Rumors suggest that AMD is planning to release two new budget Ryzen 3 processors, the Ryzen 3 3300X and Ryzen 3 3100. Both CPUs are listed as 4-core/8-thread processors with moderate clock speeds and appear to be aimed at the affordable CPU market ahead of Intel's Comet Lake Core i3.

Twitter leaker momo_us first spotted the Ryzen 3 3300X and Ryzen 3 3100, listing them as 4-core/8-thread, 18MB cache, 65W TDP desktop CPUs. The clock speed of the former is listed at 4.3 GHz and is likely boosted.

A four-core Zen 2 core at 4.3GHz would certainly make for a high-performance gaming processor. In fact, Intel's Skylake generation and the Core i7 6700K are a good example of CPU specifications that were considered the best CPUs for gaming at the time.

These two processors would be the first non-APUs in the Ryzen 3000 lineup to bear the Ryzen 3 moniker and would undercut the OEM-only Ryzen 5 3500 at the lowest price. This is the market AMD typically targets with desktop APUs such as the Ryzen 3 3200G and Ryzen 5 3400G.

Retailer listings for the two proposed Ryzen 3 chips (found by ComputerBase) suggest that these CPUs can be purchased as individual components, unlike the Ryzen 5 3500 The Ryzen 3 3300X is priced at $120, Ryzen 3 3100 is reportedly priced at $104 (thanks to Komachi_ensaka).

Ryzen 3 3300X and Ryzen 3 3100 prices could put them within range of AMD's Zen and Zen+ CPUs, although the Ryzen 1600 was just recently refreshed to the 12nm process node under the guise of Ryzen 1600 "AF". The reason was probably because it was competitively priced/performing at $100 against Intel's Pentium and Core i3 competitors; the Ryzen 5 2600 is an excellent budget CPU as well, often selling for under $120. [Both are 6-core processors, at 3.7 GHz and 3.9 GHz respectively, and offer reasonable gaming performance. Any more Ryzen 3 processors will need to offer chart-topping performance to make a dent in these mass-market price points.

But cores are not everything. In fact, clockspeed is a much bigger boon in the game than more cores, and Zen 2's improved IPC should provide hearty performance regardless of the older chip's six cores. If these processors come out with everything the Zen 2 has to offer, they may offer an appealing taste of the AMD Zen 2 for budget builds.

Rather, if we had to guess why AMD is trying to shift its budget CPU strategy, it would be to offer an alternative to Intel's Comet Lake Core i3 10100, which will be announced on April 30. 4 cores and 8 threads at 3.6 GHz base and 4.4 boosted GHz, the Core i3 10100 will surely be a chip that AMD can match, if not beat, in price.