An update to a motherboard BIOS has revealed the existence of a new AMD CPU as well as its likely specs at launch. The Ryzen 9 3900 is listed among the supported CPUs for a Biostar X470NH alongside its power requirements, clock speeds and boost speeds. Running on less power than its stablemates the Ryzen 9 3900 looks formidably efficent in spite of lower clock speeds.
The key feature that the leak reveals about the Ryzen 9 3900 is that the power requirement is way down on the 3900X and 3950X, running at 65W instead of 105W. This means we’re looking at a 12 core/24 thread CPU running off just over half the power of its beefier brothers and this bodes extremely well in terms of efficiency and cooling.
Naturally the reduced power brings with it reduced clock speeds with the 3900 looking at 3.1GHz core clock and a stated boost clock of 4.3GHz. The Ryzen 9s thus far have shown themselves amenable to overclocking and so there should be scope to push this one, especially from such a power efficient starting point.
The price should be considerably lower than the 3900X and so it is likely that this CPU could find a comfortable niche in the heart of budget overclock builds.
The inclusion in a BIOS update suggests that the Ryzen 9 3900 isn’t far away. Could it be joining the November launch alongside the new Threadrippers and 3950X? We’ll have to wait and see.