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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Arsenica - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
With Global Foundries "diffusing" these CPUs in their NY fab and HMC now being a US sanctioned entity they cannot get more chips right now.But as HMC has the RTL they don't really need AMD to port the chip to SMIC or TSMC (which is very willing to keep making chips for Huawei).
So at most this means that by 2022 China will have a sanction-proof high performance X86 chip (they already have the IP of the VIA Zhaoxin) and by 2025-2030 they could have a "new" derivative implementation with that achieves parity with Intel and AMD's future chips.
FreckledTrout - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
I would agree if Intel and AMD stop improving there designs which they won't. The other possibility is that we stop seeing foundry improvements then at that point I could see China get a little closer but that is over a decade out.romrunning - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
With enough money & will, couldn't they get a foundry in a couple of years? China's in it for the long game, and I can't imagine their gov't not being prepared to build one after they feel they have working designs.rrinker - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
There's like one company that makes the machinery for the newest process nodes. Do you think they will risk guaranteed sales to the likes of Intel and AMD and sell their equipment to China? And if you think China has the ability to right now design and build a 7nm, let alone a 10nm, production facility from scratch, designing all the equipment on their own - think again.Quantumz0d - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
Just because of US intervention ASML stopped on the pretext of Wassennar Arrangement + US lobby to Netherlands govt.SMIC had violated TSMC IP and has settled for 10% stake and $200M. It was formed to produce 40nm Wafer tech. But it exists.
Innotron and JHICC are DRAM specific manufacturers. Wallst from US sold out US long back and not to steer to much into racial talk. The Elites allowed it.
US retaliation this late aint going to stop Chinese at all. Their Tanks are from Russian tech reverse engineered and Jets as well. That's Military Technology.
Just food for thought you know. At max US can slow down. But with crony capitalism like Apple due to greed they sold out. They allowed Guizhou Cloud to get keys and make all anti liberty tech which people love and push propaganda on their AppleTV. Its a shame. So AMDs part is very minor after seeing that DoD and Commerce gave free path to AMD.
peevee - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
"By first creating a joint venture with other Chinese companies called THATIC, then by forming two companies called HMC and Hygon each owned in different amounts between AMD and THATIC, how each business was able to discuss and control parts of the IP was sculpted in order to keep the secret sauce still in AMD’s hands, but allow the Chinese side of the ventures to request modifications"Sounds like a recipe to circumvent US regulations or fool US regulators that the IP is not being sold to China for cheap ($200M is NOTHING for a modern core design which is a culmination of tens of years of R&D and tens of billions of USD). Especially with AMD having 51% share of THAIC, they were essentially paying themselves - while CHINA was getting all the IP.
Retycint - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
Imagine thinking that you, as a random nobody, know more than the DoD, DoC and various other governmental agencies who actually have access to the full details of the arrangement.Oxford Guy - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
Appeal to authority fallacy.Governments make really stupid decisions all the time. Haven't you noticed that? Also, the decisions that governments make don't always align well with the needs and desires of others, such as the vast majority of the populations they ostensibly represent.
Notmyusualid - Sunday, March 1, 2020 - link
@ Oxford +1.Lord of the Bored - Friday, February 28, 2020 - link
It was designed to give Intel the finger. Their ancient settlement with Intel prohibits them from sublicensing the x86. They needed to maintain legal ownership at multiple stages for this project to not get them sued by Intel.