AMD Ryzen 3 1300X Review

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.

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)

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

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
Editor-in-Chief

Paul Alcorn is the Editor-in-Chief for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.