Loongson Next-Gen 3A6000 CPUs To Feature SMT Support With Zen 3 Performance
China's domestic chipmaker, Loongson, is set to release its 3A6000 CPU lineup, and it is now reported that the processors would support Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT).
Phoronix reveals that Loongson has added support for SMT in the latest Linux 6.5 patch. The company has included a 2-way SMT support which will double the thread count in the upcoming lineup.
SMT support was included by Intel and AMD processors several decades ago, and what this does is that it splits physical cores into two threads that execute CPU tasks concurrently. This allows much faster performance since a single core can perform two different instructions simultaneously.
Based on what the patch mentions, the Loongson 3A6000 lineup will feature a 4C/8T and an 8C/16T configuration similar to what Intel's 10th Gen & AMD Zen 3 processors included. Apart from SMT, the new 3A6000 CPUs will also include support for SIMD/vectors. The specific extensions are 128-bit LSX and 256-bit LASX. These are custom names for vector processing extension instructions. The decisive point will be the effect of such additions on the performance of the next-gen lineup.
With this new lineup, Loongson aims to compete directly with Intel's Alder Lake & AMD's Zen 3 CPUs through its new "Dragon core" architecture. The new architecture brings a 68% performance uplift in single-core (floating-point), which is massive compared to what the previous generations brought.
The company plans on releasing the new 3A6000 lineup this year with previous reports suggesting a mid-2023 launch which should be just about now. These will be specifically oriented to Chinese markets, and whether these processors will release globally is doubtful. However, Loongson's vision is to provide in-house
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