China's new Loongson CPU is almost as fast as the first Ryzen

[kiwigraeme]

I know people here complain about "they took our jobs"
But if you want to be a powerhouse - you need young vibrant people - The US had the ability to suck up a lot of world wide talent - with special visas etc .
London and NY have used lots and lots of imported talent for centuries - London for much longer .
Cut those sources of at your peril ,
The advantage of say India , Vietnam is large youth populations .
MS, Apple, Facebook etc all started by very young people

We may have great ideas in our forties and fifties - but do we want to spend 100 hours plus in the moment - when we could be at a cabin on the lake with the kids laughing doing bombs off the quay, the BBQ sizzling and a cool beer in hand and more in chiller blowing BS to each other?

 

[scavengerspc]

"But what makes the 3A5000 special isn’t specs: it’s the novel ISA (instruction set architecture) it uses, called LoongArch. It’s broadly similar to x86 and Arm, according to Loongson, but was built from the ground-up to avoid using foreign licenses."

That was.

Oh you bought that? My bad.

 

[scavengerspc]

China was hacking US companies and government branches back when Clinton was President. Trump was an ***** but had nothing to do with China's motivations to steal US information. https://www.newsweek.com/chinese-hackers-cyberwar-us-cybersecurity-threat-678378

Ok, I am having trouble equating a bunch of young hackers planting anti NATO messages on websites in early 1999 and Government sponsored cyberattacks and theft of Intellectual Properties today.

 

[RoundDuckKira]

Honestly this is interesting and possibly is a good thing even outside China. Not excited for others like Zhochin or however the **** you spell those x86 Chinese CPUs. But Longsoon spunded very familiar and I realized they're the company that made the CPU for the Yemote Leeloong that Richard Stallman used.

It'd be nice if western hardware manufacturers would make pcs with these Longsoon CPUs if they, like their distant predecessors, are able to run under free software only. Might be a viable alternative to ancient *** Intel Core 2s and AMD Piledriver CPUs. Forget the stupid nationalist wars when these CPUs could be used as a way to avoid Intel ME and so on.

 

[RoundDuckKira]

I just think it would be neat to tinker with one of these.

I'd be all about alternative CPU brands if they're affordably priced and offer competitive performance at their price points.

I hope these don't need any nonfree software. Longsoon made the CPUs for the Yemote Leeloong. Yeah, that laptop a certain pervy but influential hacker used.

 

[Geralt]

Oh you bought that? My bad.

I don't see why China cannot build something from zero. We are not speaking of some God-forsaken African country, but about a superpower. I understand why Americans and their eternal minions (British?) are against China as an emerging superpower, but they should be more realistic: China is very powerful right now and will become more powerful in the foreseeable future. There is no way for anybody to stop that.

 

[Austinturner]

I don't see why China cannot build something from zero. We are not speaking of some God-forsaken African country, but about a superpower. I understand why Americans and their eternal minions (British?) are against China as an emerging superpower, but they should be more realistic: China is very powerful right now and will become more powerful in the foreseeable future. There is no way for anybody to stop that.

I agree the chinese have the technical capability to build many innovative products, though understandably they have used espionage to accelerate that capability as people above have pointed out (Most nations use espionage in some way to further their own interests and I have no doubt the US will increase its activities to steal technology from china as china develops new capabilities in areas like quantum computing, defence technology, AI etc).

However I would argue that based on its capacity for global military power projection (very limited) and its soft diplomatic power projection (limited) China is not yet a superpower by the definitions most people use, though it may become one in the coming decades. The US remains the world’s most powerful and influential nation by quite some margin.

If China does not become a superpower it will most likely be due to its own decisions rather than the actions of an external party, their decisions have led to very challenging demographic conditions over the next 30 years (rapidly aging population), poor investment allocation (residential real estate rather than productivity improvements) and if they aren’t bluffing a devastating conflict with the western world if they invade Taiwan (I think its unlikely they will invade Taiwan, however doing so would be a disaster for them economically and politically, if that got them into a hot conflict with a US backed western alliance (unknown if it would) they would be basically finished).

 

[skarnwolf]

I wonder how many hacks of AMD, Intel & ARM networks it took the CCP & its economic warfare depts to 'acquire' what they needed to make this...

So what are you implying here? That only the West can have innovation and the rest of the world aren't smart enough to come up with their own chip designs and will only resort to stealing and cheating? Get over yourself

 

[cliffordcooley]

Sounds like you have been living under the rock as a majority of our products in this country are from China.

Duh! How do you think I know their products are garbage.

 

[scavengerspc]

I don't see why China cannot build something from zero.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you there. But I don't for one second believe that they can right now, or that they did it with Loongson.

I understand why Americans and their eternal minions (British?) are against China

No you don't. In fact it looks like you don't have even basic knowledge of the subject.

China is very powerful right now and will become more powerful in the foreseeable future

It seems as though they are better at projecting power than actually proving it.

 

[scavengerspc]

So what are you implying here? That only the West can have innovation and the rest of the world aren't smart enough to come up with their own chip designs

No, just China for the most part, and that is built on decades of solid history.
I hope that helps ease your paranoia.

 

[Maximumfan]

India is another engineering powerhouse. Like China, they have an enormous population and produce more STEM graduates than the West.

Sorry, India's IQ is only 86. That's why the US doesn't consider India a threat to their technological dominance and hegemony. But because of India's enormous population, they really can produce lots of STEM graduates

 

[Austinturner]

It seems as though they are better at projecting power than actually proving it.

I get what you are trying to say, but its a bit confusing because the term projecting power usually refers to being able to apply military force far from your borders…something China has almost no capacity to do at present.

 

[scavengerspc]

I get what you are trying to say, but its a bit confusing because the term projecting power usually refers to being able to apply military force far from your borders…something China has almost no capacity to do at present.

You're right. What I meant is that their show of force is way more than what they are capable of actually pull off. Much the same as Russia, Iran and North Korea. Remember the dummy parade tanks?

 

[Austinturner]

You're right. What I meant is that their show of force is way more than what they are capable of actually pull off. Much the same as Russia, Iran and North Korea. Remember the dummy parade tanks?

The appearance of strength perhaps? But don’t confuse lack of power projection capability with lack of defensive strength. No nation on earth could invade and occupy modern china.

The main reason a US lead coalition could defend a neighbour from chinese aggression is that any serious strike on US capital ships or airbases is suicide because it would result in a total war scenario and the US would almost certainly deploy at least tactical nuclear weapons in a total war scenario otherwise its nuclear deterrent becomes meaningless.

 

[cliffordcooley]

No nation on earth could invade and occupy modern china.

No nation wants that amount of bloodshed but it is not impossible.

 

[persondb]

Phoronix and their benchmark stuff give it a very different view though

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Loongson-3A5000-Benchmark

If you look at some of those results, there's plenty of really bad ones where it end ups competing with Phenom/Bulldozer CPUs. This is despite it apparently being made out of 12nm.

 

[Austinturner]

No nation wants that amount of bloodshed but it is not impossible.

Nope completely impossible. China has by far the largest manufacturing base in the world and 1.4 billion people. They could easily raise and arm 10+ million conscripts in short order if they needed to defend their nation and on top of that they have a credible nuclear deterrent for defensive purposes. China doesn’t need to worry about external threats, only internal discontent.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Nope completely impossible.

I think you are wrong. But lets hope we never find out.

 

[Austinturner]

I think you are wrong. But lets hope we never find out.

Yeah we can certainly agree on that. And we are so far off topic its the wrong place to talk about possible scenarios!

 

[Porkous]

Honestly this is interesting and.. I realized they're the company that made the CPU for the Yemote Leeloong that Richard Stallman used.

It'd be nice if western hardware manufacturers would make pcs with these Longsoon CPUs... to avoid Intel ME and so on.

TL, DR
Scientists can make it, they have super computers and, mostly, old ideas from decades ago should not be a problem. Its said that once an idea and its solution is developed, is not a matter of when, but who gets there faster, to get that patent, etc.

It's interesting because when a bunch of smart people get together on a matter, they brainstorm a solution pretty fast, and usually at a greater magnitude than the problem itself.

So is not a matter of if they can do it, if they can realize this project without failure going forward, its about support from people who are not biased on either side, ambassadors of innovative ideas on the front where liberty defeats necessity and urgency.

I think I read somewhere, but super elite academics do know english basically, so the language barrier is not there between software and hardware, so these relations between developers and different oems might take off.

Maybe we will have a future where ARM is equal to x86 and is not implemented with capital and market spread, but with necessity to fill every niche.

IMO, western CPU companies are in jeopardy with news like these, and we will see how Asian academic culture would develop this for the masses, and if the world does need very, very affordable CPU's; what outcome would that have, not only in Asian countries and co.

 

[scavengerspc]

Nope completely impossible. China has by far the largest manufacturing base in the world and 1.4 billion people

And we are very aware of that, I can assure you. Those would be gone way before any actual ground troop movement.

But don't think I am pro war with anyone because I'm not.
But it is far from impossible.

 

[Austinturner]

And we are very aware of that, I can assure you. Those would be gone way before any actual ground troop movement.

But don't think I am pro war with anyone because I'm not.
But it is far from impossible.

As I said to Clifford we can’t really debate it all out on this thread, we all hope it never comes to a war, but I’m confident land invasion and occupation of China is not achievable for Russia, India or the United States given the constraints of geography, logistics and the ability of China to manufacture millions weapons, vehicles and supplies by repurposing hundreds of thousands of factories already in place all across the nation plus a small but credible nuclear triad.

 

[GregonMaui]

What genius was it the thought creating a trade war and restricting access to technology with the country that was the world's largest economy for thousands of years was a good idea? Is anyone surprised that they could come out roaring and defeat all the trade sanctions with in-house developments? Wait maybe this is a great idea, lets really ratchet up competition, it makes everyone better. Cooperation is good too though.

 

[Uptek]

It would be great to see this CPU competing with the likes of AMD and Intel. I could even buy one, why not.

Well, it's not x86, so no compatibility with any x86 programs - including Windows, etc.

Unless you are Chinese and want to run whatever software Loongson makes available, your only other option for the near future would likely be compiling your own binaries of open-source software on Linux, using a C/C++ compiler compatible with the Loongson ISA.