Recently, the new generation quad-core LoongArch-based CPU, LS3A6000, was successfully developed, which marked China's new milestone in the design of homegrown desktop CPUs.

According to the test results from the electromagnetic compatibility laboratory of China Electronics Standardization Institute (CESI-EMC), the quad-core CPU, operating at a frequency of 2.5GHz, demonstrated a single-thread integer/floating point score of 43.1/54.6 in SPEC CPU 2006 base, and a multi-thread integer/floating point score of 155/140 in SPEC CPU 2006 base. The dual DDR4-3200 memory channels exhibited a bandwidth exceeding 42GB/s, with Unixbench measurements surpassing 7,400 points. These test results, evaluated holistically, suggest that the overall performance of the LS3A6000 processor rivals that of Intel's 10th generation quad-core processors launched in 2020.

Note: The test platform used for these results comprised a LS3A6000 with four cores and eight threads operating at 2.5GHz, 8GB DDR4 3200 memory, 256 NVME hard disks, and the Loongnix (V20.4) operating system alongside the LoongArch64 gcc8.3 compiler.

The LS3A6000 processor is based on Loongson's proprietary instruction set architecture (LoongArchTM). This architecture, from high-level structure to instruction functionalities and ABI standards, was created totally with homegrown design and without licensing from any other country. Numerous international open-source communities associated with ISAs, as well as operating systems like UnionTech OS, Kylin OS, EulerOS, Anolis OS, and HarmonyOS, have lent their support to LoongArch. This backing, combined with foundational applications such as WPS, WeChat, QQ, DingTalk, and Tencent Meeting, has formed a basic software ecosystem parallel to X86 and ARM.

Representing the inaugural product of Loongson's fourth-generation microarchitecture, the LS3A6000 integrates four high-performance 6-issue 64-bit LA664 processor cores. Its primary frequency reaches 2.5GHz, and it supports both 128-bit vector processing extension instructions (LSX) and 256-bit advanced vector processing extension instructions (LASX). The processor also features simultaneous multi-threading technology (SMT2), allowing for a total of eight logical cores. The LS3A6000 includes a DDR4-3200 dual-channel controller and a trusted security module, offering secure startup solutions and national cryptographic (SM2, SM3, SM4, etc.) application support.

Compared to its predecessor—LS3A5000 desktop CPU—the LS3A6000 boosts single-thread performance by over 60% under the same process. The overall multi-thread performance has seen a significant growth, delivering a smoother user experience. Future Loongson server CPUs are expected to multiply the performance of the previous generation of 16-core LS3C5000 and 32-core LS3D5000 server CPUs.

The LS3A6000, along with other LoongArch CPUs, also achieve remarkable level of software compatibility. Loongson recently submitted a patch to the Linux upstream community to support the detection and scheduling of hyper-threading features of the 3A6000 and enhance its features. The LS3A6000 further refines the level of software and hardware cooperation for binary translation, enabling the operation of more cross-platform applications. It caters to a wide range of large and complex desktop application scenarios.