Made in China 8-core x86 CPU arrives to market

[onetheycallEric]

Why it matters: Zhaoxin, a fabless chip maker based in Shanghai, has produced a homegrown x86 CPU line that's apparently ready for the DIY scene. The Zhaoxin KaiXian KX-6000 series of processors were originally shown off in 2018, but since then we had heard little about them. Now it seems that the KX-U6780A will come to market this quarter, as listed on Chinese retail site Taobao with a March release date.

For the uninitiated, Zhaoxin is a joint venture between VIA Technologies and the Shanghai Municipal Government. Zhaoxin's current CPU designs have origins in Centaur Technology, a company acquired by VIA in 1999. The VIA Nano Isaiah core design, built by Centaur, would serve as the architecture for Zhaoxin's first CPUs.

The Isaiah design was Centaur's first superscalar CPU capable of out-of-order execution. This is what seemed to pave the way for Zhaoxin's in-house designed LuJiaZui cores, as they too are built around a superscalar, out of order architecture. LuJiaZui seems to be an iterative migration from the Wudaokou architecture, but also supports modern instruction set extensions such as AVX and SSE4.2, which is an important evolution for China and its domestic CPU goals.

The KaiXian KX-U6880A appears to be the series flagship, with the slightly lower clocked KX-U6780A slotting in just beneath it. All KX-6000 series chips are based on the LuJiaZui architecture, boasting eight cores and eight threads. The entire KX-6000 series are built on TSMC's 16nm FinFET process node, with frequencies ranging from 2.7 GHz to 3.0 GHz and built with a 35mm x 35mm BGA package.

Recently, a Chinese tech YouTube channel got a hold of a KX-U6780A and C1888 mini-ITX motherboard combination. Looking specifically at the KX-U6780A, the chip has a 70W TDP, a dual-channel DDR4-3200 memory controller, DirectX 11 support, modern I/O interfaces such as SATA, USB, and PCIe 3.0, with 8MB of L2 cache. Notably, the chip has no L3 cache.

The C1888 motherboard, which seems to be built by Shenzhen Cjoyin Electronics, is reportedly an engineering sample. The board comes with two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots supporting DDR4-3200 RAM. There's also mSATA and SATA ports for storage, and supposedly there will be future support for NVMe and mainstream CPU coolers as final revisions are made for the final product.

According to Zhaoxin, the performance of the KX-6000 series should be similar to an Intel Core i5-7400, a 4C/4T Kaby Lake chip that launched in early 2017. The Chinese enthusiasts did run the CPU through some benchmarks like Cinebench R20, where the KX-U6780A scored 845. That puts the KX-U6780A somewhere around an Intel Pentium G4600 or AMD FX-6300.

The Chinese YouTube channel also paired the KX-U6780A and C1888 motherboard with an RTX 2060 Super for a handful of gaming benchmarks, where the hardware managed to push 60 FPS in the games tested. However, the games didn't appear to be particularly CPU intensive, and we don't know exactly how the tests were performed.

While Zhaoxin's KX-6000 series remain way behind the likes of Intel and AMD's current crop of processors, Zhaoxin has aggressive plans to bridge that gap by 2021. The upcoming KX-7000 series are set to be built on one of TSMC's 7nm nodes and will bring support for DDR5, PCIe 4.0, as well as boasting a refined iGPU. Zhaoxin reportedly has its eyes set towards sub-7nm designs as well.

China's home brewing of semiconductors seems to be advancing rapidly, especially as the country is attempting to wean itself off of American semiconductors.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/83819-made-china-8-core-x86-cpu-arrives-market.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

The bottom line is "reliability" and "quality control".

There's a reason why Intel, Nvidia and AMD have surged ahead of the other competition out there. It's because of their reliability and quality control. If you have a major failure with one of these devices they'll typically replace the product at no extra cost - especially if you take out a warranty on them.

I can't trust a company that isn't beholden to US laws or could fly-by-night and disappear.

I buy brand names because when something goes wrong, I want to know exactly who to call or who to sue.

Just as my money is at stake, so is their online reputation.

 

[a94ra]

The bottom line is "reliability" and "quality control".

There's a reason why Intel, Nvidia and AMD have surged ahead of the other competition out there. It's because of their reliability and quality control. If you have a major failure with one of these devices they'll typically replace the product at no extra cost - especially if you take out a warranty on them.

I can't trust a company that isn't beholden to US laws or could fly-by-night and disappear.

I buy brand names because when something goes wrong, I want to know exactly who to call or who to sue.

Just as my money is at stake, so is their online reputation.

Looks like this kind of chip is not built for western market or to gain significant marketshare overnight. The Chinese government want to test how much the progression of their technology so that they wont be dependent to western companies. Even car company like KIA and Hyundai was called cheap Korean knockoff car from their western and japanese counterpart, but look at them now, bring reliable and good product

 

[Lounds]

With how organised China is with resources and R&D, if comparing to their smartphones, I give it 10 years and these will be matching AMD and intel and will sell to poorer countries round the world.

 

[Yynxs]

Ryzen 8 core 16 threads
Intel 8 core 16 threads
KaiXian 8 core 8 threads

Missing threads will be used to transmit your work to them to help further development. It's a feature, not a bug.

 

[neeyik]

None of VIA's x86 CPUs have ever supported simultaneous multithreading and given that the LuJiaZui is based right off them, it's not surprising that there's still no SMT.

 

[onetheycallEric]

None of VIA's x86 CPUs have ever supported simultaneous multithreading and given that the LuJiaZui is based right off them, it's not surprising that there's still no SMT.

Yep. A very good point. Nick, did you catch any of the Reddit AMA Centaur did a couple weeks ago, where they discussed their x86 designs and the new Ncore DLA? Good stuff.

 

[neeyik]

I didn't! Would appreciate the link for it, if you happen to know it.

 

[onetheycallEric]

https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/ep0lf4

 

[noel24]

Comes with MGB Technology - Military Grade Backdoors... At least so I've heard.

 

[Dude99]

I remember Centaur Technology because I had an interview with them in 1998, that was a Texas based company that designed clones of the intel x86. I thought they went bankrupt in 2000s and sold their assets to VIA in Taiwan...because nobody wanted a CPU that was low performance at the time...

 

[veLa]

I'm sure the fears of espionage have some merit, and I'm confident the goal here is not to compete directly with Intel, AMD and the like, but can't we at least relish that it's interesting to have another x86 compatible processor series?

As somebody that enjoys tinkering with new hardware, I think it would be fun to experiment with an obscure microprocessor like the "KX-6000".

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Finally the all the years of IP theft starts to pay off in the chip sector. 5 more years and we'll have GPU's as well, all being dumped on the world market for a song.

 

[Dude99]

I was watching that video... brings back memories prior to 2000 when logic design career was dry hot in the United States....in my opinion, CPU design is mental rug weaving .... still waiting on somebody to write the AI script called “design cpu dot python”

 

[grumblguts]

Security would be dead if you had this cpu.
may as well hand china all your development IP

 

[mongeese]

I like the CPUs. Their architecture has a cool name.

 

[Somasundaram]

Dependency on Intel must go down to get the best from the industry. Today there's a huge shortage of Intel processors and OEMs like Dell HP Lenovo etc are struggling to meet the customer demand. Also Intel is dictating terms on pricing and delivery.. CIOs and CTOs should not get married to the brands and ignore new products. They must appreciate the technologies, product functionalities and support ignoring their brand consciousness...

 

[captaincranky]

I like the CPUs. Their architecture has a cool name.

Meh, I would have gone with "Satyr".

 

[JackWB]

Finally the all the years of IP theft starts to pay off in the chip sector. 5 more years and we'll have GPU's as well, all being dumped on the world market for a song.

I'm pretty sure this article says what architecture it's based on. What possible IP theft do you think took place to produce this? Or are you just being xenophobic? It's not like this is beyond their level of intelligence to develop as engineers from China have helped Intel and AMD develop many of their products.

 

[JackWB]

Security would be dead if you had this cpu.
may as well hand china all your development IP

While not impossible it is unlikely this will intentionally compromise security. It takes physical access or software to access any hardware designed backdoor. And that's if there even is a backdoor which is unlikely as of now.

 

[0dium]

Security would be dead if you had this cpu.
may as well hand china all your development IP

Intel: *heavy breathing*

 

[Udelh579]

So a market with over 1 billion people began to slowly drift away from Intel and Amd Moreover, seems like other markets are going to drift away as well.

Quality control? Yeah, right. In most cases prices and availability are more important

 

[EmJayCeeDee]

"which is an important evolution for China and its domestic CPU goals."

Curious what is meant by this... It's interesting enough as described elsewhere; an enthusiast system... But then you go on to describe the performance as pretty straight bad.

Do you honestly think China doesn't have the same, if not far cheaper "domestic" access to the same hardware we use? Is this going to be cheaper than the Intel Pentium g line because I'm not sure that's realistic

 

[benderOS]

The bottom line is "reliability" and "quality control".

There's a reason why Intel, Nvidia and AMD have surged ahead of the other competition out there. It's because of their reliability and quality control. If you have a major failure with one of these devices they'll typically replace the product at no extra cost - especially if you take out a warranty on them.

I can't trust a company that isn't beholden to US laws or could fly-by-night and disappear.

I buy brand names because when something goes wrong, I want to know exactly who to call or who to sue.

Just as my money is at stake, so is their online reputation.

Say that to people that are not us or west europe citizens. Big corps behave with them like with trash.

 

[vtdsz]

It is a good idea to have more manufacturers in the competing field of the x86 architecture, as we had during the 90's before wave of acquisitions and consolidations.
VIA working with Zhaoxing is bringing back the dormant cell of Cyrix + IDT Centaur and National Semiconductors together on a prospective NEW mainstream market breaking the duopoly of AMD and Intel.
VIA lacked the financial stature and R&D prowess to compete with the marked giants.
I am glad that Zhiaoxin has the determination, the capital and dare to force itself with VIA, planning to be a VIAble 3rd alternative in the x86 processors market.
The more manufacturers compete, the better for consumers