The Loongson 3A6000 processor is not a technical demo or a prototype for trade fairs. Quite simply, it’s a processor designed to equip PCs for the Chinese domestic market, as an alternative to US-designed AMD and Intel chips. The Loongson 3A6000 features a quad-core design (4C/8T) and an operating frequency of 2.5 GHz. This version of the processor uses a 4th-generation Dragon architecture featuring LA664 cores with support for 128-bit extended vector instructions (LSX) and 256-bit extended advanced vector instructions (LASX), as well as SMT2. In “classic” operation, the Chinese chip came very close to the Core i3-10100, while consuming less power (42W vs. 52W).
The Loongson 3A6000 close to an i5-14600K: not so fast…
Bear in mind that the 3A6000 runs at 2.5 GHz, while the Core i3-10100 runs at up to 4.3 GHz. In another series of tests, the Chinese processor was compared to the i3-10100 and i5-14600K, but “blocked” to a maximum frequency of 2.5Ghz. The results showed that, under these conditions, the Loongson processor outperformed the i3-10100 by up to 40%, and was on a par with the Core i5-14600K overall. However, this comparison is rather tendentious, since the 3A6000 is actually incapable of going higher than 2.5-2.6Ghz. At Asus, where we handle the motherboard for this processor, we’ve managed to get it up to 3Ghz, but with overclocking under nitrogen.
Objectively, there’s nothing to worry about for Intel and AMD at the moment, given these results. However, the rapid progress of this processor shows that Chinese industry, despite the many obstacles and restrictions, is capable of proposing solutions which, if they don’t shake the walls in terms of performance, are likely to cause the American giants to lose market share.
