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[Elektro Demon]

There's a new manufacturer with an x86 licence. It's called
Zhaoxin

Right now, they're only in china but maybe they'll start appearing in the west sometime in the future.

Zhaoxin's newest x86 processors, codenamed LuJiaZu, max out at 8 physical cores and are represented by the KX-6000 series for client mobile and desktop computers, and the KX-30000 series for servers and networking device. These 16nm processors feature an integrated GPU within the SoC. ast week Zhaoxin unveiled its plans for client and server processors for 2021. Looking at the client computing update first, the new KX-7000 series will use a new PCU microarchitecture design and be fabricated at 7nm. TSMC will be doing the honours on its N7 process. WikiChip says that the timescale is expected to be 2021 for this release - if all goes to plan. The source notes that "the company's current SoC and core design is still rather weak in terms of IPC and power efficiency," but there is reasonable hope for this next gen to push forward on both fronts.

Not a lot of technical detail is provided / known about the KX-7000 series. However, the roadmap slide shows it supports DDR5 and PCIe 4.0. This SoC will integrate a new GPU with DX12 support too .

Conversely Zhaoxin's new KH-40000, also being readied for launch in 2021, will continue to use TSMC's 16nm process. Zhaoxin says it will use an enhanced microarchitecture and quadruple the number of cores available to purchasers of the series. The KH-30000 offered a maximum of 8-cores but this will be 32-cores in the KH-40000 series. With dual socket support designs already available for KH-30000 the new series will offer up to 64-cores per node. KH-40000 will continue to utilize DDR4 memory and PCIe Gen 3.

Bits and Chips recently added a bit of further information to the above. It Tweeted that the KX-7000 is almost ready, and is in debugging right now, with speeds of 3.5GHz+. After DDR5 supply comes online (2H2020) and affordable PCIe 4.0 devices proliferate the SoCs will be ready for mass production / consumption. Thus, it adds, both AMD and VIA will be selling 7nm x86 processors before Intel.

Beijing is looking to replace all foreign software and computers in government offices and public institutions within 3 years, so perhaps we will see development like the above accelerate not just in the CPU market but also essential components like RAM, storage, and GPUs.

Sources:
https://hexus.net/tech/news/cpu/139343-zhaoxin-x86-cpus-way-diy-enthusiast-channels/
https://hexus.net/tech/news/cpu/137873-zhaoxin-aiming-2021-release-7nm-x86-cpus/

 

[Caffeine]

thats cool i'm still chillin with intel, would love to see some benchmarks.

 

[LordOfChaos]

Zhaoxin (Shanghai Zhaoxin Semiconductor Co., Ltd.[1] Chinese: 兆芯; pinyin: Zhàoxīn) is a fabless semiconductor company, created in 2013 as a joint venture between VIA Technologies and the Shanghai Municipal Government.

Having an entity remotely close to the CPC at the most important level of my computer doesn't sound like a fun time, though if they create some competition, I'll be happy for it.


Whoda thunk VIA would stick it out this long and maintain their x86 contract. But where they partnered with someone else, it seems Intel would have some arguments to make to wrestle that licence away if they got worried about this.

 

[Elektro Demon]

thats cool i'm still chillin with intel, would love to see some benchmarks.

Their first gen cpu is not that bad. But apparently, benchmarks are hard to come by.

In previous reports we have heard that KX-6000 series chips were roughly comparable to Intel's 7th gen Core i5 (4C/4T) processors.

 

[ptuck874]

looks like they finally decided they stole enough to make their own, good for them! i wouldn't trust buying it though lol...

 

[DrAspirino]

looks like they finally decided they stole enough to make their own, good for them! i wouldn't trust buying it though lol...

Why? Because the government of Chine would have access to your PC?

Come on... it's like choosing who you want to be spied from: if you choose Intel or AMD, you're being spied by the NSA through the spectre and some other core vulnerabilities (CacheOut, ZombieLoad2, Plundervolt, Ryzenfall, Chimera, etc); or if you choose VIA you're getting spied by the chinese.

The only TRULY secure platform are RISC-V and Power9, but none of those are aimed at gaming (heck, they only run linux and/or some unix OSs), so worrying about security in a gaming PC is a joke.

 

[McCheese]

I'll stick with the totally secure and impenetrable Intel x86 chipset thank you. (/s).

Honestly, if the CRC wants to subsidise this chip in the hopes that governments use them, that's with me and my steam box.

 

[LordOfChaos]

The only TRULY secure platform are RISC-V and Power9, but none of those are aimed at gaming (heck, they only run linux and/or some unix OSs), so worrying about security in a gaming PC is a joke.

I'd be so curious to see the universe where a gaming console and/or Apple stuck with Power and worked on this architecture. Wonder where things would be. Would have gone through a shitty time for laptops in the perf/watt loss era, but the big iron stuff is interesting these days.

Raptor Computing Systems::TL2WK2 Intro

Talos™ II Secure Workstation

www.raptorcs.com

 

[Elektro Demon]

looks like they finally decided they stole enough to make their own, good for them! i wouldn't trust buying it though lol...

Same shit, different toilet.
With AMD and Intel, the western governments are spying on you, with Zhaoxin you're being spied by the chinese government.
And if you're running windows on either of those cpus, Msoft is selling your data to other companies that use it to sell you stuff you don't need.
And if you're running any browser that is not Tor on any of these cpus.... you get the idea.

 

[10000]

price it half the price from what amd has to offer in it's performance bracket and you got best selling chip

no one cares about chinese spyware yadda yadda, if they do in the very first place they won't buy security flawed intel chip at all

 

[Elektro Demon]

price it half the price from what amd has to offer in it's performance bracket and you got best selling chip

no one cares about chinese spyware yadda yadda, if they do in the very first place they won't buy security flawed intel chip at all

I agree. If this has solid performance at a fraction of the cost of AMD and Intel equivalents, I'd definitly get it.
But, we're far away from this reaching western markets.

 

[Holammer]

So it's a 32bit CPU only?

 

[M1chl]

So it's a 32bit CPU only?

Doubt, that it's even possible. x86-64 it's the official name, not x64... Not sure what would be the point in supporting DDR4 ram, if you only have 4GB of them.

 

[LordOfChaos]

So it's a 32bit CPU only?

It includes AMD64

VIA Technologies Subsidiary Zhaoxin Announces New x86-64 CPUs - ExtremeTech

VIA's mainland Chinese joint venture, Zhaoxin, has introduced a new lineup of x86 SoCs for domestic use. The company plans major advances for the next few years that could eventually challenge AMD, Intel in the Chinese market.

www.extremetech.com

 

[Elektro Demon]

So it's a 32bit CPU only?

No it's 64bit.
I think if you own an x86 licence you get the right to use all the instruction sets available. I think even intel uses some of AMD made instructions, I remember reading about it a few months ago.

 

[Max_Po]

Zhaoxin ? does it comes with 32 bit Corona or 64 bit ?