results that pit the Ryzen 3 1300X against its main competitor – the Intel Core i3 7300.

According to benchmarks supplied by AMD, the 1300X is 29% faster than the i3 7300 in the Cinebench nT benchmark. This certainly bodes well for the affordable CPU, though bare in mind that these benchmarks were run and supplied by AMD, so you should take them with a grain of salt.

AMD also touted the Ryzen 3 1300X’s gaming prowess, with the chip running The Division at 1080p resolution with 10% higher average frames per second than Intel’s chip, while the phenomenally popular Overwatch ran 13% faster.

As with the other members of the Ryzen family, the Ryzen 3 chips feature AMD SenseMI technology, which monitors and adapts the processors on the fly depending on what tasks you are performing. This includes monitoring CPU temperature and power draws, adjusting clockspeeds in 25MHz increments for peak performance, and various learning algorithms that adapt to the way you (and your programs) work.

AMD has also slapped on AMD VR Ready certification to the Ryzen 3 1300X and Ryzen 3 1200, so even if you go for these cheaper CPUs, you shouldn’t have to miss out on any modern features.

The AMD Ryzen 3 1300X and Ryzen 3 1200 are available to buy from today, with the 1300X priced at $129 (about £100, AU$160), and the 1200 costing $109 (about £80, AU$140).

So are these chips worth buying? We've installed the AMD Ryzen 1300X in our test bench, and you can read our full in-depth review to find out more.