HEXUS Bang4buck and Bang4watt
The performance benchmarks on the previous pages tell part of the story, but it is also interesting to see how CPUs compare once value and power efficiency are put into the equation.
We have taken both single- and multi-threaded applications in the form of PiFast and Cinebench and then calculated how the CPUs line up once launch price is factored in. We also graph up single- and multi-threaded relative performance with the TDP factored in, hence a bang4watt for both workloads.
The cheap street price for Ryzen 3 more than makes up for relatively poor performance in the single-threaded test. Trouble is, the Core i3-7100 is just as cheap and about 50 per cent faster!
Using the quoted TDPs, Ryzen 3 is on par with other Ryzen chips. The reasoning is simple enough - they share the same 65W thermal limit and produce near-identical performance.
However, sticking like a thorn in AMD's side, the Core i3s rule this particular metric.
AMD does better in the multi-core examination. Keen pricing is allied to reasonable performance, but the Ryzen 5s top the chart thanks to their SMT ability.
The bang4watt is compromised by lacklustre performance at that 65W TDP. Ryzen 7 1700 shares the same manufacturer-quoted number yet returns a score that is almost 3x as fast.