i5-8250U vs Ryzen 9 3900

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Aggregate performance score

Ryzen 9 3900
2019, $499
12 cores / 24 threads, 65 Watt
17.36
+397%
Core i5-8250U
2017, $297
4 cores / 8 threads, 15 Watt
3.49

Ryzen 9 3900 outperforms Core i5-8250U by a whopping 397% based on our aggregate benchmark results.

Primary details

Comparing processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and price.

Place in the ranking4111686
Place by popularitynot in top-10062
Cost-effectiveness evaluation17.230.62
Market segmentDesktop processorLaptop
SeriesAMD Matisse (Ryzen 3000 Desktop)Intel Core i5
Power efficiency11.359.88
DesignerAMDIntel
ManufacturerTSMCIntel
Architecture codenameMatisse (Zen 2) (2019−2020)Kaby Lake Refresh (2017−2019)
Release date24 September 2019 (6 years ago)21 August 2017 (8 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$499$297

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance per price, higher is better.

Ryzen 9 3900 has 2679% better value for money than i5-8250U.

Performance to price scatter graph

Detailed specifications

Ryzen 9 3900 and Core i5-8250U 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)4 (Quad-Core)
Threads248
Base clock speed3.1 GHz1.6 GHz
Boost clock speed4.3 GHz3.4 GHz
Bus typeno dataOPI
Bus rateno data4 GT/s
Multiplierno data16
L1 cache64 KB (per core)64K (per core)
L2 cache512 KB (per core)256K (per core)
L3 cache64 MB6 MB (shared)
Chip lithography7 nm, 12 nm14 nm
Die size2x 74 mm2123 mm2
Maximum core temperatureno data100 °C
Maximum case temperature (TCase)no data72 °C
Number of transistors7,600 millionno data
64 bit support++
Windows 11 compatibility-+
Unlocked multiplier+-

Compatibility

Information on Ryzen 9 3900 and Core i5-8250U 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 configuration11 (Uniprocessor)
SocketAM4FCBGA1356,FC-BGA1356
Power consumption (TDP)65 Watt15 Watt

Technologies and extensions

Technological solutions and additional instructions supported by Ryzen 9 3900 and Core i5-8250U. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.

Instruction set extensions86x MMX(+), SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, SSE4A,-64, AMD-V, AES, AVX, AVX2, FMA3, SHA, Precision Boost 2Intel® SSE4.1, Intel® SSE4.2, Intel® AVX2
AES-NI++
AVX++
Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST)no data+
Speed Shiftno data+
My WiFino data+
Turbo Boost Technologyno data2.0
Hyper-Threading Technologyno data+
Idle Statesno data+
Thermal Monitoring-+
Flex Memory Accessno data+
Smart Responseno data+
Precision Boost 2+no data

Security technologies

Ryzen 9 3900 and Core i5-8250U technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.

TXTno data-
EDBno data+
Identity Protection-+
SGXno dataYes with Intel® ME
OS Guardno data+

Virtualization technologies

Virtual machine speed-up technologies supported by Ryzen 9 3900 and Core i5-8250U are enumerated here.

AMD-V++
VT-dno data+
VT-xno data+
EPTno data+

Memory specs

Types, maximum amount and channel quantity of RAM supported by Ryzen 9 3900 and Core i5-8250U. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequencies may be supported.

Supported memory typesDDR4-3200DDR4-2400, LPDDR3-2133
Maximum memory size128 GB32 GB
Max memory channels22
Maximum memory bandwidth51.196 GB/s38.397 GB/s

Graphics specifications

General parameters of integrated GPUs, if any.

Integrated graphics cardN/AIntel HD Graphics 620
Max video memoryno data32 GB
Quick Sync Video-+
Clear Videono data+
Clear Video HDno data+
Graphics max frequencyno data1.1 GHz

Graphics interfaces

Available interfaces and connections of Ryzen 9 3900 and Core i5-8250U integrated GPUs.

Number of displays supportedno data3
eDPno data+
DisplayPort-+
HDMI-+
DVIno data+

Graphics image quality

Maximum display resolutions supported by Ryzen 9 3900 and Core i5-8250U integrated GPUs, including resolutions over different interfaces.

4K resolution supportno data+
Max resolution over HDMI 1.4no data4096x2304@24Hz
Max resolution over eDPno data4096x2304@60Hz
Max resolution over DisplayPortno data4096x2304@60Hz

Graphics API support

APIs supported by Ryzen 9 3900 and Core i5-8250U integrated GPUs, sometimes API versions are included.

DirectXno data12
OpenGLno data4.4

Peripherals

Specifications and connection of peripherals supported by Ryzen 9 3900 and Core i5-8250U.

PCIe version4.03.0
PCI Express lanes2412

Synthetic benchmarks

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.

Ryzen 9 3900 17.36
+397%
i5-8250U 3.49

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. Other than that, Passmark measures multi-core performance.

Ryzen 9 3900 30604
+397%
Samples: 605
i5-8250U 6158
Samples: 12082

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 3900 1671
+117%
i5-8250U 771

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 3900 9509
+382%
i5-8250U 1971

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 3900 5700
+3%
i5-8250U 5533

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 3900 44191
+146%
i5-8250U 17987

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 3900 13817
+118%
i5-8250U 6348

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 3900 31
+421%
i5-8250U 6

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 3900 2804
+399%
i5-8250U 562

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 3900 197
+37.8%
i5-8250U 143

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 3900 2.22
+35.4%
i5-8250U 1.64

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 3900 10.4
+197%
i5-8250U 3.5

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 3900 7145
+79%
i5-8250U 3991

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 3900 256
+85.8%
i5-8250U 138

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 3900 132
+313%
i5-8250U 32

Geekbench 5.5 Multi-Core

Ryzen 9 3900 10190
+197%
i5-8250U 3427

7-Zip Single

Ryzen 9 3900 5134
+38.5%
i5-8250U 3706

7-Zip

Ryzen 9 3900 75612
+392%
i5-8250U 15366

Blender(-)

Ryzen 9 3900 179
i5-8250U 900
+403%

Geekbench 5.5 Single-Core

Ryzen 9 3900 1246
+34.7%
i5-8250U 925

WebXPRT 3

Ryzen 9 3900 227
+35.5%
i5-8250U 168

Geekbench 4.0 64-bit multi-core

Ryzen 9 3900 41058
+238%
i5-8250U 12131

Geekbench 4.0 64-bit single-core

Ryzen 9 3900 5482
+36.1%
i5-8250U 4029

Gaming performance

Pros & cons summary


Performance score 17.36 3.49
Recency 24 September 2019 21 August 2017
Physical cores 12 4
Threads 24 8
Chip lithography 7 nm 14 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 65 Watt 15 Watt

Ryzen 9 3900 has a 397.4% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 2 years, 200% more physical cores and 200% more threads, and a 100% more advanced lithography process.

i5-8250U, on the other hand, has 333.3% lower power consumption.

The AMD Ryzen 9 3900 is our recommended choice as it beats the Intel Core i5-8250U in performance tests.

Note that Ryzen 9 3900 is a desktop processor while Core i5-8250U is a notebook one.

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AMD Ryzen 9 3900
Ryzen 9 3900
Intel Core i5-8250U
Core i5-8250U

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