Big credit to Patrick Kennedy from ServeTheHome for spotting this gem on the show floor, but it looks like if you want a Chinese branded EPYC CPU with some minor changes, it’s coming. Back in 2016, AMD and Hianjin Jaiguang Advanced Technology Investment Co. (THATIC) formed a joint venture (JV) to develop custom Zen-based processors just for the Chinese market. Within the JV, AMD would provide its Zen microarchitecture, whereas the rest of the SoC would be designed by the JV. AMD owns 49% of the company, while THATIC owns 51%. The first product out of that partnership is the Hugon Dhyana family of processors, and the first retailer with systems is Sugon.


Click to expand

There are lots of questions surrounding exactly what these CPUs are. A Weibo user from China has published a screenshot allegedly taken on one of Hugon Dhyana-based machines which reveals that the eight-core Dhyana 3185 features 768 KB L1 cache, 4 MB L2 cache, and 16 MB L3 cache, the same configuration as AMD’s low-end eight-core EPYC processors. They look like EPYC processors, but with different cryptography engines inside the chip. Differences beyond that are unknown, but it still uses the same packaging and the same socket as EPYC. Now with a visual image, we can tell another key significant difference – while the carrier for Threadripper is orange, and for EPYC is blue, with Hygon CPUs it is red. This is very important.

Other details about the CPU were not present – we found the CPU in a system being developed by one of the JV OEM partners. We’re working with that partner to hopefully get a system in for testing.

Interestingly enough, we got the bottom right of the CPU translated. A literal translation is 

'Using Cores to Calculate The Future'

However, the second character used in the slogan is a homonym, which could be translated as:

'Using Passion to Calculate The Future'

For a Chinese CPU, the synergestic phrasing is very poetic.

Want to keep up to date with all of our Computex 2019 Coverage?
 
Laptops
 
Hardware
 
Chips
 
Follow AnandTech's breaking news here!

 

Note, if anyone from Sugon or Hygon wants to get in touch to talk about a review, please email our CPU editor Dr. Ian Cutress: ian@anandtech.com

Comments Locked

55 Comments

View All Comments

  • zinfamous - Friday, May 31, 2019 - link

    Since when is an accusation against a specific government a racist comment?
  • Dr. Swag - Friday, May 31, 2019 - link

    Calm down dude they said /s
  • ciparis - Monday, June 3, 2019 - link

    Whoosh.
  • alfalfacat - Thursday, May 30, 2019 - link

    Honestly, it's probably more that the Chinese doesn't want to use cryptography primitives designed by the NSA in some nuclear missile silo or whatever (see: DUAL_EC_DRBG)
  • Carmen00 - Friday, May 31, 2019 - link

    Ah, finally - some sense! This is the most plausible reason. The NSA has already been caught weakening crypto algorithms. Why take the risk?
  • ajc9988 - Friday, May 31, 2019 - link

    Thank you for the common sense answer with the absurd claims made above.

    Intel's random number generator on hardware was already shown to be so simplistic and easy to crack that any cryptography based on it was insecure.

    Even developing and using different cryptographic engines on different hardware globally makes the use of a single exploit on wider scales more difficult.

    So tip of the hat, good sir, for bringing common sense to a non-sense point that took on a life of its own.
  • FreckledTrout - Thursday, May 30, 2019 - link

    "while the carrier for Threadripper is orange, and for EPYC is blue, with Hygon CPUs it is red. This is very important." LOL Probably was mandated to be red.
  • Lord of the Bored - Friday, May 31, 2019 - link

    I laughed at that too.
  • ajc9988 - Friday, May 31, 2019 - link

    According to the licensing agreement, IIRC, the Chinese version of the licensed IP cannot be sold outside of China. The color coding can help with someone trying to pull a fast one.
  • intr0 - Monday, June 3, 2019 - link

    Dudes in Times Square already have these set out on tables for half what they cost in China.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now