In this paper, we are concerned with the global existence and convergence rates of the smooth solutions for the compressible magnetohydrodynamic equations in R-3. We prove the global existence of the smooth solutions by the standard energy method under the condition that the initial data are close to the constant equilibrium state in H-3-framework. Moreover, if additionally the initial data belong to L-p with 1 <= p < 6/5, the optimal convergence rates of the solutions in L-q-norm with 2 <= q <= 6 and its spatial derivatives in L-2-norm are obtained. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.