Chinese Loongson chips coming in 2023, reportedly on par with Ryzen 5000 / 11th-Gen Intel

[Delicieuxz]

It sounds like China is on track to increase its computing independence from sources that could use its supplier position for political leverage, or which might cave to pressure from other parties to embargo supplies.

 

Chinese Loongson chips coming in 2023, on par with 2020 x86 kit

Quote

Previous reports have indicated that Loongson's 3A6000 processor will allegedly provide performance that is on par with AMD's Ryzen 5000 CPUs and Intel's 11th-Gen Core CPUs, which both debuted in 2020.

This expectation is based on simulation test results provided by Loongson showing that the 3A6000 will improve single-core fixed-point performance by 37 percent and single-core floating-point performance by 68 percent over the previous-generation 3A5000, based on the SPEC CPU 2006 benchmark. As always, claims made by vendors should be taken with a grain of salt, and one benchmark is not indicative of how a processor will perform across a wide range of applications.
...

However, the performance claims also show how China has progressed with processor technology that is based on the homegrown, MIPS-compatible LoongArch instruction set architecture. The company has previously claimed that its chips feature circuitry that helps with the emulation and binary translation of non-Loongson instruction sets such as x86 and Arm, as we have previously reported.
 

Hu Weiwu, chairman of Loongson, said last week that his company plans to build out a software ecosystem that will allow Chinese users to run more applications on the LoongArch ISA natively, rather than relying on emulation or translation of other ISAs.

 

More innovation, more competition, more decentralisation, more immunity to export bullying, more gooder.

[Radium_Angel]

I look forward to putting one of these chips to the test with WireShark, and see how many hardcoded phone home instructions there are.

[Poinkachu]

Loong = Chinese Dragon
Loongson = Son of a Dragon, I guess
 

[Salv8 (sam)]

*sniff sniff*

more powerful then the 5000 series?

yea i call bullshit, they'll skew the results to make it look like it's more powerful but when reputable sources get their hands on them it'll be a blood bath.

[thechinchinsong]

26 minutes ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

*sniff sniff*

more powerful then the 5000 series?

yea i call bullshit, they'll skew the results to make it look like it's more powerful but when reputable sources get their hands on them it'll be a blood bath.

Doesn't the article say on par, not more powerful? We'll see if that single benchmark actually means anything when reviews come out, but it might be hard to source these chips for non-chinese reviewers.

[williamcll]

One thing to note is that most of these are never done on windows.

[Radium_Angel]

1 hour ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

*sniff sniff*

more powerful then the 5000 series?

yea i call bullshit, they'll skew the results to make it look like it's more powerful but when reputable sources get their hands on them it'll be a blood bath.

What will be interesting is when YTers get their hands on a few, and security analysis is run. For a 1st try, I expect nothing less than Piledriver-levels of performance...

 

[Arika]

16 hours ago, Delicieuxz said:

More innovation, more competition, more decentralisation, more immunity to export bullying, more gooder.

will this ever be seen outside of China anyway?

[williamcll]

43 minutes ago, Arika S said:

will this ever be seen outside of China anyway?

Probably in some other heavily sanctioned countries.

[Beerzerker]

3 hours ago, williamcll said:

Nothing will be done because the alternatives are leagues behind in performance.

I woudn't be so sure about that.
Competition always inspires innovation so yes, I'd have to think things will be done or at least attempted.
It also depends on what alternatives to which you refer and how they apply.

2 hours ago, Arika S said:

will this ever be seen outside of China anyway?

1 hour ago, williamcll said:

Probably in some other heavily sanctioned countries.

You're probrably right about that.

[Radium_Angel]

2 hours ago, Arika S said:

will this ever be seen outside of China anyway?

Sooner or later they will be seen in the rest of the world, by aboveboard means...or otherwise.

 

[Delicieuxz]

4 hours ago, Arika S said:

will this ever be seen outside of China anyway?

Probably somewhere, and more so eventually, depending on how much it matures. And maybe LTT will get one to test.

 

Poorer countries might be keen to adopt Chinese hardware and software systems, if it gives a lot more performance-per-dollar and helps them close the gap in research and other things with richer countries. And if China develops a chip that it thinks can compete internationally for business with major chip companies, it won't sacrifice that business opportunity and economic / geopolitical influence by loading their chip with spy-hardware.

 

Those are probably also reasons why the US is desperately trying to prevent China's chip technology from progressing - to prevent it from competing and diminishing US influence.

[LAwLz]

I wonder if this will be as open and free as their old stuff.

Stallman famously used a Lemote Yeeloong netbook with a Loongson processor in it because, according to him, it was far more open source friendly than processors and platforms from AMD and Intel, both of which contain black boxes in hardware (Intel IME and AMD PSP), no or very limited support for things like coreboot (despite AMD heavily teasing it, they never delivered), and closed source firmware like AGESA.

 

 

I have strong doubts about the claimed performance though. Their previous processors have been pretty bad. They would have to like triple or quadruple the IPC in order to get even close to matching Ryzen 5000.

[Blue4130]

On 12/13/2022 at 3:47 PM, Arika S said:

will this ever be seen outside of China anyway?

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/china-bans-exports-of-its-loongson-cpus-to-russia-other-countries

 

Nope. 

[My_Computer_Is_Trash]

7 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/china-bans-exports-of-its-loongson-cpus-to-russia-other-countries

 

Nope. 

Well...we just gotta find a smuggler then.

[Radium_Angel]

On 12/14/2022 at 3:16 AM, Blue4130 said:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/china-bans-exports-of-its-loongson-cpus-to-russia-other-countries

 

Nope. 

That's pretty fascinating considering the "recent" meeting with the two leaders on how to strengthen their relationships...

[TetraSky]

Eh, I'll believe it when I see it be sold outside of China.

[vertigo220]

That's using a 2006 benchmark. That's probably manipulated. And even if it matches Tiger Lake/Cezanne, the chip will probably be twice as large and use 4x as much power to accomplish that.

[Qub3d]

15 hours ago, vertigo220 said:

That's using a 2006 benchmark. That's probably manipulated. And even if it matches Tiger Lake/Cezanne, the chip will probably be twice as large and use 4x as much power to accomplish that.

Indeed - if there is one thing I don't see the Chinese delivering on anytime soon, it is Extreme UV lithography. Mainly because the West is only just barely making it work as is.