Recently, Chinese chipmaker Loongson announced its latest 3B6600 CPU, which is expected to rival Intel's 13th Gen Core i5 and i7 chips in terms of performance. This announcement marks another important progress in the field of high-performance processors in China, although there is still a gap with the international leading level, but Loongson's progress should not be underestimated.
According to fast technology news, the Loongson 3B6600 is positioned as a desktop-level chip, which integrates 8 cores and is equipped with an integrated GPU. In terms of performance, the chip is said to be on par with the Core i5 and i7 chips in Intel's Alder Lake and Raptor Lake series. Although these Intel processors have been changing rapidly for 4 years since their release in November 2021, there is no denying that they still represent a certain level of technology. In contrast, the Loongson 3A6000, which is regarded as a benchmark against the 14nm chips produced in 2014-early 2021, does have room for improvement in terms of performance and technology, so if the Loongson 3B6600 can really achieve the claimed performance level, it is undoubtedly a major breakthrough.
In terms of specific parameters, the Loongson 3B6600 is expected to maintain the base frequency of 2.5GHz of the previous generation Loongson 3A6000 chip, while its single-core turbo frequency is expected to increase by 20% to a maximum of 3GHz. In addition, the Loongson 3B6600 also has many highlights in terms of function expansion, it supports advanced DDR5 memory, which can greatly improve the data read and write speed; PCIe 4.0 interface to meet the connectivity needs of high-speed devices; It also has an HDMI 2.1 output to bring users a high-definition video output experience.
Since April 2024, Loongson has devoted itself to the research and development of this chip. According to the plan, the Loongson 3B6600 will be officially launched to the market later this year. However, it must be clearly recognized that compared with the cutting-edge chips produced by industry giants such as TSMC, AMD and Intel, there is still a gap of several years at the technical level of Loongson products.
It is worth affirming that despite the difficulties, Loongson has made significant progress on the road of chip research and development. Loongson carried out R&D work almost from scratch under difficult circumstances, lacking the deep technology accumulation and mature industrial ecology of enterprises in the United States and Taiwan, China. However, in such a predicament, Loongson continues to explore and innovate with its own efforts. Although the U.S. sanctions have brought enormous pressure, they have also become a catalyst for independent innovation in China's chip industry, prompting Chinese companies, including Loongson, to actively develop alternative products for export-controlled chips.
Figure: Loongson 3B6600 CPU can reach the 13th generation Intel performance (Source: Loongson)
Compared with other domestic CPUs, Loongson 3B6600 has unique advantages and positioning. For example, compared with some of Zhaoxin's products, Zhaoxin integrates domestic self-developed technology on the basis of x86 architecture licensing, which has excellent performance in compatibility and can better adapt to various software under the Windows system ecosystem. The Loongson 3B6600 is based on the self-developed LoongArch instruction set architecture, which has more advantages in autonomy and security, which can get rid of the dependence on foreign architecture authorization and provide a solid guarantee for national information security. In terms of performance, if the Loongson 3B6600 can really achieve the performance of Intel 13th Gen Core, it will be very competitive in the field of domestic CPUs in terms of multi-core processing and single-core high-frequency computing.
Looking at Huawei's Kunpeng series CPUs, Kunpeng focuses on the server field, based on the ARM architecture for in-depth customization, and performs well in computing, storage, and network processing in data centers, providing powerful computing power support for cloud computing and big data processing with its efficient performance and excellent energy efficiency ratio. Loongson 3B6600 focuses on desktop-level applications, is committed to providing a smooth user experience for ordinary consumers and office scenarios, and has its own development direction in graphics processing (integrated GPU) and desktop software adaptation and optimization.
In related discussions, many netizens showed strong interest in the Loongson 3B6600. Some netizens speculated that Loongson's performance claims may be based on outdated benchmarks such as SPEC2006, after all, in the field of chip performance evaluation, test standards and methods are crucial, and the use of outdated test standards may not accurately reflect the real performance of chips. There are also many people who are curious about the lithography technology used in the Loongson 3B6600, which believes that it has a key impact on the implementation of instructions per clock cycle (IPC) of the chip. Lithography is like a "paintbrush" for chip manufacturing, the higher the accuracy, the more transistors can be integrated into a limited chip area to improve the performance of the chip, but at present, in addition to the information mentioned in the article, more detailed information about this chip cannot be obtained for the time being.
The launch of Loongson 3B6600 has undoubtedly injected new vitality into the development of China's chip industry. Although it faces challenges in terms of technology and market, it is expected to forge a unique development path in the differentiated competition with other domestic CPUs, pushing China's chip industry to a higher level.
