Ryzen 7 1700 vs. Ryzen 3 3300X: GPU Scaling

AMD's first generation old-time favorite, the Ryzen 7 1700 seems to have anile rather well. In a recent exam we compared it against its directly competition at the time, the Core i7-7700K. The eight-core, sixteen-thread Ryzen processor enjoys strong performance gains in almost all the applications tested, often beating the Intel processor by most xl%, while Intel did lead in a few areas, the margin in those was closer to 10%.

On the gaming front, the situation has improved but for the well-nigh office the Ryzen processor trails Intel old quad-core. On the upside, three years ago the 7700K was ~twenty% faster than the R7 1700 for playing games, while today that margin has shrunk considerably to ~5%. Clearly as games have become more than enervating, having more than cores has played to AMD's advantage.

Either style, while interesting to watch, that comparison may be somewhat irrelevant today. Budget PC builders right now can choose from a new set of processors. For roughly $130, y'all become the option to buy a new Ryzen 3 3300X. Only wait, for that kind of money you can likewise go a 2d mitt Ryzen 7 1700. This question had usa pausing to think about the options. The 3300X is a 4-cadre/eight-thread processor that enjoys the numerous operation and efficiency advantages of the Zen 2 architecture, while the R7 1700 is an 8-cadre/16-thread processor based on the original and slower Zen.

Side note: we're working on a new test where we compare Ryzen three, 5, vii and ix CPUs to come across how operation scales as price increases -- coming up presently.

The R7 1700 might have twice as many cores and therefore at the aforementioned toll appear to exist the more obvious choice, merely the cores are quite a bit slower.

Looking at some productivity data, the R7 1700 is at best on par with the half-dozen-cadre/12-thread Ryzen 5 3600 and in some instances was slower, and non even overclocking can completely close the gap. But the 3300X, is not as fast as the R5 3600, and gaming performance is harder to predict depending on the GPU y'all program to using.

Today's GPU scaling performance test will pit these 2 processors against each other, 8 old cores vs. 4 new cores, gaming with a GeForce GTX 1650 Super, RTX 2060, RTX 2070 Super and RTX 2080 Ti using a range of visual quality presets. The exam system is completed by the Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master motherboard, 32GB of G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200 CL14 retentiveness and the Corsair H115i Pro AIO cooler.

Benchmarks

Starting with one of the worst titles for Ryzen processors, particularly first-gen Ryzen, we have Far Cry New Dawn. Using the medium quality preset, which is labeled 'normal' we're heavily CPU jump when using not just the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, just besides the RTX 2070 Super and even the RTX 2060.

The Ryzen three 3300X is upwards to 26% faster here in average frame rates and 17% for the 1% lows. That's a substantial margin and information technology means the Ryzen 7 1700 is heavily limiting gaming performance with anything faster than an entry-level GPU like the GTX 1650 Super.

Far Cry New Dawn is admittedly a worst example scenario for offset-gen Ryzen and certainly doesn't phone call for more than a quad-core SMT enabled processor. In fact, the 3300X only saw acme utilization hitting 65% with 55% being the average and that meant the R7 1700 peaked at merely 40%, merely typically hovered around 30%. Fifty-fifty with the ultra quality settings enabled, the GTX 1650 Super is well-nigh every bit fast every bit you tin get with the 1700 before it becomes the primary operation limiting component.

Rainbow Six Siege is a much more forgiving title for the offset-gen Ryzen and here we encounter the 1700 stick with the 3300X using the GTX 1650 Super, but as well the RTX 2060 and even the RTX 2070 Super for the most office, when using medium quality settings at 1080p. The R7 1700 creates a serious CPU bottleneck with the RTX 2080 Ti and here the 3300X was up to 34% faster.

That's another large margin, though we must wonder how relevant information technology is given the old Ryzen CPU ensured a minimum of 240 fps was rendered during our test.

Maxing out the quality preset doesn't change things much, every bit nosotros see lilliputian to no difference between the 1700 and 3300X using the GeForce RTX 2070 Super. This is a good result overall and Rainbow 6 Siege does a fairly good job of utilizing the viii-core processor with CPU usage hovering around 60% with peaks as high every bit 80%, when using the RTX 2080 Ti. That's compared to a height of 90% with the 3300X and an average utilization of 75%.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is another title that heavily utilizes 6 and eight core processors, so it was no surprise to see the 3300X peak at 97% with an average of 90% utilization during our testing with the highest quality settings. The Ryzen 7 1700 has a picayune more headroom, but even and so information technology even so peaked at 80% and averaged lxx% which makes sense given it typically sits somewhere between the 3300X and 3600 for productivity performance.

The primary takeaway is that we see close performance betwixt the 3300X and 1700 in another CPU-enervating game. Using dialed downward quality settings the 3300X was upward to ix% faster when using the RTX 2080 Ti, seven% faster with the RTX 2070 Super, and comparable performance with the RTX 2060 and GTX 1650 Super.

Increasing the quality preset does increase the CPU load and now the older 8-core Ryzen processor is starting to edge ahead when looking at the all-important 1% low performance. Hither the 1700 is up to seven% faster and it maintains that pb fifty-fifty with the RTX 2070 Super.

Gears Tactics is some other game where starting time-gen Ryzen performs poorly, at least relative to Intel's Cadre series and AMD'southward ain 3rd generation Ryzen processors. We're seeing over 90 fps at all times with averages well higher up 100 fps, and then for this kind of game that's more than than enough, but it'south crazy to see the 3300X up to 43% faster with the RTX 2080 Ti and even upward to 37% faster with the RTX 2060.

This game simply isn't well suited for the original Zen architecture. We saw an boilerplate CPU utilization of 25% when using the ultra quality preset with a height of fifty%. The 3300% on the other mitt averaged 45% with a peak utilization of 80%, so this higher clocked modern quad-core is the ameliorate chip here.

When nosotros increase the graphics quality preset to Ultra, the 1700 is able to match the 3300X with the GTX 1650 Super as the game becomes GPU spring. That wasn't the example with the RTX 2060, though we're pretty close hither.

Next up we have World War Z and starting with the 1080p medium data we see that the Ryzen vii 1700 struggles again with the faster RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2070 Super GPUs, abaft the 3300X by up to a 23% margin. This is some other title that doesn't see the R7 1700 friction match the 3300X until we heavily limit frame rate functioning with the GTX 1650 Super.

This is explained past the fact that World War Z is unable to have advantage of the 8-core processor equally we saw an average CPU utilization of just 30% with peaks hit 45%. The 3300X on the other hand averaged 60% usage with peaks as high equally eighty%.

Increasing the visual quality created enough of a GPU clogging when using the RTX 2060 that information technology allowed the 1700 to deliver the same level of performance. Non so with faster GPUs.

The concluding game in our exam suite today, Borderlands 3 is all the same another title that doesn't fully utilize the Ryzen 7 1700 -- not even close. In our test laissez passer we saw an average utilization of 30% with a summit of just 35%. Granted this isn't a CPU demanding title, but we did come across much higher utilization with the 3300X, peaking at 55% with an boilerplate of 45%.

The R7 1700 slips behind with the RTX 2070 Super and 2080 Ti, but this fourth dimension it is able to max out the RTX 2060 and therefore the GTX 1650 Super. It's also worth noting that with the higher end GPUs, we were seeing well over 130 fps at all times. Increasing the graphics quality to Ultra allowed the 1700 to match the 3300X right up to the 2070 Super, while it was just seven% slower with the 2080 Ti.

Performance Summary

Here's a look at the average functioning across the games tested. We take to say this paints a weak picture for the Ryzen vii 1700 as it was up to 9% slower than the 3300X, fifty-fifty with the RTX 2060 and that margin balloons out to 22% with the RTX 2080 Ti.

The ultra quality results expect considerably better and it's only the 2080 Ti configuration where the 1700 trails by a sizable margin. Information technology's quite clear that the 3300X is the superior gamer, at to the lowest degree for now.

What Nosotros Learned

Time to draw a few conclusions, starting with the central question that brought this comparison together: if you've got most $120 to spend on a CPU, should you purchase a new Ryzen 3 3300X (assuming y'all can discover i) or instead snap upwards a second hand Ryzen 7 1700 with more cores?

Based on the data, we take to recommend the Ryzen 3 3300X for gamers, and to be more specific, gamers who programme on doing nothing just gaming. It's hard to option the R7 1700 over the 3300X for gaming exclusively when there were multiple CPU-limited scenarios where the Ryzen 3 processor was 20, xxx and even upward to forty% faster.

In the case of a more than demanding title such as Shadow of the Tomb Raider that can accept advantage of multiple cores better, we saw very loftier utilization with the 3300X, and at times allowed the 1700 to deliver amend 1% low performance. So if we get a game that pushes utilization say ~20% higher, while too spreading the load across all cores, that could push operation strongly in the older viii-core processors favor.

Information technology's besides worth noting that if you happen to be using a graphics card such every bit the GeForce RTX 2060, Radeon RX 5700, or a slower GPU than that, then y'all won't actually observe the difference between these two CPUs for the nigh part, particularly if you lot like to crank up the visual quality settings.

For PC builders and prospective Ryzen buyers, stay tuned later on this week for a new comparison of Ryzen 3 vs. Ryzen five, vii and 9 CPUs to meet how performance scales and what's the best processor for your needs.