News Huawei's 24-Core 7nm Kunpeng 920 CPU Allegedly Beats Core i9-9900K In Multi-Core Performance

[Admin]

Huawei will soon launch new a desktop with a 7nm Kunpeng 920 3211K processor, 8GB of RAM and a AMD Radeon 520 graphics.

Huawei's 24-Core 7nm Kunpeng 920 CPU Allegedly Beats Core i9-9900K In Multi-Core Performance : Read more

 

[artk2219]

I would hope that something with 50% more threads would outperform something with 50% less threads in multi-threaded workloads. I'm not saying it isn't great that it has a decent amunt of multithreaded performance, I am saying that it should be doing even better, and hopefully future revisions will. Also its a shame that the PC is so locked down, but I guess it is meant for government and other high security offices where they dont want you changing or touching a thing.

 

[Jimbojan]

Intel Core i9-9900K is only 8 core, it is far cheaper to make and program, comparing to 28 cores of Huawei, there should not be any comparison. It is a wasting of time to compare.

 

[Flemishdragon]

There are already 80+ core arm server cpu's I think. Maybe it would be nice if there were pci slot cards to put on a ARM cpu, to jack into your old pc and it sees it as cpu threads for old or new apllications that use a lot of multi threading on the cpu. Probably not possible since the Intel Knight 's corner cards was something like that and just saw it as render nodes (to be used with linux) no pc threads to use in all windows applications.

 

[gg83]

What are they gunna do without tsmc? Back-port it to the 2xnm node they are allowed?

 

[Deicidium369]

What are they gunna do without tsmc? Back-port it to the 2xnm node they are allowed?

SMIC or one of the other Chinese foundries - TSMC is Chinese as well, China allows them to think they are independent and separate.

 

[hotaru251]

nothign news worthy?

i mean fastest super computer did same thing....
(talking the arm based one with liek 3x the amount of cores)


more cores = better at doing stuff that actually uses them all

wanna bet the 24 core chinese one will also beat a 8 core ryzen 7?

 

[nofanneeded]

nothign news worthy?

i mean fastest super computer did same thing....
(talking the arm based one with liek 3x the amount of cores)


more cores = better at doing stuff that actually uses them all

wanna bet the 24 core chinese one will also beat a 8 core ryzen 7?

The context is about China VS USA race ... China will catch up in 20-30 years ... After that USA will be no more the super power...

 

[bit_user]

the system is equipped with China's homemade Unified Operating System (UOS).

As mentioned in the comments of the linked article, it's not accurate to call UOS a homemade OS. It's basically just another Linux distro.

Also, I'd imagine the system has some form of secure-boot, that prevents unapproved (i.e. non-backdoored) OS images from booting on it.

The rear of the case holds four USB Type-A ports, one Ethernet port, three 3.5mm audio jacks and a D-Sub port.

That's a serial port - it even says COM above it!

So, we don't actually see any sort of monitor connection. ...except for a sort of ghostly image of what might be a 15-pin VGA connector, next to the COM port. I'm not sure what's going on with that - did someone do a poor job of photoshopping it out?

 

[bit_user]

Intel Core i9-9900K is only 8 core, it is far cheaper to make and program, comparing to 28 cores of Huawei, there should not be any comparison. It is a wasting of time to compare.

I don't believe an 8-core Coffee Lake is cheaper. I think the ARM cores are much smaller, which is why they can fit up to 80 of them on a die. Also, this CPU doesn't have integrated graphics, which should also help on costs. Finally, it's 24 cores - not 28.

As for ease of programming, workloads that scale up to 16 threads should pretty easily reach 24. The OS they would use is Linux-based, so that wouldn't change in either case.

ARM has been around for a long time, so not much difference in maturity of the toolchain or OS support.

 

[bit_user]

Also its a shame that the PC is so locked down, but I guess it is meant for government and other high security offices where they dont want you changing or touching a thing.

A PC made for the Chinese market will probably have some sort of secure-boot feature, limiting it to using only Operating Systems signed by the Chinese government. They've got to have their backdoors in place (and nobody else's), so they can spy on & control the populace.

Given that, I wouldn't take one if you paid me to, no matter how upgradable it is.

 

[quadibloc2]

As has been noted, a 24-core chip with more multi-core performance than an 8-core chip means a single-core performance that is more than 1/3 that of the other chip. This is not particularly exciting. And it's an ARM chip, not an x86 chip, so the choice of software to run on it is more limited. Of course, if a software ecosystem can be created for the chip, that can perhaps be overcome.

 

[mdd1963]

SO their 24 core CPU's individual cores runs at about just above 33% of the level of one core of the 9900K; got it.

 

[Nightseer]

Well, duh, at 3x the amount of cores it better be beating 9900k. But still, in anything less core heavy it will fall behind, be it everyday use snappiness, Photoshop, video editing itself also depends kind snappiness of cores, unlike rendering,... So they still have quite a bit of ground to make up. But I guess, if multicore performance is all that matters. Provided your software is ARM compatible, since it is not x86. But don't get me wrong, I would love to see more competition in consumer CPU market. But this just feels bit niche.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I would hope that something with 50% more threads would outperform something with 50% less threads in multi-threaded workloads. I'm not saying it isn't great that it has a decent amunt of multithreaded performance, I am saying that it should be doing even better, and hopefully future revisions will. Also its a shame that the PC is so locked down, but I guess it is meant for government and other high security offices where they dont want you changing or touching a thing.

If they designed the chip this way, then the software that they'll be using on it will be made to properly exploit it.

Intel Core i9-9900K is only 8 core, it is far cheaper to make and program, comparing to 28 cores of Huawei, there should not be any comparison. It is a wasting of time to compare.

Remember that this is China and cost doesn't matter to them because they still don't have a capitalist society. If they want to do something, they do it. Cost be damned.

What are they gunna do without tsmc? Back-port it to the 2xnm node they are allowed?

If there ever was something that we should have learned about the Chinese by now, it would be to NEVER underestimate their ability to find a way to get something done. They are an ingenious people and you underestimate them at your own peril.

SMIC or one of the other Chinese foundries - TSMC is Chinese as well, China allows them to think they are independent and separate.

Actually, it's the United States that does that, not China. US intervention is the reason that Taiwan hasn't been conquered by the mainland already. God knows that they've tried.

Well, duh, at 3x the amount of cores it better be beating 9900k. But still, in anything less core heavy it will fall behind, be it everyday use snappiness, Photoshop, video editing itself also depends kind snappiness of cores, unlike rendering,... So they still have quite a bit of ground to make up. But I guess, if multicore performance is all that matters. Provided your software is ARM compatible, since it is not x86. But don't get me wrong, I would love to see more competition in consumer CPU market. But this just feels bit niche.

China has the ability to take something that's niche and build a gigantic market segment around it. If this is what the Chinese government's PCs and supercomputers will use, that is one gigantic niche.

 

[hotaru251]

The context is about China VS USA race ... China will catch up in 20-30 years ... After that USA will be no more the super power...

if they stop beign dicks sure.

but Xi seems intent on making world his enemy.

if we end up with a war they will be pushed back far when they lose. (and they would not win vs the world they keep threatening)

 

[bit_user]

As has been noted, a 24-core chip with more multi-core performance than an 8-core chip means a single-core performance that is more than 1/3 that of the other chip.

Well, consider that you're comparing a 8-core/16-thread CPU (making it perform closer to 11-12 cores) with a 24-core/24-thread one. Also, consider the clock speeds - 3.6 GHz base vs. 2.6 GHz.

For the sake of argument, if we treat the i9-9900K as a 12-core/12-thread CPU, then multiplying that by the base clocks yields 43.2 core GHz. By contrast, the challenger has 62.4 core GHz. That would give the Coffee Lake CPU 44% better IPC. Still a big margin for Coffee Lake, but not nearly such a landslide as the top-level numbers would suggest.

This is not particularly exciting.

Depends on your perspective. ARM is growing up. I think ARM-based PCs is pretty exciting. And if you think of it as a giant desktop version of a Raspberry Pi, it's really something.

In the short term, a lot of the significance comes down to a matter of price. If it were cheap enough, something like this (i.e. if it were even available outside of China) could be a big deal. In the longer term, it's significant as a milestone.

And it's an ARM chip, not an x86 chip, so the choice of software to run on it is more limited.

If you're already running Linux, then it'll run most of what's out there.

 

[NoFaultius]

That is good performance, particularly given the hardware level espionage overhead.

 

[bit_user]

But still, in anything less core heavy it will fall behind, be it everyday use snappiness, Photoshop, video editing itself also depends kind snappiness of cores, unlike rendering,... So they still have quite a bit of ground to make up.

Photoshop and most video encoders already use multiple cores. In fact, even web browsers are heavily multithreaded, for a while now (I think we have the proliferation of multi-core smartphone SoCs to thank for that).

I'm certainly not arguing that single-thread performance doesn't matter. However, it's less critical than it used to be, even for fairly common tasks.

 

[bit_user]

Remember that this is China and cost doesn't matter to them because they still don't have a capitalist society. If they want to do something, they do it. Cost be damned.

In the short/medium-term, they're certainly willing to make strategic investments. But China is all about scale, and I'm sure they're very sensitive to driving down costs for the long term. Otherwise, they'd already be a bankrupt husk, like the USSR of 30 years ago.

If there ever was something that we should have learned about the Chinese by now, it would be to NEVER underestimate their ability to find a way to get something done. They are an ingenious people and you underestimate them at your own peril.

Not to downplay their abilities, but I think it's really more about their determination, their scale, and their central planning.

In the US, we're continually told that it's wrong for the government to pick winners and losers, and that we should just let the market decide. In China, they're not afraid to intervene in markets to boost technologies of strategic importance or with the most long-term potential.

China has the ability to take something that's niche and build a gigantic market segment around it. If this is what the Chinese government's PCs and supercomputers will use, that is one gigantic niche.

The thing to remember about China is that not only do they have just about the largest domestic market of 1B consumers, but they also have deep penetration into probably about another 3B+, who are very cost-sensitive. The "sky-is-falling" moment will be not when China satisfies the majority of its own domestic computer demand, but when they begin to dominate the developing world. For them, success won't mean winning the US market - that would just be the icing on the cake.

 

[bit_user]

If we end up with a war they will be pushed back far when they lose. (and they would not win vs the world they keep threatening)

There are no winners, if a hot war breaks out between the US and China. Hopefully, enough people on both sides appreciate that.

The way to counter China is for stronger institutions, like NATO and other trade pacts between democratic countries, to exert leverage and try to keep them in line. The one lesson I think we can take away from Trump's efforts is that no single country is able to effectively counter China.

 

[bit_user]

That is good performance, particularly given the hardware level espionage overhead.

The funny thing about controlling the OS is that you don't actually need hardware backdoors.

So, they just need Secure Boot functionality that will only boot a signed OS image, and they can take care to sign only those OS releases that they've tested and verified have the necessary backdoors.