Ryzen 9 3900X vs Ryzen 5 7640HS

Gaming speed, cores and clocks

The Ryzen 9 3900X and the Ryzen 5 7640HS are within a few percent of each other for gaming. In a game, you will not see the difference.

The Ryzen 9 3900X has 12 cores and 24 threads, and the Ryzen 5 7640HS has 6 cores and 12 threads. The extra cores of the Ryzen 9 3900X help with video editing, streaming while you play and heavy multitasking more than with the game itself. Boost clocks are 4.6 GHz and 5 GHz.

Platform, power and price

The Ryzen 9 3900X uses the AM4 socket and the Ryzen 5 7640HS uses BGA, so they need different motherboards, and often different memory. When you compare prices, count the board as well as the chip.

Rated power is 105 W for the first and 35 W for the second. That difference changes the cooler you need, and it shows up in heat and noise.

We do not have launch prices for both chips, so we cannot compare value.

Which graphics cards each one can feed, and which to buy

At 1080p the Ryzen 9 3900X can feed a card up to the Radeon RX 7900 GRE before it holds the card back by more than 10 percent. The Ryzen 5 7640HS reaches the Radeon RX 7800 XT. Both chips are in the same range for graphics card pairing.

Choose the Ryzen 9 3900X if you want the faster gaming chip and the same or more cores. Choose the Ryzen 5 7640HS if you would rather spend the difference on a graphics card, which does more for frame rates in most games.