Chinese chipmaker teases “world-leading” performance of next-gen 7nm CPU — 3B6600 rocks eight LA864 cores clocked at 3 GHz
It is thought to be an octa-core 7nm CPU and should be released in the second half of next year.
A senior Loongson Zhongke Technology exec has boasted about the firm’s 3B6600 CPU in a Q&A session with investors. During Loongon’s 2024 semi-annual results briefing today, Chairman and General Manager Hu Weiwu said the upcoming processor would offer “world-leading” performance. Chinese language tech site ITHome shared a screenshot of the investor Q&A transcript.
Hu was responding to a question about the proposed timing of the Loongson 3B6600 CPU tape out. The lengthy question also addressed the firm’s product cycles and the Loongson CPU family’s performance.
Addressing the first of the multi-shot query’s angles, Hu told investors the Loongson 3B6600 CPU tape out would be sometime in 1H 2025. According to our machine translation, he reassured Q&A listeners that mass-produced chips would roll out in 2H 2025.
Regarding cadence, Hu said that Loongson would aim to launch “at least one server or PC chip every year on average.” Maintaining a regular tempo is a desirable trait for tech companies and has long been a key feature of many of the most successful firms.
Lastly, and probably the most interesting nugget from Hu, was a request for information regarding the architecture and performance of the upcoming Loongson 3B6600 processor. Hu underlined significant architectural changes that have been implemented with the 3B6600. Thanks to these LoongArch changes, and we would presume a range of other optimizations, the new CPU would deliver a single-core performance “expected to be in the world's leading ranks,” asserted Hu.
Previous information from Loongson, such as PR announcements and roadmaps, indicates that the next-gen 3B6600 processor includes eight LA864 cores with a clock frequency of 3.0 GHz alongside LG200 integrated graphics. A faster 3B7000, with a frequency of 3.5 GHz, is also supposed to be in the pipeline.
Earlier this year, we reported on the first independent reviews of the current-gen Loongson 3A6000 CPU. This 12nm 4C/8T chip looked good compared to modern AMD and Intel rivals using benchmarks like SPEC 2017 IPC - and with all platforms locked to the same CPU clock speed. However, the 3A6000 was held back in real-life workloads and benchmarks due to its maximum 2.5 GHz, meaning it trailed even chips like the 2020-era Intel Core i3-10100 in practical scenarios.
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Perhaps the rumored new 7nm process has enabled faster clocks, core count boosts, and other improvements, and the latest CPUs could be single-thread champs? It is probably best to wait and see rather than take Hu’s word.
Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
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gg83 More bs. How can a chip be leading if it won't be available till next year and only be 7nm?Reply -
DalaiLamar Replygg83 said:More bs. How can a chip be leading if it won't be available till next year and only be 7nm?
Ditto. Just keep the sanction lid on. -
ThomasKinsley Reply
Maybe they'll take a page out of Apple and claim it's the fastest Loongson chip, ever?gg83 said:More bs. How can a chip be leading if it won't be available till next year and only be 7nm? -
Kondamin Nice, lots of people are working with machines that are quite a bit behind intel gen 10Reply -
nookoool Some big leaps in the china desktop cpu world. Basically barely usable to fully usable, even some 2010-2015 era gaming under wine and binary translation. I have even seen genshin impact running on it.Reply
2021 - late core2duo performance using a european fab
2024 - at 10th gen i3 or about 6th gen i7 using 12 nm smic fab
World leading might be pushing it but to say "we have a modern indigneous desktop/server cpu" could be valid with the next iteration. -
mac_angel 12GHz for the mobile CPU? Is that right?Reply
And people commenting about "chip leading performance" being BS. You have to take into consideration their use vs ours. Do their chips have all the X86, x64, SSE, etc. instruction sets? Do their chips even need them for their own version of OS? While theirs might be slower than what we have here when we benchmark it on our systems, it might be much faster on their own. Sort of like an Indy car racing on a rally track, or vice versa.
Not to mention, the leaps and bounds they have been accomplishing in their technology the past 10 years or so. And this is with all the sanctions on them being able to buy many of the lithography tools. They've been doing it all on their own. It won't be long before they surpass us. It's already rumoured that they have the worlds fastest supercomputer for a while now, they just aren't telling anyone because they don't care about bragging rights, and probably don't want the rest of the world to know. -
newtechldtech AMD was well behind Intel for many years and they caught up ... I think China will catch up in few years ... and when they do so , they will sell their CPU half the price around the world ...Reply -
ivan_vy PS4 has an old AMD Jaguar x86-64 8 core and still rocks good games, for office and light gaming they don't need a cutting edge performance breaker CPU, just good a enough/ cheap enough.Reply -
Kondamin Reply
Loongsoon is mips, the thing risc v is based on now.mac_angel said:12GHz for the mobile CPU? Is that right?
And people commenting about "chip leading performance" being BS. You have to take into consideration their use vs ours. Do their chips have all the X86, x64, SSE, etc. instruction sets? Do their chips even need them for their own version of OS? While theirs might be slower than what we have here when we benchmark it on our systems, it might be much faster on their own. Sort of like an Indy car racing on a rally track, or vice versa.
Not to mention, the leaps and bounds they have been accomplishing in their technology the past 10 years or so. And this is with all the sanctions on them being able to buy many of the lithography tools. They've been doing it all on their own. It won't be long before they surpass us. It's already rumoured that they have the worlds fastest supercomputer for a while now, they just aren't telling anyone because they don't care about bragging rights, and probably don't want the rest of the world to know.