Duel of processors: AMD Ryzen 3 3100 vs. Intel Core i3-10100

Intro

A year has passed since the introduction of AMD’s Ryzen third generation, but the product line was still not complete. We were waiting for the lowest line to be refreshed with the designation Ryzen 3. In the meantime, the 10th generation of Intel Core processors has been released, including new i3 SKUs. We got novelties from both manufacturers, namely Ryzen 3 3100 and Core i3-10100. Which one is better?

Basic specs

The third Ryzen 3 generation brings several changes. For the first time in this product line, we see Hyperthreading (or in AMD’s terminology it is SMT – Simultaneous Multi-Threading), i.e. two threads per core. So far, all of these processors have had 4 cores and 4 threads. 4 cores remained, but they already have 8 threads. This was until recently the configuration you could find in Core i7-7700K. Now it is in entry level processors. Compared to the previous first and second Ryzen 3 generations, the processors received higher base clock speed and a boost. More precisely, in the case of the 3100, it is 3.6 GHz base clock and 3.9 GHz boost clock. It is still true that the processors are unlocked for overclocking. The cache has been increased to a total of 18 MB. The 65 W TDP has also been retained. Support for PCIe 4.0, which we already know from Ryzen 5, 7 and 9, has been added. We know about the 7 nm Zen 2 architecture that it brings significant IPC improvements and is also more energy efficient, although power draw should not be a problem in this class of processors at all. Along with new Ryzen 3 processors, cheaper motherboards with B550 chipset are also coming to the market. We already have several units on the way, but a X570 mobo was used to test the processor.

On the other side of the ring, we have the 10th generation of Intel Core processors codenamed Comet Lake. It comes in difficult times for Intel which is attacked by AMD on probably all fronts. Perhaps the biggest problem is that we are still looking at 14 nm processors, which after the number 14 already carry so many ‘+’ symbols, it is no longer entertaining. It’s basically the fifth iteration of Skylake which doesn’t bode well. Concerns about the Core i9-10900K overheating are spreading like crazy which is not surprising. We will also test new Core i7 and i9 SKUs, but back to the topic. The i3-10100 also brings Hyperthreading to the four cores. Until now, Ci3-9100 and Ci3-8100 have been quad-core/four-thread and Ci3-7100 and Ci3-6100 have even been only dual-core with HT. It’s interesting where have we moved in just 3 years, right? (When the Core i3 has gear like a former i7 …).

Of course, the Ci3-10100 has lower clock speed than the mentioned Ci7-7700K, but it’s the principle. Apart from HT, not many changes have taken place, the base clock is still 3.6 GHz as well as those of 9100 and 8100. The boost has increased slightly to 4.3 GHz, but this is true for two cores, the all-core boost is 4.1 GHz. The processor got support for 2666 MHz RAM up to 128 GB. The integrated graphics is still UHD Graphics 630, no major changes have taken place here. But the change that definitely does not feel good is the transition to LGA 1200 socket which is already a classic way of Intel to force users to buy new motherboards after two years. This time, this is justified by the fact that LGA 1200 will already be compatible with Rocket Lake processors from the upcoming 11th generation which are already supposed to support PCIe 4.0, which has been present in Ryzen for a year. However, I can imagine that in two years’ time we will have a new socket here again so that the 10th generation does not slow down progress. In the red team, however, we see how it should work properly and AM4 will support the 4th generation of processors.

Testing methodology

We tested the processors at home, not in a laboratory environment. Nevertheless, the effort was made for the most accurate results. These are therefore the average of the measured values from repeated tests. We tried to eliminate factors that would affect performance in addition to the processor itself and the motherboard. We used the same components in both cases. The idea of all tests was to use base settings and turning on XMP, no other adjustments were made. This is how most users will actually function.

A year has passed since the introduction of AMD’s Ryzen third generation, but the product line was still not complete. We were waiting for the lowest line to be refreshed with the designation Ryzen 3. In the meantime, the 10th generation of Intel Core processors has been released, including new i3 SKUs. We got novelties from both manufacturers, namely Ryzen 3 3100 and Core i3-10100. Which one is better?

Rendering

Cinebench R15 is one of the most popular benchmarks ever. Shows raw CPU performance on one or more threads. Gone are the days when Intel was the king of single-core. And with the arrival of Zen 2 at 7 nm, AMD processors have gained significant improvements in IPC, also compared to Intel’s 10th generation. 3100 beats 10100 in single-core by 3% and in multi-core by 14%.

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The newer version of Cinebench R20 brings an even bigger, 7% difference in single-core. However, in multi-core the difference narrowed a bit to 9%.

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In a practical test of POV-Ray render, Ryzen 3 is 12% or 15 seconds faster.

Blender shows a 3% difference in favor of Ryzen which translates to 14 seconds.

Geekbench

Geekbench 3 has similar results as in previous tests and thus 8 and 14% in favor of Ryzen.

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Geekbench 4 doesn’t like AMD processors very much which I’ve been noticing for a long time. This was well seen in the tests of Renoir laptops. In this test, the Core i3 wins by 2% in single-core, but again lags in multi-core by 5%.

The latest Geekbench 5 shows only a 1% difference in single-core and 8% in multi-core in favor of AMD.

Raw performance of the R3 3100 in this area is undoubtedly better than that offered by the Core i3-10100. This is interesting mainly because the base clock speeds are the same at 3.6 GHz, but Intel has a higher boost of 4.3 vs 3.9 GHz. Nevertheless, it lags behind AMD.

A year has passed since the introduction of AMD’s Ryzen third generation, but the product line was still not complete. We were waiting for the lowest line to be refreshed with the designation Ryzen 3. In the meantime, the 10th generation of Intel Core processors has been released, including new i3 SKUs. We got novelties from both manufacturers, namely Ryzen 3 3100 and Core i3-10100. Which one is better?

Far Cry 5

We usually test Far Cry 5 on Ultra settings, but this time Normal was chosen to better show the difference in CPU performance at high fps. In other words, the bottleneck has moved from the graphics card onto the processor. You can see that Intel has the upper hand in this area, both in minimal and average fps quite significantly. The 30 and 18% difference translates into real 25–20 fps. If your goal is high fps gaming, Intel will still be a better choice. On the other hand, if you increase the graphics settings and/or resolution, the difference between the processors will not be so great.

Unigine Heaven and Superposition

Similar results are found in Unigine tests, where we again chose lower settings than usual. Once again, it is confirmed that Intel has an advantage in high fps gaming, probably due to higher clock speed.

PCMark and 3DMark

Both PCMark and 3DMark Firestrike tests are very tight. AMD clearly wins in computational tests, but Intel wins in graphics ones. Both benchmarks were in favor of Core i3, but only by 1 and 2% which is a very small difference.

A year has passed since the introduction of AMD’s Ryzen third generation, but the product line was still not complete. We were waiting for the lowest line to be refreshed with the designation Ryzen 3. In the meantime, the 10th generation of Intel Core processors has been released, including new i3 SKUs. We got novelties from both manufacturers, namely Ryzen 3 3100 and Core i3-10100. Which one is better?

Encryption

In encryption, Ryzen clearly has the upper hand, by 8–15%.

Encoding

Surprisingly, video encoding is also better on Ryzen, although this is an area where Intel was usually stronger.

Memory tests

Reading and copying is won by 3100, but writing is only half the speed of Intel, which is due to the architecture of the processor. Latency is usually worse on Ryzen.

A year has passed since the introduction of AMD’s Ryzen third generation, but the product line was still not complete. We were waiting for the lowest line to be refreshed with the designation Ryzen 3. In the meantime, the 10th generation of Intel Core processors has been released, including new i3 SKUs. We got novelties from both manufacturers, namely Ryzen 3 3100 and Core i3-10100. Which one is better?

Heating

Recently, the game has changed and it is no longer the case that AMD are the hot processors that overheat as 5+ years ago. Surprisingly, the Ci3 has low temperatures and 50 degrees was the maximum. Usually the temperature was around 46–48 degrees in the load.

Power draw

The difference in temperature is obvious when we also look at the power draw. The CPU package has a difference of 10 W and the total power draw of the configuration up to almost 30 W. Part of this is also played by the X570 chipset which has a higher power draw than that of Z490, and also the motherboards themselves, which are not exactly in the same class, but we used what we had at our disposal. Although Intel’s lower power draw is certainly a pleasant surprise, it does not mean that Ryzen is doing badly.

A year has passed since the introduction of AMD’s Ryzen third generation, but the product line was still not complete. We were waiting for the lowest line to be refreshed with the designation Ryzen 3. In the meantime, the 10th generation of Intel Core processors has been released, including new i3 SKUs. We got novelties from both manufacturers, namely Ryzen 3 3100 and Core i3-10100. Which one is better?

Rating

AMD Ryzen 3 3100 has proven to be a universally more powerful processor and also offers a better price. Any office work, multitasking or rendering will be faster on it. Surprisingly, however, you have to be aware of a slightly higher power draw than in the case of Intel which I really did not expect. Although, again, the difference in motherboards and chipsets must be taken into account.

Intel Core i3-3100 has basically only two advantages, namely integrated graphics and higher performance in games. You will especially appreciate the first benefit if you do not want to invest in a dedicated graphics card and you want the cheapest and/or the smallest possible computer. A dedicated graphics card is a must for Ryzen. Integrated graphics can also be used in some programs for HW acceleration which again is not possible on Ryzen. Higher performance in games is valid only if you try to get the highest possible fps at lower resolution and graphics settings. If you want to play in 4K ultra, the bottleneck will be your graphics card (not the processor) and the results of both will be the same. This means that in CS:GO with a strong GPU, you will achieve a few fps more on Intel.

English translation and edit by Lukáš Terényi

You can buy these processors at our partner’s website czc.cz.
AMD Ryzen 3 3100 costs 2 990 CZK/110 EUR. And Intel Core i3-10100 3 561 CZK/130 EUR .

English translation and edit by Lukáš Terényi

• Contents
• Intro
• Rendering and Geekbench
• Gaming, graphics tests and PC/3DMark
• Encryption, encoding and memory tests
• Heating and power draw
• Rating