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Zhaoxin Displays x86-Compatible KaiXian KX-6000: 8 Cores, 3 GHz, 16 nm FinFET
Zhaoxin, a joint venture between Via Technologies and the Chinese government, this week for the first time displayed its upcoming x86-compatible CPU, the KaiXian KX-6000. The SoC features eight cores running at 3 GHz and increases performance over its predecessor by at least 50%.
The KaiXian KX-6000 is a successor to the KX-5000 CPU launched earlier this year. Both chips integrate eight-core x86-64 cores with 8 MB of L2 cache, a DirectX 11.1-capable iGPU with an up-to-date display controller, a dual-channel DDR4-3200 memory controller, contemporary I/O interfaces (PCIe, SATA, USB, etc), and so on. The key differences between the KaiXian KX-5000 and the KaiXian KX-6000 are frequencies and manufacturing technology: the former is produced using TSMC's 28 nm fabrication process and runs at up to 2 GHz, whereas the latter is made using TSMC's 16 nm technology and operates at up to 3 GHz. Zhaoxin claims that the Kaixian KX-6000 offers compute performance comparable to that of Intel's 7th Generation Core i5 processor, which is a quad-core non-Hyper-Threaded CPU. Obviously, performance claims like that have to be verified, yet a 50% performance bump over the direct predecessor already seems beefy enough.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @12:22AM (10 children)
If it doesn't have Intel's Management Engine, I don't want it.
At least the IME I know how to disable
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @12:32AM (9 children)
Better the White Devil you know than the Chinese Dragon you don't, huh?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday September 25 2018, @12:43AM (8 children)
Branding doesn't change the reality, I guess.
Few years down the road it may be the reverse or even a third option gaining preference.
I still hope I'll live enough to see a fully open source CPU, but I don't hold illusions that is a guarantee of any backdoor absence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @02:30AM (5 children)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday September 25 2018, @02:54AM (3 children)
And that tails will run on a box with... what CPU? And how much trust you can put in your router?
Not that this problem is new, some guy demonstrated a good while ago you can't blindly trust even your compiler [c2.com] (trying to avoid linking a PDF)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday September 25 2018, @04:11PM (2 children)
We make an FPGA-based NAT/Firewall. Not at the kind of prices you guys would like to pay, but I should really look into a cost-reduced version.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:57PM (1 child)
That sounds interesting. How does it work?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday September 27 2018, @04:15PM
Open every packet at the 10G line rate, check that the headers match exactly what is allowed in, check length and CRCs and a few mandatory fields, potentially replace the headers on the way out the other side. Works mostly at layer 3-4, but it can allow or reject pretty much any packet as long as you program the header in.
It's for professionals with stable flows. Having it dynamically adjust to the hundreds of IPs that your browser wants to connect to for every click you make would be a good deal more annoying. But I know for a fact that nothing that isn't explicitly allowed can get through. There is no "zero day in some sub-library" when you write your own HDL to do bitwise comparisons. Someone would have to hack the controlling computer and add their traffic to the list, or maskerade as legit traffic up to layer n+1 and break the system using higher layers, which would still not allow to expand to new connection or ports until they go to add those new connections to the authorized list.
A Gig-E version would be simpler and considerably cheaper. The main difficulty is to write the control software to allow the right connections in real-time and close them right after. Professional orchestration used by our mostly-staticly-routed customers is very expensive.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday September 25 2018, @05:25AM
I once worked for a Bahamian hedge fund - The Bahamas because there are no taxes there. They had about twenty employees with me as a remote contractor.
The - very very wealthy - owner of the hedge fund got his windows box quite severely pwned, so he bought all his employees a second box purely for the Internet, and has his people mount all their work computers in a lockable rack with Ethernet KVMs.
There is _one_ tax - a usurous 50% import duty under which the native bahamians suffer. I found some joy in this guy having to pay that duty for all those second computers, the KVMs and the rackmount.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @12:39PM (1 child)
RISC-V?
https://riscv.org [riscv.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday September 25 2018, @01:03PM
Fingers crossed.
But...
Which doesn't sound quite as "full-fledged CPU". And with the current members [riscv.org], it may never will mean a CPU chip - but many, each on designed/customized and fab-ed based on their needs rather than users' needs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday September 25 2018, @12:34AM (13 children)
Well, it's nice to know that the Chinese will be able able to flood the market with decent x86 processors (benchmarks would be nice, but one can safely assume 95% of users don't need more than 8 cores at 3GHz). They might not have tried yet, but since we're pushing them into a trade war, it's nice that they are now equipped.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @12:38AM
Short term thinking.
This is how Kim got his nukes and the Chinese are in space on their own.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @12:41AM (1 child)
Giggling. The giggling of a child could be heard. Yet, if one were to looked for the source of the sound, they would not find a child; they would find a man.
The giggling man was playfully jumping up and down and pointing at something on the sidewalk. This man would also occasionally shout, "April Fools!" It would not take much to figure out that the man had pulled an April Fools prank. However, what kind of prank was it? Investigating the area where the man was pointing would reveal the answer.
Torn clothes, blood, and tears. A woman could be seen sobbing quietly. It was no surprise that she was crying; she was covered in cuts and bruises, and had been forcibly violated, after all. And it was all the doing of that naked, bouncy man.
Yes, this was the true nature of the man's prank, the sheer hilarity of which caused passersby to laugh until they cried. But, while this prank was undoubtedly hilarious, something was off. Indeed, it wasn't April Fools' Day at all.
No, that wasn't quite right. To the man - Howzerson - every single day was April Fools' Day. The man continued giggling, congratulating himself on yet another comical prank. Then, he saw something interesting: Another woman.
Howzerson smiled. He had just found a new target for another one of his hilarious pranks...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Subsentient on Tuesday September 25 2018, @02:27AM
Whoever you are, you need psychiatric help. I kind of enjoy the trolling aspect, but the fact remains, there's something deeply wrong here. You need to see a psych.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @01:41AM (9 children)
We aren't pushing them into a trade war. We've been in one for decades. It's still a war even if you aren't fighting: we call that "losing" or "surrender".
In this war, we've lost much of our industry. We've lost industrial capability and we've lost jobs.
It really sickens me to think that there are people who would just accept this. That includes the Clintons, the Bushes, Obama, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon... and you.
China still demands control and technology transfer every time an American corporation does business in China. China still has a 25% tariff on cars from the USA, and you're upset that we don't keep ours near zero despite decades without any indication that fairness might be coming. China still hacks into everything explicitly for economic purposes. We're getting screwed and you'd just accept that.
Oh, BTW, would you like to know about election interference? China is sponsoring entire newspaper sections in Iowa now. That is a foreign country trying desperately to influence our elections to their advantage.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by number11 on Tuesday September 25 2018, @02:11AM (7 children)
But it's not a war with China. It's a war with the plutocrats who control American companies and the banksters, and who would slit their mother's throat for a bigger quarterly bonus. No Chinese held a gun to their heads and said "move your manufacturing over here, or else". It's a war with people like the CEO of Sears, who is also the CEO of a hedge fund that has its claws deep into Sears, and is bleeding the company to death for his personal profit.
And the USA all along has had a 25% tariff on light trucks. Note that Ford is pretty much getting out of the automobile biz to concentrate on trucks (includes SUVs), because their profit margins are higher there. (Remember when Ford said "Ford will never build a small car, because small cars mean small profits"? I do.)
This is what countries that want to project power do. You think the USA doesn't influence elections (and coups) elsewhere? The object is, to prevent it from happening. To us, to China, to Russia, to Venezuela, to Iran, to Iraq, wherever. At least, newspapers aren't violent overthrows, or tampering with the votes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @02:21AM (5 children)
It is a war with China. The plutocrats who control American companies are traitors, helping the enemy for pay. Traitors need to be punished, but remember that they wouldn't even be an issue without the enemy.
That 25% tariff on light trucks works nicely. I think that proves the point, no? We need a 25% tariff on cars too. We could perhaps make exceptions for high-cost countries like Japan and Germany, but only if they make the same exceptions for us.
I do think the USA influences elections and coups all over the world. This is their problem, not mine, and in some cases I might benefit. I expect every country to try to influence US elections, and that is our problem to deal with.
(Score: 3, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday September 25 2018, @02:37AM (2 children)
In the US it is unlawful for a political candidate to accept foreign campaign donations.
But Daniel Ortega got voted out of office in Nicaragua due in large part to the US government backing an entire dump truck full of money up to Ortega's opponent's driveway.
That's just wrong, and should be crime IMHO.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @07:17AM (1 child)
It should be crime in Nicaragua. The USA can get away with it though, and if this (including image effects) is an overall benefit to the USA, then the USA should do it.
It goes the other way too. Nicaragua influencing US elections should be a crime in the USA. Nicaragua should do it anyway, if they can get away with it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday September 25 2018, @07:45AM
More or less Machiavelli justifies everything based on the prince's ability to get away with it.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @07:29AM
As long as there's a war those in power are happy. Plenty of patriotic suckers will support them against "The Enemy" and attack those who "aren't patriotic enough" or are "Traitors!". Many of those patriotic suckers can even believe that killing brown or yellow people thousands of miles away is to do with "Protecting Freedoms".
Your elections are already being influenced by those in power. That's why out of 300 million people you "only" have crappy options like Trump and Clinton. Whoever wins the Military Industrial Complex will still win. If it's Clinton she'll willingly support them, if it's Trump he wouldn't have the will or ability to go against them for long.
Heck the way things have been going you might even do better if the Chinese pick your leaders.
Or maybe outsource the whole thing to India - the World's Largest Democracy - you'd likely get equally crappy results but at least it'll be cheaper.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday September 25 2018, @09:27AM
So, fair is fair, you'd have no problem if China would try to organize a coup in US?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @10:57PM
What is the single thread performance.
Making that fast is where most of the technology is.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday September 25 2018, @04:07PM
You're not completely wrong, but I'll emphasize what the others have already said: In this war, China's best soldiers have always carried US passports.
Deng XiaoPing did the "art of war" thing, learnt about his enemy's weakness, and leveraged the greed and Wall street's short-shitedness (I'll keep the actual typo).
India and Mexico are trying to do the same, so are the Philippines and Vietnam, and soon half of Africa.
Proper management of the problem would be to hang the traitors, burn the Walmarts, and fairly tariff the imports based on how much slave wages give a competitive advantage. Oh, and fix the fact that healthcare in the US is an insane and unsustainable burden.
Holding my breath right now.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday September 25 2018, @02:33AM (3 children)
Googling seems to indicate that some i5s have it while some don't.
My Mid 2014 Mac mini Model Identifier Macmini7,1 is slow as molasses. It works great for developing drivers because they don't have much source code, while I use me $$$ Quad Core i7 MacBook Pro as my testing target because it boots really fast.
If my mini indeed doesn't have hyperthreading, that would explain some of the slowness.
Another reason my Pro boots so fast is that it doesn't have SATA storage - neither rotating nor Flash - rather its storage is Flash on a PCIe card. My mini has rotating media.
I actually managed to find an external USB3 enclosure for my 2012 MacBook Pro's PCIe flash. That's a very narrow market segment but happily it enabled me to recover my data when that box Drank The Kool-Ade.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by seeprime on Tuesday September 25 2018, @04:36AM (2 children)
It sounds like you need to clone your Mini's hard drive onto a solid state drive, which are cheat enough to buy in larger sizes today. The data transfer rate will increase by 300 to 400%. The hard drive is the performance bottleneck.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday September 25 2018, @05:21AM (1 child)
I actually bought a 1 TB Western Digital USB 3 Flash drive for a song, but I'm using it for backup and file transfer.
I expect I'll buy a Thunderbolt 2 SSD Drive [macsales.com], but not until I buy an HDMI monitor.
My mini just has two Thundbolt ports; presently I'm using a VGA with a Thunderbolt to VGA adapter, with my other Thunderbolt port being taken up by a Firewire adapter that I use for two-machine debugging.
The guy at the desk next to me has the Jesus Big inwardly curved monitor. He tells me that once you try such a monitor "there is no going back", however I really don't need that much screen real estate.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Tuesday September 25 2018, @08:52PM
I've not afforded a new monitor as a 32" 720p LCD has been plenty for me. Now, you can get a similar one for near $200. It's quite nice to have a screen of that size. Much larger and it really starts to be too large for a desktop machine.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"