News Chinese Loongson GPU Promises RX 550-Level Performance, Likely Arriving in 2025

[Admin]

Loongson has confirmed that the company's forthcoming 9A1000 graphics card will offer performance similar to the six-year-old Radeon RX 550.

Chinese Loongson GPU Promises RX 550-Level Performance, Likely Arriving in 2025 : Read more

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

Again a pretty embarrassing showing from Chinese GPU companies. Their domestic CPU and NAND tech is so much more comparably to US showings than their GPUs.

 

[ivan_vy]

Again a pretty embarrassing showing from Chinese GPU companies. Their domestic CPU and NAND tech is so much more comparably to US showings than their GPUs.

no need to win this race, just need to have a horse (or half a dozen) on it. This means domestic GPUs keep feeding the market, game companies can produce for a XB-one target performance and more important, office users (no need great graphic capabilities) can be supplied by homegrown technology.
Once the local market is secured, halo products can grow with enough time.
While gamer or graphic enthusiast might laughs, the giants like Intel, AMD and Nvidia are really worried of the huge market that they see dissolve in the coming years.

 

[bit_user]

Again a pretty embarrassing showing from Chinese GPU companies.

I think it depends on a few things. First of all, it was AMD's entry level GPU on 14 nm. So, if they're making it on a comparable process, it would be a reasonable place to start. Furthermore, if they can actually deliver on that promise, it would be a lot better than wildly over-promising, like MooreThreads did. Especially, if they're doing all the software + hardware from scratch.

The other consideration is if their eventual goal is to make it an iGPU chiplet, then it's also a very respectable performance level for something like that.

BTW, has anyone heard news of Vivante (i.e. Verisilicon)? I've seen some Linux driver activity, but not sure I've heard any news on the hardware front.

 

[williamcll]

Again a pretty embarrassing showing from Chinese GPU companies. Their domestic CPU and NAND tech is so much more comparably to US showings than their GPUs.

You do realize the US don't actually manufacture their consumer GPUs right? It's all a mix of chips from mostly Japan, Korea and taiwan.

 

[bit_user]

You do realize the US don't actually manufacture their consumer GPUs right? It's all a mix of chips from mostly Japan, Korea and taiwan.

Yeah, coverage of semiconductor manufacturing tends to be pretty heavy, on this site. You can't follow their news feed, for very long, without picking up a lot of that stuff.

BTW, Micron makes GDDR memory and has some plants in the US. I don't know exactly where they make the GDDR memory, but it's plausible it could be fabbed in the US.

Also, AMD's Polaris generation (i.e. the one referenced in this very article) used Global Foundries 14LPP and they have fabs in the US. Again, I don't know exactly where the Polaris dies were made, but it's plausible they were fabbed in the USA.

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

You do realize the US don't actually manufacture their consumer GPUs right? It's all a mix of chips from mostly Japan, Korea and taiwan.

Thats true but im mostly focusing in on chip design, not fabrication. Thats a whole other box of worms especially if the topic is Chinese chip manufacturing.

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

no need to win this race, just need to have a horse (or half a dozen) on it. This means domestic GPUs keep feeding the market, game companies can produce for a XB-one target performance and more important, office users (no need great graphic capabilities) can be supplied by homegrown technology.
Once the local market is secured, halo products can grow with enough time.
While gamer or graphic enthusiast might laughs, the giants like Intel, AMD and Nvidia are really worried of the huge market that they see dissolve in the coming years.

I dont think Intel, Nvidia, or AMD are gonna be worried in the foreseeable future. Maybe in a decade, if progress from the Chinese end doesn't hit too many speed bumps.

 

[bit_user]

I dont think Intel, Nvidia, or AMD are gonna be worried in the foreseeable future. Maybe in a decade, if progress from the Chinese end doesn't hit too many speed bumps.

The one thing I thought could really accelerate it is Imagination and their mature, PowerVR IP. However, given the misfortunes of MooreThreads' S80, which supposedly licensed Imagination's IP, it seems not to confer such a huge head start, after all. Or, maybe they just made some basic mistake in the implementation and the next gen will be massively better, but you don't see that level of bungling in mobile SoCs which implement such IP.

I still wonder about Vivante/Verisilicon, since they should have quite a head start on both the hardware & software front. I think we can all now appreciate just what kind of effort is involved in the software, after witnessing how long it's taken for Intel's Alchemist drivers to mature.

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

The one thing I thought could really accelerate it is Imagination and their mature, PowerVR IP. However, given the misfortunes of MooreThreads' S80, which supposedly licensed Imagination's IP, it seems not to confer such a huge head start, after all. Or, maybe they just made some basic mistake in the implementation and the next gen will be massively better, but you don't see that level of bungling in mobile SoCs which implement such IP.

I still wonder about Vivante/Verisilicon, since they should have quite a head start on both the hardware & software front. I think we can all now appreciate just what kind of effort is involved in the software, after witnessing how long it's taken for Intel's Alchemist drivers to mature.

I'm also curious on how those IPs are going to turn out. I'm not saying that these new GPU designs can't or catch up to Nvidia, AMD, or Intel graphics, its just that these early examples are pretty poor, and point toward a long and difficult road ahead.

It's well known how difficult it is to create new or even iterate on existing GPU designs, and that applies doubly for many of these Chinese GPU businesses due to embargoes and restrictions.

 

[bit_user]

It's well known how difficult it is to create new or even iterate on existing GPU designs, and that applies doubly for many of these Chinese GPU businesses due to embargoes and restrictions.

In their favor, both AMD and Nvidia have had rather substantial engineering offices in mainland China for about 15 years. Not sure exactly what they do/did there, but you'd expect there to be some level of expertise they're drawing from.

Furthermore, there's more complete and higher-quality open source implementations of the graphics software stack than ever before. AMD, Intel, and now even Nvidia have open source Linux drivers, plus there's the Mesa userspace graphics stack they can crib code from. Now, this being GPL code, they should open source anything they copy from it, but if some of that code ends up in their Windows drivers, I don't expect they would.

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

In their favor, both AMD and Nvidia have had rather substantial engineering offices in mainland China for about 15 years. Not sure exactly what they do/did there, but you'd expect there to be some level of expertise they're drawing from.

Furthermore, there's more complete and higher-quality open source implementations of the graphics software stack than ever before. AMD, Intel, and now even Nvidia have open source Linux drivers, plus there's the Mesa userspace graphics stack they can crib code from. Now, this being GPL code, they should open source anything they copy from it, but if some of that code ends up in their Windows drivers, I don't expect they would.

I didn't know that. I thought most of Nvidia + AMD's developments in mainland China have been packaging or more blue collar labor. Didn't know that there were actually engineering offices there.

 

[bit_user]

I didn't know that. I thought most of Nvidia + AMD's developments in mainland China have been packaging or more blue collar labor. Didn't know that there were actually engineering offices there.

Oh, for sure. I remember seeing a tweet from Raja Koduri with a photo of the team working on Vega, at AMD's Shanghai(?) office. I asked an AMD employee about it and he said AMD and Nvidia both had engineering offices in China since the mid/late-2000's.

More recently, this:

​

AMD's Radeon Technology Group Is Reportedly Reducing Its Headcount in China

AMD is reportedly optimizing its workforce.

www.tomshardware.com

​

They're letting go of 450 people, there - specifically in their graphics group. They sure don't need 450 employees just for packaging GPUs. It doesn't even say they're entirely closing the office, suggesting the total number of employees was greater than that.

 

[Order 66]

this would have been an impressive performance 10 years ago. I'm surprised (and glad) that this thread hasn't been another one of those political powder kegs. The on-paper specs of this GPU are decent, it is a shame that the drivers and software support are so bad.