Core i3-7300 vs Athlon Silver 3050GE

Both the Core i3-7300 and Athlon Silver 3050GE share an identical 2-core/4-thread configuration. Boost clocks reach 4 GHz on the Core i3-7300 versus 3.4 GHz on the Athlon Silver 3050GE — a 16.2% clock advantage for the Core i3-7300 (base: 4 GHz vs 3.4 GHz). The Core i3-7300 uses the Kaby Lake (2016−2019) architecture (14 nm), while the Athlon Silver 3050GE uses Dali (2020−2021) (14 nm). In PassMark, the Core i3-7300 scores 4,519 against the Athlon Silver 3050GE's 4,545 — a 0.6% lead for the Athlon Silver 3050GE. Both processors carry 4 MB (total) of L3 cache.

The Core i3-7300 uses the LGA1151 socket (PCIe 3.0), while the Athlon Silver 3050GE uses AM4 (PCIe 3.0) — making them incompatible on the same motherboard. Both support up to DDR4-2400 memory speed. The Core i3-7300 supports up to 64 GB of RAM compared to 32 GB — 66.7% more capacity for professional workloads. Both feature 2-channel memory with ECC support. PCIe lanes: 16 (Core i3-7300) vs 0 (Athlon Silver 3050GE) — the Core i3-7300 offers 16 more lanes for additional GPUs or NVMe drives.

Only the Athlon Silver 3050GE has an unlocked multiplier for overclocking — a significant advantage for enthusiasts seeking extra performance. Virtualization support: VT-x, VT-d (Core i3-7300) vs AMD-V (Athlon Silver 3050GE). Both include integrated graphics — HD Graphics 630 (Core i3-7300) and Radeon Vega 3 (Athlon Silver 3050GE) — useful as a fallback for troubleshooting or display output without a dedicated GPU. Primary use case: Core i3-7300 targets Desktop, Athlon Silver 3050GE targets Desktop.

The Core i3-7300 launched at $184 MSRP, while the Athlon Silver 3050GE debuted at $75. At current prices ($46 vs $65), the Core i3-7300 is $19 cheaper. In terms of value (PassMark points per dollar), the Core i3-7300 delivers 98.2 pts/$ vs 69.9 pts/$ for the Athlon Silver 3050GE — making the Core i3-7300 the 33.7% better value option.