Thanks Hilbert. That was a quick answer to a question I had. I bought a 2400G because I wanted a Ryzen with a single CCX and hoped it would be some of the best silicon offered from Zen. I didn't really expect to see a configuration like the 3100. I thought the yields were good enough that we wouldn't see such a salvage operation with Zen2, but AMD might as well use all the silicon they can.

Important question for me is, how will the 3100 compare to the 1600AF and 2600. Will Zen 2 cores be enough to sacrifice two cores and four threads for? History has shown that, with the 3600, it is worth it vs 2700 in games. But at these lower core counts that might not be the case.

I think the 3300X will perform nearly identical to a 3600 in the majority of games. When next gen games start coming out, then the extra cores will start becoming a bigger factor.

jbscotchman:

I think the 3300X will perform nearly identical to a 3600 in the majority of games. When next gen games start coming out, then the extra cores will start becoming a bigger factor.

Extra cores have been a factor for over a half decade. IMO, nobody buying a new processor for gaming should go anywhere near a 4 core, H/T or not. This is entirely processor agnostic.

^ (Almost) Completely false. The large majority of e-sports games barely use 2 cores - basically 1 primary for logic and rendering and various low-load threads (network, sound, etc.) on the rest of the cores 4 cores are totally fine for the large majority of gamers in the world. Also the very large majority of Indie games are (still) single-threaded. BUT... If you're talking strictly about AAA titles on the newest engines, then yes, 6 cores or more are better.

^ (Almost) Completely false. Idk which game are you talking about. Even csgo uses 8 threads, which engine is basically 20 yo If you talk about League of legends, than EVEN THAT PIECE OF GARBAGE with its 10yo engine uses 4 threads AT LEAST! Let's not even talk about overwatch, pubg, valorant which can easly use 16. Indie games aren't single threaded neither lol,

Also @wavetrex how can you answer to someone that says `imo` saying that is `false`. An opinion can't be false, nor wrong. You can disagree, yes, but calling for false is wrong.

asturur:

Also @wavetrex how can you answer to someone that says `imo` saying that is `false`. An opinion can't be false, nor wrong. You can disagree, yes, but calling for false is wrong.

If one wanted to be extra pedantic, one could point out that the "IMO" was part of the second sentence recommending a certain kind of buying decision, and not the first sentence - which in fact presents something as "fact", and therefor can be scrutinized. But we don't want to be extra pedantic, do we. 🙂

The way the article is written is really misleading. AMD is making these parts with remnants from failed chip printing operations. Sometimes there are four cores that are good in 1 ccx and those are going to be faster and they get the 3300 identifier. Sometimes AMD must stitch together two cores from 1ccx and two cores from another CCX (4 ways to do this vs only 2 ways to make a 3300 above). I say stitch because it's literally done with lasers to cut out the bad cores. These patchwork chips would have higher yield but they would be the slowest and named 3100.

D1stRU3T0R:

^ (Almost) Completely false. Idk which game are you talking about. Even csgo uses 8 threads, which engine is basically 20 yo If you talk about League of legends, than EVEN THAT PIECE OF GARBAGE with its 10yo engine uses 4 threads AT LEAST! Let's not even talk about overwatch, pubg, valorant which can easly use 16. Indie games aren't single threaded neither lol,

One thing to really think about with games that may use up to 16 threads, do these games actually scale to these threads evenly? I'm willing to bet that even though a game might be able to scale across multiple threads, it doesn't scale across each thread evenly. I7 4c/8t are still holding up today for example.

systemBuilder:

The way the article is written is really misleading. AMD is making these parts with remnants from failed chip printing operations. Sometimes there are four cores that are good in 1 ccx and those are going to be faster and they get the 3300 identifier. Sometimes AMD must stitch together two cores from 1ccx and two cores from another CCX (4 ways to do this vs only 2 ways to make a 3300 above). I say stitch because it's literally done with lasers to cut out the bad cores. These patchwork chips would have higher yield but they would be the slowest and named 3100.

I don't think that makes the article misleading. It's just information. If someone asks "why?", the answer is binning. If someone asks "what is binning?", then what you just said becomes important. Doesn't change the tone of this news article in any way.

vbetts:

One thing to really think about with games that may use up to 16 threads, do these games actually scale to these threads evenly? I'm willing to bet that even though a game might be able to scale across multiple threads, it doesn't scale across each thread evenly. I7 4c/8t are still holding up today for example.

That's an important differentiator to understand, yeah. "Able to" doesn't mean "benefits from".

nevcairiel:

If one wanted to be extra pedantic, one could point out that the "IMO" was part of the second sentence recommending a certain kind of buying decision, and not the first sentence - which in fact presents something as "fact", and therefor can be scrutinized. But we don't want to be extra pedantic, do we. 🙂

Well, because, it is a fact. It IS a factor. I did not characterize it other than that. The argument would be how much of a factor. The opinion part is what others should purchase... based on the facts. 😉

D1stRU3T0R:

Idk which game are you talking about. Even csgo uses 8 threads, which engine is basically 20 yo

threads do not equal cores.

Astyanax:

threads do not equal cores.

That's exactly why I said threads. But afaik it can use 8 core too, not sure so that's why I wrote 8 threads.

uh, no, no it can't. 2 core multithreaded rendering on. maybe 3 cores if you round util % to a whole number while only using 17% of a SMT enabled 6 core processor.

vbetts:

One thing to really think about with games that may use up to 16 threads, do these games actually scale to these threads evenly? I'm willing to bet that even though a game might be able to scale across multiple threads, it doesn't scale across each thread evenly. I7 4c/8t are still holding up today for example.

I think this is a good point. I came from a 4790K to a 3700X. Was it that much better? Not really. Niche uses cases mostly concerning only a couple of the games I play most often. My old CPU still had life in it, but I wanted to upgrade. I think for me, it's more about just wanting to not be held back down the road when those extra cores do make a difference for the games that will benefit. That and I wanted to upgrade my GPU and to make sure my CPU was decent enough to keep up. 4/8 still has a lot of legs for most use cases. I think things will eventually change when the current CPU technology hits that nm wall and devs need to really get multi-threaded or else they can no longer push the limits in their games. 8/16 has been around for quite a while now, but it hasn't been essential to have. Of course you can anecdotally argue against that and blame Intel for milking quad cores due to their performance advantage in the past, but it's not at a point where gaming on a 4/8 is a terrible experience. We're getting a little closer everyday though and I would at a minimum go for a 6/12 if I was looking to build a new box. I'm a hard-core gamer though that plays CSGO casual daily 😉

D1stRU3T0R:

various factually incorrect stuff

1) As I specified, the large majority of non-AAA games have 1 primary logic thread (which is the bottleneck) and could have many other "small" threads which are not making the game run faster (but they might reduce performance on a CPU with too few cores, as they have to battle for resources with that 1 primary thread) 2) Source engine changed a lot through the years. The shape it was when launched with Half-Life 2 (... which btw launched in June 2004, so less than 16 years ago, not "20 years ago"... but math & stuff...) is not the shape it is in today ... ANYWAY, the newer games using Source are obviously using the revised versions of the engine, which have become more and more threaded through the years. In case of CS:GO which was used as example, the game scales "well" up to 4 cores, after that barely any increase in performance at all. And that is in unrealistic conditions, running it on LOW on an RTX 2080 Ti, just to see what's the maximum possible frames it can push. Once playing it in normal (Auto) quality on a more common GPU, there's little to no scaling beyond 4 cores. (Oh, and CS:GO is from 2012, so barely 8 years old, nowhere near "20 yo" as someone mentioned, AND it was updated to revised engine versions since then.) 3) Try looking at your task manager on a 2nd screen (for those that have it) while playing various Indies and lower-budget games... the majority of the action will bunch up on Thread 0 (first rectangle), with some or little activity on the others. (Or use RTSS to see the same information in an overlay) Note: I have a 3700X, so plenty of cores and threads, but tbh, considering that I don't play many AAA games (or almost none lately, busy with work), I could get by with that 3300X just fine !

RTS games should use all the possible cores and threads efficiently, one wrong way to do it is what blizzard done with SC2. Even on intel system, Starcraft II is one of the worst optimized games ever made specially on big battles the game tends to use LESS cpu rather than more and no more than 2 cores, even that barely... I upgraded from 4970K to 3700X and it was a huge upgrade, many games 0.1% fps improved a lot and the gameplay became smoother(like the awful optimized Borderlands 3), but the biggest upgrade was done with image processing and developing using Lightroom.

moab600:

RTS games should use all the possible cores and threads efficiently, one wrong way to do it is what blizzard done with SC2.

ugh, starcraft 2 should should be on dx11 and multithreaded, but blizzard just hasn't cared enough to do it.

If the goal of buying a new CPU is building/upgrading a serious machine, then anything less than 6 cores/12 threads is a bad investment, nowadays. One buys a new hardware not for yesterday or for a day before, but for today and for tomorrow and for a few years to come. This AMD's move is just a sign of their greed, or, rather, an attempt on selling as much existing silicon as possible. In terms of market strategy it is known as "clearing the shelves"...