Ryzen 5 5500U vs Ryzen 9 3900X

VS

Aggregate performance score

Ryzen 9 3900X
2019
12 cores / 24 threads, 105 Watt
20.53
+151%
Ryzen 5 5500U
2021
6 cores / 12 threads, 15 Watt
8.19

Ryzen 9 3900X outperforms Ryzen 5 5500U by a whopping 151% based on our aggregate benchmark results.

Primary details

Comparing Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 5 5500U processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and price.

Place in the ranking275929
Place by popularitynot in top-10019
Cost-effectiveness evaluation21.73no data
Market segmentDesktop processorLaptop
SeriesAMD Ryzen 9AMD Lucienne (Zen 2, Ryzen 5000)
Power efficiency15.5431.00
Architecture codenameMatisse (Zen 2) (2019−2020)Lucienne-U (Zen 2) (2021)
Release date7 July 2019 (5 years ago)12 January 2021 (3 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$499no data

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance per price, higher is better.

no data

Detailed specifications

Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 5 5500U basic parameters such as number of cores, number of threads, base frequency and turbo boost clock, lithography, cache size and multiplier lock state. These parameters indirectly say of CPU speed, though for more precise assessment you have to consider their test results.

Physical cores12 (Dodeca-Core)6 (Hexa-Core)
Threads2412
Base clock speed3.8 GHz2.1 GHz
Boost clock speed4.6 GHz4 GHz
Multiplierno data21
L1 cache768 KB384 KB
L2 cache6 MB3 MB
L3 cache64 MB8 MB (shared)
Chip lithography7 nm, 12 nm7 nm
Die sizeno data156 mm2
Maximum core temperature95 °C105 °C
Number of transistors19,200 million9,800 million
64 bit support++
Windows 11 compatibility++
Unlocked multiplier+-

Compatibility

Information on Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 5 5500U compatibility with other computer components: motherboard (look for socket type), power supply unit (look for power consumption) etc. Useful when planning a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. Note that power consumption of some processors can well exceed their nominal TDP, even without overclocking. Some can even double their declared thermals given that the motherboard allows to tune the CPU power parameters.

Number of CPUs in a configuration1 (Uniprocessor)1
SocketAM4FP6
Power consumption (TDP)105 Watt15 Watt

Technologies and extensions

Technological solutions and additional instructions supported by Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 5 5500U. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.

Instruction set extensionsno dataMMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4A, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2, BMI2, ABM, FMA, ADX, SMEP, SMAP, SMT, CPB, AES-NI, RDRAND, RDSEED, SHA, SME
AES-NI++
FMA-+
AVX++
Precision Boost 2+no data

Virtualization technologies

Virtual machine speed-up technologies supported by Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 5 5500U are enumerated here.

AMD-V++

Memory specs

Types, maximum amount and channel quantity of RAM supported by Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 5 5500U. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequencies may be supported.

Supported memory typesDDR4 Dual-channelDDR4
Maximum memory size128 GB64 GB
Max memory channels2no data
Maximum memory bandwidth51.196 GB/sno data

Graphics specifications

General parameters of integrated GPUs, if any.

Integrated graphics card-AMD Radeon RX Vega 7 ( - 1800 MHz)

Peripherals

Specifications and connection of peripherals supported by Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 5 5500U.

PCIe versionno data3.0
PCI Express lanesno data12

Synthetic benchmark performance

Various benchmark results of the processors in comparison. Overall score is measured in points in 0-100 range, higher is better.


Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance rating. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

Ryzen 9 3900X 20.53
+151%
Ryzen 5 5500U 8.19

Passmark

Passmark CPU Mark is a widespread benchmark, consisting of 8 different types of workload, including integer and floating point math, extended instructions, compression, encryption and physics calculation. There is also one separate single-threaded scenario measuring single-core performance.

Ryzen 9 3900X 32613
+151%
Ryzen 5 5500U 13010

GeekBench 5 Single-Core

GeekBench 5 Single-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses only a single CPU core.

Ryzen 9 3900X 1710
+32.9%
Ryzen 5 5500U 1287

GeekBench 5 Multi-Core

GeekBench 5 Multi-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses all available CPU cores.

Ryzen 9 3900X 9939
+120%
Ryzen 5 5500U 4528

Cinebench 10 32-bit single-core

Cinebench R10 is an ancient ray tracing benchmark for processors by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. Its single core version uses just one CPU thread to render a futuristic looking motorcycle.

Ryzen 9 3900X 6019
+13.3%
Ryzen 5 5500U 5313

Cinebench 10 32-bit multi-core

Cinebench Release 10 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R10 using all the processor threads. Possible number of threads is limited by 16 in this version.

Ryzen 9 3900X 45539
+66%
Ryzen 5 5500U 27437

3DMark06 CPU

3DMark06 is a discontinued DirectX 9 benchmark suite from Futuremark. Its CPU part contains two scenarios, one dedicated to artificial intelligence pathfinding, another to game physics using PhysX package.

Ryzen 9 3900X 14889
+62.1%
Ryzen 5 5500U 9185

wPrime 32

wPrime 32M is a math multi-thread processor test, which calculates square roots of first 32 million integer numbers. Its result is measured in seconds, so that the less is benchmark result, the faster the processor.

Ryzen 9 3900X 2.69
+131%
Ryzen 5 5500U 6.22

Cinebench 11.5 64-bit multi-core

Cinebench Release 11.5 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R11.5 which uses all the processor threads. A maximum of 64 threads is supported in this version.

Ryzen 9 3900X 34
+197%
Ryzen 5 5500U 11

Cinebench 15 64-bit multi-core

Cinebench Release 15 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R15 which uses all the processor threads.

Ryzen 9 3900X 3049
+145%
Ryzen 5 5500U 1247

Cinebench 15 64-bit single-core

Cinebench R15 (standing for Release 15) is a benchmark made by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. It was superseded by later versions of Cinebench, which use more modern variants of Cinema 4D engine. The Single Core version (sometimes called Single-Thread) only uses a single processor thread to render a room full of reflective spheres and light sources.

Ryzen 9 3900X 207
+16.9%
Ryzen 5 5500U 177

Cinebench 11.5 64-bit single-core

Cinebench R11.5 is an old benchmark by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. It was superseded by later versions of Cinebench, which use more modern variants of Cinema 4D engine. The Single Core version loads a single thread with ray tracing to render a glossy room full of crystal spheres and light sources.

Ryzen 9 3900X 2.36
+18.6%
Ryzen 5 5500U 1.99

TrueCrypt AES

TrueCrypt is a discontinued piece of software that was widely used for on-the-fly-encryption of disk partitions, now superseded by VeraCrypt. It contains several embedded performance tests, one of them being TrueCrypt AES, which measures data encryption speed using AES algorithm. Result is encryption speed in gigabytes per second.

Ryzen 9 3900X 10.8
+150%
Ryzen 5 5500U 4.3

WinRAR 4.0

WinRAR 4.0 is an outdated version of a popular file archiver. It contains an internal speed test, using 'Best' setting of RAR compression on large chunks of randomly generated data. Its results are measured in kilobytes per second.

Ryzen 9 3900X 7534
+91%
Ryzen 5 5500U 3945

x264 encoding pass 2

x264 Pass 2 is a slower variant of x264 video compression that produces a variable bit rate output file, which results in better quality since the higher bit rate is used when it is needed more. Benchmark result is still measured in frames per second.  

Ryzen 9 3900X 147
+224%
Ryzen 5 5500U 45

x264 encoding pass 1

x264 version 4.0 is a video encoding benchmark uses MPEG 4 x264 compression method to compress a sample HD (720p) video. Pass 1 is a faster variant that produces a constant bit rate output file. Its result is measured in frames per second, which means how many frames of the source video file were encoded per second.  

Ryzen 9 3900X 268
+64.8%
Ryzen 5 5500U 162

Geekbench 5.5 Multi-Core

Ryzen 9 3900X 10498
+93%
Ryzen 5 5500U 5439

Blender(-)

Ryzen 9 3900X 162
Ryzen 5 5500U 417
+157%

Geekbench 5.5 Single-Core

Ryzen 9 3900X 1250
+12.8%
Ryzen 5 5500U 1108

7-Zip Single

Ryzen 9 3900X 5316
+22.9%
Ryzen 5 5500U 4324

7-Zip

Ryzen 9 3900X 80935
+140%
Ryzen 5 5500U 33768

WebXPRT 3

Ryzen 9 3900X 225
+9.2%
Ryzen 5 5500U 206

Gaming performance

Pros & cons summary


Performance score 20.53 8.19
Recency 7 July 2019 12 January 2021
Physical cores 12 6
Threads 24 12
Power consumption (TDP) 105 Watt 15 Watt

Ryzen 9 3900X has a 150.7% higher aggregate performance score, and 100% more physical cores and 100% more threads.

Ryzen 5 5500U, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 1 year, and 600% lower power consumption.

The Ryzen 9 3900X is our recommended choice as it beats the Ryzen 5 5500U in performance tests.

Note that Ryzen 9 3900X is a desktop processor while Ryzen 5 5500U is a notebook one.


Should you still have questions on choice between Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 5 5500U, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
Ryzen 9 3900X
AMD Ryzen 5 5500U
Ryzen 5 5500U

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