AMD reveals Ryzen 3 chips that open Zen 2 up to budget gaming PCs

AMD’s Zen 2 chips have swept through the desktop PC market with the powerful, efficient, and affordable 3000-series Ryzen 5, Ryzen 7, and Ryzen 9 CPUs. But up until this point, Zen 2 hasn’t had any representation on the low-end of the price spectrum. This has forced people looking to upgrade to turn to less capable Intel options or settle for older, used Ryzen parts. But now, AMD is addressing that with the new Ryzen 3 3100 and Ryzen 3 3300X CPUs that ship to retailers May 21.

The 3000-series Ryzen 3 CPUs are exciting because of their price. A Ryzen 3 3100 is $99, or you can get the 3300X for $120. Both come with four cores and eight threads and relatively high clockspeeds.