New homegrown China server chips unveiled with impressive specs — Loongson's 3C6000 CPU comes armed with 64 cores, 128 threads, and performance to rival Xeon 8380

(Image credit: Loongson)

Loongson has finally released the 64-core version of its 3C6000 series processors based on the LoongArch 6000 architecture. Fast Technology reports that the new chip is dubbed the 3E6000, and features performance equivalent to Intel's 80-core Xeon 8380 based on Intel's 2019-era Ice Lake architecture.

The new chip represents the flagship model of Loongson's 3C6000 lineup, which also comprises 16-core, 32-core, and 60-core models. The 64-core 3E6000 sports 64 cores, 128 threads, 32MB of cache, four 72-bit memory channels — featuring quad channel DDR4-3200 support, and a max frequency of 2.2GHz.

To reach these high core counts (relative to China's current manufacturing capabilities), Loongson is using a quad-chiplet layout interlinked with its Loongson Coherent Link (LoongLink) technology to achieve a 64-core configuration. LoongLink is Loongson's equivalent to Intel's mesh interconnect, Nvidia's NVLink, and AMD's Infinity Fabric.

The 3E6000's LoongArch 6000 architecture and LA664 cores allegedly provide 2023-class server performance. According to official Loongson Spec CPU 2017 slides shown by Fast Technology, the 64-core Chinese CPU allegedly outperforms the Xeon 8380 by 35% in the integer test; however, the Xeon 8380 outperforms the 3E6000 by 14% in Spec CPU 2017's floating point test.

Loongson still has a ways to catch up to Western manufacturers such as Intel and AMD, but Loongson's new 64-core chip is one of the most powerful chips China has built to date. It might not hold that status for long, however. The 3E6000 was originally supposed to launch in Q4 2024, and Loongson is already developing entirely new CPU and core architectures that will provide significantly more performance than what the 3E6000 is capable of today.

The 3B6600 is an upcoming Loogsoon CPU that will allegedly provide 13th/14th Gen Intel Raptor Lake-class CPU performance. The upcoming chip boasts eight next-generation LA864 cores with a clock frequency of 3GHz. A more powerful 3B7000 variant is supposedly in the pipeline as well, with a clock speed of 3.5GHz.

Loongson has yet to announce a 64-core successor to the 3E6000 based on these new LA864 cores, but it goes without saying that a CPU of this caliber will likely perform similarly to Intel's Sapphire Rapids or Granite Rapids Xeon CPUs, and AMD's equivalent Zen 4 EPYC chips.

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Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

46 Comments Comment from the forums

thestryker

Intel's 80-core Xeon 8380 based on Intel's 2019-era Ice Lake architecture.
40c/80t
Reply
artk2219

Ill believe it when i see it. Its still a very useful chip, even if it doesn't end up being as fast as the fastest CPU's currently available. I still see more then a few Sandy Bridge - Haswell based servers doing their part to serve many businesses.
Reply
gg83

artk2219 said:
Ill believe it when i see it. Its still a very useful chip, even if it doesn't end up being as fast as the fastest CPU's currently available. I still see more then a few Sandy Bridge - Haswell based servers doing their part to serve many businesses.
Im pretty sure it's a paid advertisement to get more foreign investment. Toms is always posting these obvious bs claims by Chinese tech firms.
Reply
Zizi Mai

A step in right direction in catching up to Intel & AMD. Anyway it doesn't concern western markets as this chip is for China's internal use. However with the door on western chips closing even more, this chip could save the country when the door is fully shut. If you're Intel or AMD, it's forever bye bye to China's market.
Reply
psyconz

I notice zero mention, or even what should be obvious speculation on Tom's part, about what I assume would be awful power draw.
Reply
mj-88

So much western copium, this is a huge breakthrough for a country that is playing catch up, people seem to gloss over the fact that AMD and Intel were in the same boat just a few years back.
China is a massive market that these sanctions are killing Intel & AMD shares there, and it forces China to divert resources to cover that gap which in turn promotes innovation.
China is already catching up in a lot of fields, last i heard they just dipped into 2nm and the results were heading in the right direction.
Reply
phead128

gg83 said:
Im pretty sure it's a paid advertisement to get more foreign investment. Toms is always posting these obvious bs claims by Chinese tech firms.
Foreign investment for what? China's semiconductor industry is all sanctioned up, yet it's continuously making huge breakthroughs despite export controls, which ironically expedites their development.
Reply
Amdlova

psyconz said:
I notice zero mention, or even what should be obvious speculation on Tom's part, about what I assume would be awful power draw.
They will power it with coal power plant. Efficiency and green concerns it's not an issue.
Reply
Findecanor

A couple of years ago, a well-renowned CPU-focused web site did quite detailed performance tests of the chips that LoongSon had then, and while the performance was not stellar, it was quite promising.
I therefore see no reason to not believe that they could have evolved to the state that has been claimed now.

I welcome more competition in the server/desktop marketplace. x86 has been dominating for far too long. I wish computing would have had evolved to be less dependent on specific instruction set architectures by now.

I think it is just sad that politics has its dark cloud hovering over everything, and that we therefore probably won't see these anywhere outside China.
Reply
wussupi83

mj-88 said:
So much western copium, this is a huge breakthrough for a country that is playing catch up, people seem to gloss over the fact that AMD and Intel were in the same boat just a few years back.
China is a massive market that these sanctions are killing Intel & AMD shares there, and it forces China to divert resources to cover that gap which in turn promotes innovation.
China is already catching up in a lot of fields, last i heard they just dipped into 2nm and the results were heading in the right direction.
Playing catch-up to existing tech is not the same as innovating new tech. When the latter happens, then you will see China get more praise for their technology.
Reply

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