Chinese chip designer Loongson has finally launched its loong teased “next-generation” 3A6000-series processors based on the LoongArch microarchitecture. IPC tests showed the 3A6000 matching Intel’s Raptor Lake i5-14600K in IPC (instructions per clock), with both chips clocked at 2.5GHz.
As well as the headlining x86 compatible processor came the announcement of numerous partner desktop, laptop, and all-in-one machines — plus a consumer-grade motherboard from Asus. It was also entertaining to see a recorded overclocking session, which took an LN2-cooled 3A6000 chip to the current maximum 3 GHz.
Many of us are being dismissive now, but give it a few more generations and Chinese PC users won’t be depending on Intel or AMD anymore – and that’s pretty impressive.
Really impressive, but the job of chineses spies that steal data from chip design companies, like the ones from Netherlands they just found was being spied for a whole year.
Right, X86 is patented and created by Intel so if this company isn’t paying a license fee as does AMD and anyone else still making anything X86 then that’s just theft and nothing to brag about.
It’s easy to match someone when you can just copy decades of work for free.
Windows Sucks,
Copying an ISA may be necessary for compatibility, but there are infinite ways to actually implement it and that’s where all the real work goes. Is there any indication that china’s implementation of x86 is a copy? Please do let me know if there’s information on this, but assuming they are implementing their own x86 CPUs, then personally I don’t think someone copying a decades old instruction set to implement by themselves is really theft at all.
It’s like a 3rd party implementing amazon’s S3 web requests to create a competing service. Sure, you inevitably have to copying the interface to be compatible, but the actual implementation behind that interface may still be completely original. Amazon might cry and whine about others “copy their work”, but this argument doesn’t hold nearly as much water if the 3rd parties actually did build their own implementations of it.
The work done is impressive. But it’s clearly been developed based on western tech that hasn’t been licenced (stolen?)
As a result, we are doubtless heading to the point where western companies/nations will be forced to deploy sanctions to protect their advantage. And that won’t be good for anyone.
China doesn’t need any incentive, clearly – but sanctions will just light a fire under them to work faster. Maybe it slows them down, like a little, but it’s not a solution.
Also, let’s not pretend western companies don’t steal each others tech. See recent nVidia lawsuits…
Adurbe,
To me it depends on whether or not china has actually stolen anything, simply implementing x86 doesn’t imply anything was actually stolen. Is there any real evidence behind the allegations?
Very refreshing to see no artificial handicaping / segmentation into 35 price points…
What is missing though is the words Platinum or Gold thrown in there to please the inner gangasta CTO in all of us…
Yeah did they laser/mill off the top layer and put their own labels on, AGAIN? ~Totally Believable(Eye rolls)~ they can make a modern chip. With many frab shops closing think they will release a surprise chip? Nahhhhh.
The good news is your CPU will now come with the spyware integrated into the silicone rather than needing to be installed for a better plug-and-play experience.
friedchicken,
Authoritarian governments are not trustworthy. Sadly though our own “five eyes” governments and tech companies also have shady track record when it comes to running questionable blobs in western products. Both intel and AMD are guilty of doing this and they’ve both been impacted by severe vulnerabilities in their proprietary management engine firmwares.
So although the “don’t trust china tech” narrative is completely valid, from their perspective the don’t trust US tech is just as valid. I don’t know how we fix this. Obviously all software should be ope. Obviously I have no way to force intel and AMD to do this it would be a good start. But then the hardware itself needs to be open too. A) this is not going to happen, and B) even if it did it’s basically impossible to know whether your hardware has any extra hidden backdoors that aren’t published.
Any entity who questions the trustworthiness of the US has an absolutely legitimate concern. We can’t be trusted any more than any other country and in fact I think we’re actually worse in many cases. I’ve preached on here before about how we live in a surveillance society. Privacy? Now that’s funny. Not in my lifetime, and I wouldn’t be surprised if humanity would rather go extinct that to evolve into something better and truly committed to `the greater good`.