Chinese X86 CPU on it's way - The Zhaoxin’s KaiXian KX-6780A

[WkdPaul]

Quote

Zhaoxin, a joint venture between Via Technologies and the Chinese government, has been selling processors for various client systems for years, but recently the company rolled out its latest CPUs that some of the local PC makers position as solutions for DIY enthusiasts. At least initially, Zhaoxin’s KaiXian KX-6780A will be available only in China.

 

Zhaoxin’s KaiXian KX-6780A is an eight-core x86-64 processor with 8 MB of L2 cache, a dual-channel DDR4-3200 memory controller, modern I/O interfaces (PCIe, SATA, USB, etc.), and integrated DirectX 11.1-capable graphics (possibly S3 based but unknown). The CPU cores are in-house designed LuJiaZui cores, built around a superscalar, multi-issue, out-of-order microarchitecture that supports modern instruction sets extensions like SSE 4.2 as well as AVX along with virtualization and encryption technologies. The processor is made using TSMC’s 16 nm process technology.

 

Zhaoxin says the KX-6780A (an 8 core CPU) is comparable to a 7th Gen Intel Core i5, those are 4 cores, 4 threads CPU ( but they didn't mention which one though!). So they're obviously looking at multi-core performance, that could mean it's VERY slow in single-core performance (IMO it probably will).

 

The CPU is BGA and won't be available until March (from another company by way of a mini-ITX motherboard / CPU combo).

 

Regardless, if it's priced accordingly, this could make for affordable low power needs, but I'm not sure I would trust a Chinese company not to insert some spyware in the core of the thing.

 

 

Sources ;

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15446/zhaoxins-x86compatible-cpus-for-diy-enthusiasts-now-available

http://en.zhaoxin.com/ZXC.aspx?seriesid=19

[WkdPaul]

Just now, VegetableStu said:

what kind of coolers would mount on that board? o_o AM3/4-like coolers?

The fake AMD Wraith Prism coolers ... I think ...

[Fasauceome]

7 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

is comparable to a 7th Gen Intel Core i5, those are 4 cores, 4 threads CPU ( but they didn't mention which one though!)

gonna go ahead and say it's probably the 7600K at 5.1GHz

[WkdPaul]

Just now, Fasauceome said:

gonna go ahead and say it's probably the 7600K at 5.1GHz

That would make sense if it was me, but I'm gonna press X on that one, IMO, if it really was the 7600k @ a specific Ghz, they would've mentioned it.

[Jurrunio]

It's slightly slower than the i5-7400, so it's more inline with say, a 7400T or 7500T or Skylake 6400

[nick name]

Well if I were making components used for spying then BGA would be how'd I do it too.  

[Beerzerker]

The baked-in spyware part is what I'd worry about over all else with them.
Not to mention their rep for quality.....

[Doobeedoo]

Hmm, cool. 

[Sauron]

22 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

that could mean it's VERY slow in single-core performance

Looking at the specs it does look like a low to midrange chip, particularly in the lack of L3 cache and "large" process node. With that said, it's not necessarily going to be a case of the bulldozer - it could just be a relatively low power chip that is more oriented to parallel workloads. After all they know they're unlikely to directly compete with either Intel or AMD in terms of raw performance, at least in the first generation.

 

More importantly this is a BGA chip meaning it's soldered to the board - so I can see this being more relevant to embedded systems than consumers.

[Sauron]

9 minutes ago, nick name said:

Well if I were making components used for spying then BGA would be how'd I do it too.  

 

5 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

The baked-in spyware part is what I'd worry about over all else with them.

 

It's funny because Intel literally has a direct backdoor in every CPU they produce, yet people only seem to care when a product is from China.

[nick name]

Just now, Sauron said:

 

 

It's funny because Intel literally has a direct backdoor in every CPU they produce, yet people only seem to care when a product is from China.

Do they?  And if they do, but nobody knows about it then I don't care.  If a manufacturer has to share their backdoor with a government then that should be a concern.  

[Beerzerker]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

 

 

It's funny because Intel literally has a direct backdoor in every CPU they produce, yet people only seem to care when a product is from China.

It's due to China's proven record of how they do things that's the problem with it.

Every chip made period has a backdoor, every OS has a way in, the cloud itself has been proven to be vulnerable too......

 

All this is mandated by various governments around the globe, it's what each does with it that matters and China is well known to use and abuse these backdoors to their own benefit regardless of cost to anyone else.
Note I'm not saying they are the only ones, they all do it to some extent at the very least or these doors would have no purpose.

[Sauron]

16 minutes ago, nick name said:

Do they?  And if they do, but nobody knows about it then I don't care.

They do, and plenty of people know about it, it's never really been a secret. In fact, Intel markets it as a feature. Google Intel Management Engine. Or maybe DuckDuckGo it if you care about privacy as you earlier seemed to.

4 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

It's due to China's proven record of how they do things that's the problem with it.

As though 'murican companies had a better track record when it came to surveillance.

5 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

Every chip made period has a backdoor

No...? Though it's true that all modern x86 cpus have a backdoor since AMD also has something similar to the ME.

6 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

every OS has a way in, the cloud itself has been proven to be vulnerable too......

A vulnerability is not a backdoor.

7 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

All this is mandated by various governments around the globe, it's what each does with it that matters and China is well known to use and abuse these backdoors to their own benefit regardless of cost to anyone else.

As is the US government. Didn't see people paying much attention when this came out last week. And I guess we just collectively forgot about the whole Snowden affair?

10 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

Note I'm not saying they are the only ones, they all do it to some extent at the very least or these doors would have no purpose.

We don't need to speculate, there is plenty of evidence.

[slippers_]

43 minutes ago, nick name said:

Well if I were making components used for spying then BGA would be how'd I do it too.  

Make sure the suckers can't remove the damn thing even if they wanted to! Genius

[nick name]

2 minutes ago, slippers_ said:

Make sure the suckers can't remove the damn thing even if they wanted to! Genius

This guy gets it!

[spartaman64]

21 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

It's due to China's proven record of how they do things that's the problem with it.

Every chip made period has a backdoor, every OS has a way in, the cloud itself has been proven to be vulnerable too......

 

All this is mandated by various governments around the globe, it's what each does with it that matters and China is well known to use and abuse these backdoors to their own benefit regardless of cost to anyone else.
Note I'm not saying they are the only ones, they all do it to some extent at the very least or these doors would have no purpose.

have they actually proved theres a backdoor with any of china's stuff sold to western markets. US has been saying huawei has spyware installed in their 5G equipment but EU has been insisting on using them

[nick name]

10 minutes ago, Sauron said:

-snip-  Intel Management Engine -snip-

Oh, that's what you mean.  

[nick name]

Just now, spartaman64 said:

have they actually proved theres a backdoor with any of china's stuff sold to western markets. US has been saying huawei has spyware installed in their 5G equipment but EU has been insisting on using them

I don't get the impression they insist on using them, but that they see no reason to not have them as an option.  

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, wkdpaul said:

 

Regardless, if it's priced accordingly, this could make for affordable low power needs, but I'm not sure I would trust a Chinese company not to insert some spyware in the core of the thing.

 

 

I'm not sure I would trust such a chip to be reliable, let alone not spy on you on purpose. The Intel IME is bad enough, but the Intel IME at the minimum is touted as enterprise hardware management. If you turn it on on your personal PC and leave it unconfigured you have nobody to blame but yourself. Configuring MEBx on the vPro systems you can just straight up set a password on it and never turn anything inside on.

 

The same can be said about a lot of the Chinese-market devices already being sold. 

 

I'm also very skeptical that this is even a real CPU, I would not put it past the Chinese to just copy an Intel chip.

[WkdPaul]

4 minutes ago, Kisai said:

I'm also very skeptical that this is even a real CPU, I would not put it past the Chinese to just copy an Intel chip.

The article might not mention it, but it's an evolution of VIA chips.

[Beerzerker]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

They do, and plenty of people know about it, it's never really been a secret. In fact, Intel markets it as a feature. Google Intel Management Engine. Or maybe DuckDuckGo it if you care about privacy as you earlier seemed to.

As though 'murican companies had a better track record when it came to surveillance.

No...? Though it's true that all modern x86 cpus have a backdoor since AMD also has something similar to the ME.

A vulnerability is not a backdoor.

As is the US government. Didn't see people paying much attention when this came out last week. And I guess we just collectively forgot about the whole Snowden affair?

We don't need to speculate, there is plenty of evidence.

You just reaffirmed what I was getting at - They all do it and I never said at any point American companies were innocent, in fact the previous statement I made "They all do it" goes to that end.

No, there is not need to speculate - Again, they all do it and that includes China.

 

Speaking of the cloud - I did misphrase things  when I said "Vulnerability", it's roughly the same backdoor means of getting info if they want it and believe me, they can whether it's a vulnerablity, backdoor, exploit or anything else you can describe it as. 

Point is, if they want it, they can get it and that applies to all of us.

[Morgan MLGman]

1 hour ago, wkdpaul said:

The article might not mention it, but it's an evolution of VIA chips.

Yeah, the problem with the CPU is that it's neither fast, nor efficient so to be a VIAble (get it?) part, it needs to be very cheap honestly...

8 cores at 70W TDP (the CPU-Z screenshot also showed 2.7GHz core speed but it may not be peak frequency) with the multithreaded performance of a (probably locked) Skylake 4C/4T Core i5 and 70W TDP... Ryzen 5 1600, the new 12nm 'AF' revision, costs like 85$ on Amazon, has lower TDP and better performance... Can't see a bright future for this particular chip, especially that it's on a BGA socket.

[nothans]

5 hours ago, VegetableStu said:

LOL seriously though ._.

Probably going to be some Frankenstein proprietary format or basically fake wraith prism coolers.

[thorhammerz]

2 hours ago, Morgan MLGman said:

Can't see a bright future for this particular chip, especially that it's on a BGA socket.

The alternatives to the chip certainly outstrips it on most metrics (retail cost aside, as massive government "subsidies" may come into play), including the aforementioned 2-3 generation old lower-mid tier hardware.

 

...

 

But that is only true while those alternatives are still broadly accessible for its market .

[porina]

33 minutes ago, MageTank said:

As for the topic at hand, that cache seems super sketchy, unlike anything I have seen from AMD or Intel.I can only imagine their performance is going to be awful, I just can't wait for the random tech youtuber to get their hands on one to do a "budget gaming build".

I hadn't looked closely until you wrote that. 8MB for 8 cores, is 1MB/core so comparable to Skylake-X derivatives, without the L3. The CPU-Z screenshot on Anadtech detects it as 2x4MB though, so I wonder if there is something CCX-like going on there.

 

By the time you get it to the west, I don't think it'll count for a "budget" build...

 

Still, I think Linus could get positive ROI on that (he managed to on the $1000 HDMI cable), even if appears Anandtech isn't gonna fund this.