Testing a Chinese x86 CPU: A Deep Dive into Zen-based Hygon Dhyana Processors
by Dr. Ian Cutress & Wendell Wilson on February 27, 2020 9:00 AM ESTBenchmarks: Windows
For both systems, we installed Windows: Windows 10 Pro on the small 8-core Dhyana system, and Windows 10 Enterprise on the big dual 32-core Dhyana Plus server. With AVX/AVX2 not working properly, our range of testing was limited. As mentioned previously, some software didn’t even want to run on one system or the other, such as CPU-Z on the server.
From the numbers we can see that our 8-core Dhyana processor falls somewhere between the 6-core Ryzen 5 1600X and the 8-core Ryzen 6 1800X, due to clock speeds, but on particular tests it gets hammered by even the Athlon 200GE. The dual 32-core Dhyana Plus server seems to be in all sorts of a mess, often beaten by the Ryzen 7 1800X, or can now be easily beaten by the Ryzen 9 3950X. The one benchmark where it did really well was Corona – a memory/NUMA agnostic integer based renderer – it seems like a match made in heaven.
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Notmyusualid - Sunday, March 1, 2020 - link
@ Theinsane... - I couldn't give a toss about the Muslims in China, and some might say they are 'getting some of what they deserve', after all the stabbings etc they have committed there at train stations etc, but that is by the by.What I really wanted to say is you are dead-right on their supreamists, racist culture / attitude. This I've seen & heard with my own eyes and ears.
However, this (in my opinion), is largely the reserve of their 'elites', and government / party members.
The ordinary, everyday-Chinese, are actually nice to know.
Notmyusualid - Sunday, March 1, 2020 - link
@ me - bloody spell-check!yannigr2 - Friday, February 28, 2020 - link
The fun with Americans is that they start shouting and revolting for stuff that they suspect others are doing to them, when at the same time they happily do to their allies, not to mention brag about it.sing_electric - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
The AMD/HMC/Hygon arrangement shows just how far companies will go to get the right "Made in X" on the label. No one with a sane mind and sound judgment would say that these chips were "made in China," or "designed in Chengdu" any more than anyone making a cake out of a box (with someone else's oven!) could claim that it was "homemade from scratch," just because they added in a little extra cocoa powder.soliloquist - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
Excellent write-up. Very interesting and informative. Thanks!crimson117 - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
Typo? "and only then we were able to obtain the chips due to the current US Entity List ban"shouldn't it be: "and only then we were **unable** to obtain the chips due to the current US Entity List ban"
Ian Cutress - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
Nope. Only after the ban, when the subsidiary dissolved and some chips were able to leak out, were we able to obtain them. Up until that point it had been impossible.crimson117 - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
Thanks, that makes more sense.kobblestown - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
What about some Linux benchmarks? At least the Plus version should perform much better on Linux. Also, why not show performance for single socket?Ian Cutress - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
Wendell is going to cover some Linux in his review no doubt, so I left that to him.