China’s Loongson has introduced its next-generation octa-core 3B6600 and 3B7000 processors for local consumers. Both processors are designed for the mass market, with an emphasis on single-core performance, Tom’s Hardware reports.
Loongson has acknowledged that while the 3B6600 and 3B7000 are inferior to competitors in multi-core performance, the company has significantly closed the gap in single-core performance. Loongson claims a 20x increase over previous processors.
The 3B6600 has eight LA854 processor cores and a 3.0 GHz LG200 graphics core. The 3B7000 also has eight LA864 cores clocked at 3.5 GHz, but it does not mention a GPU.
According to the company, the 3B7000 supports PCIe 4.0, SATA III, USB 3.0, GMAC, and HDMI output. It also has integrated INT8 tensor accelerators for LLM workloads.
Although these chips are intended for the domestic market, it is possible that they could appear in retail stores in countries subject to US and EU sanctions.
Loongson chips have their own architecture called Dragon. The manufacturer intends to compete with x86 and ARM. As China has already blocked the use of Intel and AMD processors for official government use, and schools are ordering domestically produced chips, Loongson will have a much larger share of the domestic market in many sectors.
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