Intel Core i5-9400 vs Intel Core i7-3960X

Compare Intel 9th Generation Core i5 6 core CPU vs Intel Core X-series 6 core processor, specs and benchmark score. Which is the better CPU for gaming?

Benchmark Score
Other Benchmarks
Specifications
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Intel Core i7-3960X

Price

The cheapest price from our partner retailers

$ 139.00

$ 111.00 significantly less expensive

$ 250.00

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

3754 points

1% slightly better overall score

3693 points

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

6091 points

21% slightly better gaming score

4998 points

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

3034 points

3261 points

7% slightly better multitasking score

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

2911 points

3155 points

8% slightly better heavy workload score

Free CPU Benchmark

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Other Benchmarks

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

78.76 points

13% slightly higher Blender score

69.62 points

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

4782 points

42% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score

3363 points

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

1342 points

101% significantly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score

665 points

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

4811 points

49% significantly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score

3209 points

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

1393 points

110% significantly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score

661 points

Specifications

Cores

Number of physical processing units

Identical

Threads

Number of logical processing units

100% significantly more threads

Clock Speed

Base frequency at which the chip operates

2.9 GHz

3.3 GHz

13% slightly higher clock speed

Turbo Speed

Higher frequency used for heavy workloads

4.1 GHz

5% slightly higher turbo speed

3.9 GHz

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the CPU

65 W

100% significantly lower TDP

130 W

PCIe Lanes

Number of physical connections between the CPU and expansion slots

150% significantly more pcie lanes

Memory Channels

Lanes for simultaneous memory access

100% significantly more memory channels

Supported Memory

Maximum amount of RAM supported by this CPU

128 GiB

100% significantly more supported memory

64 GiB

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

455th of 1,089

464th of 1,089

Family

The product line

9th Generation Core i5

Core X-series

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2019 February

2011 November

Memory Type

The type of memory used by this chip

DDR4-2666

DDR3-1066

Is Unlocked

Can this CPU can be overclocked

Supports ECC memory

Does this CPU support error correcting memory

Core i5-9400 vs Core i7-3960X benchmarks

In our benchmarks, the Core i5-9400 beats the Core i7-3960X in overall performance. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i7-3960X in all gaming tests too.

Our spec comparison shows that they have an identical amount of cores but the Core i7-3960X has more threads. Our comparison shows that the Core i7-3960X has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i5-9400. Despite this, the Core i5-9400 has a slightly higher turbo speed. A Core i5-9400 CPU outputs less heat than a Core i7-3960X CPU because of its significantly lower TDP. This measures the amount of heat they output and can be used to estimate power consumption.

Most CPUs have more threads than cores. This technology, colloquially called hyperthreading, improves performance by splitting a core into multiple virtual ones. This provides more efficient utilisation of a core. For instance, the Core i5-9400 has the same number of threads as cores. This means the the CPU does not support hyperthreading.