Loongson’s Chairman Says Next-Gen 3B6600 8-Core CPUs To Match Mid-High-End Intel 12th & 13th Gen Chips

Loongson's next-gen CPUs such as the 3B6600 will be able to match Intel's 12th & even 13th Gen chips, according to the company's Founder.

In an interview with CENA (China Electronics), Loongson's Founder & Chairman, Hu Weiwu, talked about the company's upcoming consumer product for China's domestic market. The latest follow-up to the 3A6000 will come early next year in the form of 3B6600 which is going to feature some big performance uplifts.

Starting with the 3A6000, Loongson showcased some strong performance which showed better IPC than Intel's 10th Gen & AMD's Zen 2 parts. The CPU even managed to reach Core i5-14600K perf in a clock-to-clock test when it was overclocked to 3 GHz. Knowing that it has got a potent chip on its hands, Loongson is accelerating the development of its next-generation CPUs and the 3B6600 CPU will serve as the first of the many on its roadmap.

In terms of specifications, the Loongson 3B6600 CPUs will feature the LA864 architecture which will be based on a localized process node, probably SIMC. The chip will feature 8 cores using a hybrid BIG.little design in a 4+4 configuration and feature a clock speed of 3.0 GHz. The BIG cores are said to improve performance beyond 20% which is mainly achieved through structural optimizations. In addition to the CPU cores, the chip will also incorporate the LG200 integrated GPU which will allow for more decent graphics capabilities without requiring a discrete GPU.

Weiwu states that he's very confident in the next-generation 3B6600 products and the CPU will be easily matching Intel's 12th & 13th Gen CPUs (mid-to-high-end stack). In addition to performance, Loongson will further streamline Windows OS and application support on its Linux platform.

The Chinese chipmaker also plans to launch its future 3A7000 & 3B7000 CPUs moving forward which will feature the same core architecture but incorporate advanced process technologies & clock speeds of up to 3.5 GHz. These chips will also feature strong I/O capabilities such as PCIe4, USB3, HDMI, GMAC, and more. If Loongson really can achieve 12th & 13th Gen Intel CPU performance with its next-gen CPUs arriving early next year, then that would be a huge deal for Chinese consumers in the domestic client segment. The chipmaker is also developing server CPUs with up to 64 cores with performance matching Intel's 10nm Ice Lake "Xeon" platforms.