AMD Ryzen 3000 Series Zen 2 CPU Running At 3.8GHz Makes A Benchmark Cameo Appearance
It will not be too terribly long before AMD launches its next-generation Ryzen 3000 series, a new line of processors based on its Zen 2 architecture. In the meantime, there are plenty of leaks and rumors to fill the gap. Falling into the former category, what appears to be an engineering sample of a quad-core Ryzen 3000 series CPU has found its way onto SiSoftware Sandra's database.
Sandra is a popular diagnostic, analysis, and benchmarking utility that can provide oodles of information about your setup. We use it in some of our reviews to test memory bandwidth and processor performance. Incidentally, it's also a popular landing place for unreleased products to make a cameo, as AMD's Ryzen 3000 processor did.
Click to Enlarge (Source: SiSoftware Sandra)
Spotted by WCFTech, the chip is labeled 2DS104BBM4GH2_38/34_N. It is also listed as an engineering sample, which are pre-release versions of silicon that companies like AMD and Intel provide to hardware partners and reviewers. Motherboard makers can test their boards on these chips, and while specs can change, ES chips that pop up this late in the game are usually representative of the final hardware.
This particular model is a quad-core CPU with a 3.4GHz base clock and 3.8GHz boost clock, along with 2MB of L2 cache and 16MB of L3 cache. Those speeds won't make anyone jump out of their pants, nor will the core count. However, this is clearly a lower-end model that will likely align with AMD's Ryzen 3 family. For context, a current-generation Ryzen 3 2300X sports 4 cores and 4 threads, and runs at 3.5GHz to 4GHz.
If the specs on the ES chip are indicative of the final silicon, it will have a lower boost clock compared the Ryzen 3 2300X. Architectural improvements could conceivably make up the difference, as AMD moves to a 7-nanometer manufacturing process.
According to the database entry, the chip was running in an MSI Meg X570 Creation motherboard. As the model name suggests, it's based on AMD's upcoming X570 chipset, which is expected to add PCIe 4.0 support. Ryzen 3000 series processors should still work in X470 and X370 motherboards with a BIOS update, just minus PCIe 4.0 and whatever other new goodies X570 brings to the table.
It's rumored that AMD will launch its Ryzen 3000 series this summer, on or around July 7.
Update, 4/1/2019
Comparing leaked performance figures in Sandra with existing metrics presents a challenge for a number reasons—the test beds are different, we have no idea what the testing conditions are for a leaked build, and there are variances between not only multiple benchmark runs, but also between different versions of Sandra.
That said, here's a rough overview of the leaked scores. The database entry shows the Ryzen 3000 series chip clocked at 3.8GHz scoring 131.87 GOPS in the Processor Arithmetic test and 409.84 Mpix/s in the Processor Multi-Media test.
AMD's current generation Ryzen 5 2400G (with Radeon Vega graphics) is also a 4-core/8-thread chip, with similar clocks—3.6GHz base and 3.9GHz boost. In this database entry, the Ryzen 5 2400G is actually running at 4.2GHz and scores 131.80 GOPS in the Processor Arithmetic test, and 262.90 Mpix/s in the Processor Multi-Media test.
Again, it's flawed to directly compare the two. However, if doing so anyway, we see the Ryzen 3000 series processor matching or exceeding the faster clocked Ryzen 5 2400G in both tests. We don't want to extrapolate too much from this, but we do expect Ryzen 3000 to deliver better performance per clock compared to Ryzen 2000 and 1000 series processors.
