Zhaoxin's KX-7000
a year ago
- #CPU
- #x86
- #China
- Zhaoxin's KX-7000 is a Chinese x86 CPU featuring the new 'Century Avenue' architecture.
- Century Avenue is a 4-wide, AVX2 capable core with out-of-order execution, targeting higher clock speeds (3.2 GHz base, up to 3.7 GHz).
- The KX-7000 uses a chiplet design with eight cores sharing 32 MB of L3 cache, similar to AMD's Ryzen.
- Frontend limitations include conventional fetch/decode setup, lack of branch fusion, and low bandwidth when code spills beyond L1i.
- Century Avenue's execution units include three ALU pipes and a surprisingly powerful FP/vector unit with four pipes.
- Memory subsystem performance is weak, with high latency and low bandwidth, especially for DRAM access.
- Single-threaded performance in SPEC CPU2017 is comparable to AMD's Bulldozer, with significant improvements over Zhaoxin's previous LuJiaZui architecture.
- Multithreaded performance is mixed, with strengths in AVX2 workloads but weaknesses in memory-bound tasks.
- Zhaoxin's goal is to provide a domestically viable x86 CPU, not necessarily to compete directly with AMD or Intel.
- Century Avenue represents progress for Zhaoxin but lacks the balance and sophistication of modern Western designs.