Kirin 9010 single-core performance breakthrough, architecture innovation has attracted attention, can Huawei chips regain their strength?
Huawei's latest flagship chip, the Kirin 9010, has made a breakthrough in single-core performance. According to the test data of many authoritative institutions, the Kirin 9010 scored as high as 1447 points in the GeekBench single-core test, which is about 11% higher than the previous generation Kirin 9000S, and the performance is close to the level of top mobile chips. This achievement is mainly due to the bold innovation of the Kirin 9010 in CPU architecture design, which has attracted wide attention in the industry.
The Kirin 9010's leap in single-core performance is first and foremost due to its drastic architectural design innovation. According to speculation, Huawei is likely to have borrowed and optimized ARM's latest Cortex-X series large core architecture, especially the design concept of the X3, when designing this chip.
The IPC of the Kirin 9010 (the number of instructions per cycle has reached 627, which is 25% higher than the 501 of the previous Kirin 9000S. This IPC level is close to 98% of the X3 architecture, indicating that the Kirin 9010 is likely to introduce many advanced technologies at the microarchitectural level, such as wider execution pipelines, more efficient branch prediction, enhanced out-of-order execution capabilities, and deep support for new instruction set extensions.
These improvements enable the Kirin 9010 to schedule instructions more efficiently, reduce latency caused by data dependencies, and take full advantage of the cache hierarchy when handling complex tasks, effectively improving single-core performance. The Kirin 9010 can still achieve a single-core performance better than its predecessor of 2.62GHz while maintaining a relatively low operating frequency of 2.3GHz, further confirming the great progress of its architectural design.
This means that the Kirin 9010 is able to provide higher performance while better controlling energy consumption with the same power budget, which is of great practical value for mobile devices. I've used a phone with a Kirin 9000S, and when I was running some big 3D games, the phone was very hot and the battery power was greatly reduced. If the Kirin 9010 can really improve performance while effectively controlling power consumption, the improvement of user experience will be very considerable.
Although the Kirin 9010 has made a breakthrough in single-core performance, the gap still exists compared with high-end chips of the same level. Let's take Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 as a comparison.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is Qualcomm's flagship mobile chip this year, which is manufactured on TSMC's 4nm process, with a single-core performance of up to 2036 points and an IPC value of 636. Judging from the specifications, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 uses a 1+3+4 core architecture, with a large core of ARM Cortex-X3 and a frequency of up to 3.2GHz. This design idea is very similar to the "performance + efficiency" combination of large and small cores of Apple's A16 processor, which can exert extreme computing power when needed.
In comparison, the Kirin 9010's single-core performance has improved, but it still lags behind the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. From a user experience perspective, this means that the Kirin 9010 may struggle when running some high-load applications, and the responsiveness and smoothness will be more or less affected. I've experienced this myself with a phone with a Kirin 9000, and after running several large games and office apps at the same time, the phone would have noticeable lag.
The Kirin 9010 performs relatively well in terms of multi-core performance. According to the test data, its multi-core score of 4471 points is slightly higher than the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1's 4472 points, and the two are on par. This reflects that the Kirin 9010 has certain advantages in the processing efficiency of multi-threaded tasks, and may be able to bring users a smoother experience in intensive workload scenarios such as video encoding and 3D rendering.
In addition to the CPU, the strength of the GPU also determines the overall performance level of the chip. It is understood that the GPU equipped with the Kirin 9010 is Mali-G78 MP24, which is consistent with the previous generation Kirin 9000S. This means that the Kirin 9010 may not be able to make a breakthrough in 3D gaming and other graphics-intensive applications. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is powered by the new Adreno 740 GPU, which will have even better support for 3D gaming.
The Kirin 9010 is a chip that has made significant progress but still has shortcomings. Its birth is a testament to Huawei's continued efforts on the road of independent innovation despite being sanctioned.
It is undeniable that due to the inability to obtain ARM's latest architecture authorization, backward process and other factors, Kirin 9010 has a certain gap with Apple's A series and Qualcomm Snapdragon's top products in terms of performance. But from another point of view, the appearance of the Kirin 9010 also proves to the world Huawei's determination to be self-reliant in the face of adversity.
We have reason to believe that with the increasing improvement of the domestic chip industry chain, Huawei's chip strength will make breakthroughs in the next few years. At present, Huawei has carried out independent R&D in chip design, process and other fields, and it is just around the corner to get rid of its dependence on foreign countries. Once the current bottleneck is broken, the performance of Huawei's chips will be improved by leaps and bounds.
In addition to hardware strength, the construction of software ecology is also crucial. The release of the HarmonyOS marks the gradual enhancement of Huawei's autonomy in the field of operating systems. The deep integration of the HarmonyOS system and the Kirin chip will bring users a smooth experience comparable to that of the Apple ecosystem.
In the near future, Huawei's mobile phones will rely on powerful self-developed chips and operating systems to create users with the same level of experience as Apple's iPhones. At that time, the combination of domestic chips and domestic operating systems will surely become the mainstay of leading the development of the domestic mobile phone market.
It will take time for all this to happen. But the advent of the Kirin 9010 has already laid the foundation for the breakthrough that followed. I believe that in the next few years, we will definitely see the continuous surge in Huawei's chip strength, adding new impetus to the improvement of domestic scientific and technological strength.