Relating to PCs, Westerners are most most conversant in x86/x64 processors from Intel and AMD, with Apple Silicon taking on a big market share, too. Nonetheless, in China, a comparatively new CPU structure is on the rise. A fabless semiconductor firm known as Loongson has been producing chips with its LoongArch structure since 2021. These chips stay uncommon exterior China, however some within the West have been benchmarking them.
[Daniel Lemire] has not too long ago blogged about the efficiency of the Loongson 3A6000, which debuted in late 2023. The chip was put by a spread of straightforward benchmarking checks, involving float processing and string transcoding operations. [Daniel] in contrast it to the Intel Xeon Gold 6338 from 2021, noting the Intel chip just about carried out higher throughout the board. No shock given its further clock fee. In the meantime, the gang over at [Chips and Cheese] ran much more exhaustive checks on the identical chip final yr. The Loongson was put by typical duties like compressing archives and encoding video. The outlet got here to the conclusion that the chip was somewhat weaker than older CPUs like AMD’s Zen 2 line and Intel’s tenth era Core chips. It’s additionally restricted as a four-core chip in comparison with fashionable Intel and AMD traces that usually begin at 6 cores at the least.
If you end up involved in Loongson’s product, don’t get too excited. They’re not precisely simple to put your arms on exterior of China, and even the corporate’s personal web site is tough to entry from past these shores. You may attempt reaching out to Loongson-oriented on-line communities when you search such {hardware}.
Totally different CPU architectures have maybe by no means been extra related, significantly as we see the x86 stalwarts doing battle with the rise of desktop and laptop computer ARM processors. For those who’ve discovered one thing attention-grabbing concerning one other obscure sort of CPU, don’t hesitate to let the tipsline know!
