On August 8 this year, Loongson Zhongke announced the success of the new generation quad-core processor Loongson 3A6000. From the perspective of various parameters, this chip can be called the strongest performance product in the domestic desktop CPU. But parameters are parameters, as the representative of the latest technology in domestic autonomous desktop CPUs, what level has the actual performance and experience of Loongson 3A6000 reached?
Some netizens recently experienced the Loongson 3A6000 test machine in advance, after a period of use, here we will briefly summarize: Loongson 3A6000 hardware performance meets expectations, compared with other domestic desktop CPUs have a lot of advantages, it can be said that it has been comparable to the Intel 8th generation Core i5-8100 equipped with office PCs in many companies, and even the 10th generation i3-10100; With the domestic operating system, the daily office experience is smooth, and the high-intensity multi-task use is stress-free; Of course, the software ecosystem has always been a problem in the industry, and Loongson is currently cooperating with mainstream software manufacturers to adapt, and we can see their efforts to promote domestic PCs into the mass market.
Before the main text, let's introduce some basic parameters of Loongson 3A6000. The 3A6000 is a desktop CPU, based on LoongArch, LoongArch, an autonomous instruction set system, integrating four 6-transmit 64-bit LA664 cores running at 2.5GHz.
Loongson 3A6000 also supports 128-bit Vector Processing Extended Instructions (LSX) and 256-bit Advanced Vector Processing Extended Instructions (LASX), while supporting multi-threading technology (SMT2) for the first time, a total of 8 logic cores on the whole chip, and integrated dual-channel DDR4-3200 controller. In terms of process technology, 3A6000 is based on domestic controllable 12nm process.
Since 3A5000, Loongson has begun to use the completely self-developed instruction set architecture LoongArch, including the 3A6000, from the instruction set to the microarchitecture, and then to the chip design has completely achieved independent research and development, so it can also be said that this is the desktop CPU with the highest degree of autonomy in China.
The specific test data and experience will be detailed below.
Performance measurement
Beyond the Zen2, IPC catches up with the ten-generation Core i3
First of all, the configuration of the test machine, the CPU is undoubtedly Loongson 3A6000, the motherboard chipset adopts Loongson 7A2000, with Unigroup DDR4 3200 16GB dual-channel memory, Dahua 256GB M.2 solid state and Mingying RX580 8GB D5 Wolf Warrior graphics card.
For performance testing, we mainly use three running software, SPEC CPU 2006, Stream and Unixbench. SPEC CPU 2006 is an industry-standard CPU-intensive benchmark suite launched by the non-profit organization SPEC (Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation), which mainly tests the integer and floating-point arithmetic performance of the system. In the SPEC CPU test, the system's processor, memory, and compiler used by the system are the main factors affecting the performance score.
The measured score of the SPEC CPU 2006 of the Loongson 3A6000 is a single-core integer (int_speed) score of 42.6 and a single-core floating point (fp_speed) score of 54.1, which is basically consistent with the score officially announced by Loongson, and the single-core integer and floating point performance are 60% and 90% higher than the previous generation Loongson 3A5000.
Compared with other domestic desktop CPUs on the market, the measured single-core results of Loongson 3A6000 are "far ahead", and they are more than 30% ahead of the x86's Haiguang 3250.
Not only leading domestic peers, the single-core performance of Loongson 3A6000 even surpasses the AMD Zen2 architecture CPU R5-2600 listed in 2018, and it is still in the case of low frequency of 3A6000. That said, the IPC (performance per GHz) of the 3A6000 has significantly surpassed the R5-2600.
Compared with Intel's 10th generation Core i3-10100F, when locking the frequency to the same 2.5GHz as the 3A6000, the SPEC CPU 2006 single-core score is similar to the 3A6000, which also means that regardless of the advantages of process technology and core high-frequency design, the IPC of the 3A6000 has caught up with the 10th generation Core i3.
While Intel's 10th generation Core CPU is listed in 2020, optimistically, Loongson 3A6000 has reached Intel's product level three years ago in terms of performance.
Stream is a recognized memory bandwidth performance benchmark tool in Linux system, mainly using Copy (copy), Scale (multiply), Add (add), Triad (ternary operation) four items to test memory bandwidth performance, the test is mainly to reflect the memory subsystem and CPU internal design and other capabilities.
Loongson 3A6000 has been greatly improved in memory controller compared with the previous generation, but in the Stream eight-thread test, the four items of the 3A6000 are not as fast as the results of the 4-thread test, perhaps there is still room for improvement in multi-threaded optimization, after all, this is the first generation of Loongson products that support hyper-threading.
UnixBench is a system-based benchmarking tool, including CPU integer/floating-point performance, 2D/3D graphics test, file read/write, memory bandwidth and other items, not only testing CPU and other single items, the test results will be integrated into CPU, memory, hard disk, system, compiler, GPU and other aspects of performance.
The Loongson 3A6000 scored 2191 in the UnixBench single-task test, continuing to lead the domestic desktop CPU, but the score was about 12% lower than that of the silent i3-10100F; The multitasking score is 7463.6, which is lower than the silent i3-10100F, which is also a quad-core and eight-thread, but significantly higher than the i3-10100F with the same frequency of 2.5GHz.
Loongson 3A6000 is equipped with Galaxy Kirin system
What is the software ecosystem?
The operating system used on the Loongson 3A6000 test machine obtained by netizens is the Galaxy Kirin V10 developed by Kirin Software, which adapts to domestic software and hardware platforms and is deeply optimized, and supports domestic processor platforms such as Loongson, Feiteng, Shenwei, Zhaoxin, Haiguang, Kunpeng and so on.
From the perspective of UI and system operation logic, Galaxy Kirin is relatively close to the Windows system, and if it is a user who is accustomed to Windows, there is almost no learning cost.
Galaxy Kirin V10 comes with a software store, office, audio, development, image, network, game, social and other eleven categories, among which commonly used WPS, Sogou input method, WeChat, QQ, Baidu network disk and other software can be found in the software store.
Loongson 3A6000 as a chip using LoongArch instruction set architecture, even if the same Linux-based operating system is used, the software running under the instruction set architecture CPU such as x86 and ARM cannot be universal. For example, Tencent QQ provides different software versions of x86, ARM, LoongArch, and MIPS on the official website of the Linux version.
However, not all software can adapt to so many platforms like QQ, so the beginning of the article also mentioned that LoongArch can be compatible with existing instruction set software such as x86, ARM and MIPS through binary translation of software and hardware. Binary translation refers to the implementation of the target machine's binary code on the host by simulating the target machine's instruction system-compatible CPU with software on the host.
In fact, there have been many successful cases of achieving early ecological compatibility through binary translation, such as Apple's Mac computer has experienced two instances of CPU instruction set architecture switching, from powerPC to x86, from x86 to ARM, Apple has used Rosetta and Rosetta 2 binary translators respectively to achieve the software ecological transition of the PC product line.
But obviously, Loongson faces a more difficult situation, not only ecological compatibility, not only across instruction set platforms, but also across operating systems. Previously, UnionTech UOS integrated Loongson's binary translation module, and the app store has been able to provide some Windows software, through Wine, the system-integrated Loongson binary translation module and hardware acceleration on the CPU, to achieve the operation of software such as WeChat and Photoshop for Windows.
Software and system experience
Daily office is smooth, high-intensity multitasking without stress
According to the running score of our test, the performance of Loongson 3A6000 has reached the needs of daily office computers on the current market, and even some performance is excessive, but on the other hand, the operating system and software ecology are also part that has a greater impact on the use experience. So Loongson 3A6000 with Galaxy Kirin experience, how is the experience in daily office?
For office applications, we chose WPS 2019, Loongson Browser, Tencent Meeting, Baidu Network Disk, Zhongwang CAD, QQ, DingTalk, WeChat and other software for experience. The first is WPS, which seems to be a commercial version on the Galaxy Kirin that cuts the networking function and does not support cloud services. Compared with the Windows version of WPS, in addition to cloud services and the latest WPS AI functions, other documents, forms, PPT and other functions are basically complete. The overall interface is cleaner, and the software opening speed and new documents are faster.
We used WPS to test a PTT with a size of 50MB and more than 500 pages of text + images. If you add multimedia such as video to the same 500-page PPT, the opening time is only 3 seconds, which is faster than the Windows WPS on the author's own AMD R5-5600.
Documents and forms are even more relevant. A 50MB text + picture table can be opened in almost seconds, and a text + picture document with a size of more than 400,000 words can be opened in 3 seconds, and the subsequent loading speed is faster than the Windows version of WPS running under R5-5600.
Loongson browser plays 4K online videos
In terms of browsers, the Galaxy Kirin Software Store provides mainstream browsers such as 360 and Firefox, including Loongson's own Loongson browser. Of course, the browser kernel is basically the same, but there are still slight differences in their respective experiences, and after a period of experience, 3A6000 with Loongson browser under the Galaxy Kirin operating system, the experience is very smooth in terms of multi-open web pages, H5 pages, 4K video (video bitrate 15.59Mbps) playback, etc., which can fully meet daily needs.
Tencent Meeting adaptation is also relatively perfect, with smooth graphics under multi-person video conferencing and consistent functions with Windows versions.
Baidu network disk officially adapted to the LoongArch architecture platform in early 2022, so there is no need to worry about the experience of Baidu network disk on Loongson 3A6000.
In terms of social software, QQ and DingTalk are well adapted, and the software functions and experience are almost exactly the same as those of the Windows version. The only problem encountered for a while was that DingTalk had a slight delay in sending files, but it had little impact on day-to-day use overall.
Although WeChat is a native adaptation, its functions are simple, with only the most basic functions, and the Windows version of WeChat with a very fast iteration speed in recent years has a large gap in functions, such as the lack of functions such as moments, subscription accounts, collections, video accounts, and mini programs.
Zhongwang CAD
Zhongwang CAD completed the adaptation of the Loongson 3A4000 platform as early as 2021, and the experience of Zhongwang CAD on the latest 3A6000 is also more in line with expectations. Some construction professionals provided some engineering documents to the author, and Zhongwang CAD can smoothly open drawings and zoom, modify, annotate and other operations on Loongson 3A6000, and the overall operation is smooth.
In terms of local video playback, we used the classic "Peking Duck" 4K demonstration video, under the built-in player of the Galaxy Kirin system, drag the progress bar at will without any lag. This time on the 3A6000 supporting motherboard, but also equipped with Loongson's latest 7A2000 supporting bridge, compared with the previous generation of 7A1000, in addition to PCIE, USB and SATA and other interfaces are upgraded to 3.0, but also integrated Loongson self-developed GPU for the first time, but there is no more detailed information on the official website, so it is not clear whether there is a built-in video codec, perhaps it will not be known until the 3A6000 is officially listed.
In the process of daily office, it is generally not necessary to use a single software, often open multiple web pages at the same time, open multiple documents, etc. for multitasking. So we gave the Loongson 3A6000 a wave of strength to test the ability to multitask. In the case of opening 10 pages of Zhongwang CAD and Loongson browser (including a 4K online video), WPS (500 pages of PPT), QQ, DingTalk and other software at the same time, the actual measurement does not lag when switching between each software, and the processor occupies only about 40%.
However, it should also be noted that at present, in terms of image processing, video editing, etc., there are no more easy-to-use software products in the software store of Galaxy Qilin, only the open source image processing software GIMP and the editing software Shotcut, compared with Pohotshop, Premiere Pro, clipping and other commonly used software on the Windows platform, it is almost in an unusable state.
In general, from the performance of office software and multitasking, Loongson 3A6000 with Galaxy Kirin operating system can cover most of the office and daily use scenarios, and some software basically reach the experience of mainstream platforms.
Tomb Raider
In addition, 3D games such as Tomb Raider, Flash 2, Torchlight 2, World of Warcraft, and Dead Cells are also installed in the test machine, but due to the reason that the game is translated by LATX binary, such as Tomb Raider will still have frame drops during operation, which needs to be optimized.
summary
This Loongson 3A6000 can definitely be called "leaps and bounds" in performance, from the 3A5000 released in 2021 to today's 3A6000, only two years have passed, the evolution from "i3-6100" to "13-10100" has been completed, and the IPC has increased by more than 60%, jumping from "usable" to "smooth" in one step.
As a pure domestic desktop CPU in the true sense, such an improvement is worth exciting. However, from the current Loongson still has to face many problems, the first is the increase of frequency, as mentioned earlier, the IPC of 3A6000 has reached the level of the 10th generation Core i3, but the problem is that the frequency of the current high-end desktop x86 CPU can already achieve more than 5GHz, even if the IPC is the same, but the single-core performance is also greatly led because of the frequency advantage.
The increase in frequency requires the chip to repeatedly optimize the back-end design after multiple tape-outs, which is a money-burning work, without sufficient commercialization capabilities and market demand, and it is difficult to invest a lot of resources to increase the processor frequency. Similarly, in terms of software ecology, there is not enough hardware volume and user demand, and software vendors will not invest resources to adapt.
Of course, from the perspective of chip hardware, Loongson 3A6000 has done well enough. While the software ecosystem is transitioning through binary translation, it is also hoped that more software vendors can join to jointly build a domestic instruction set system ecosystem. The birth of 3A6000 gives us reason to believe that Loongson, or domestic desktop CPU, will have the opportunity to occupy a place in the consumer market in the future.