@Chester: Thanks! I would love to see more of these deep dives into CPUs that we here in the US usually don't see or even know much about!
A few comments/observations:
- I see this PRC-homegrown x64 CPU more as an insurance policy by their government than anything else. In addition to full control over the microcode and firmware (security), a lot of important software is still x86/x64 native. Having their fully homegrown x64 CPUs also shields China against getting a possible complete cut off from getting new AMD and Intel CPUs.
- The historically poorer performance of the L3 Cache in Intel's CPUs (vs. AMD since Ryzen) is still with us, and continues to be a bit of an Achilles heel for Intel. The superiority of AMDs X3D Ryzens in gaming and certain productivity apps is not simply due to just having more L3 cache. L3 caches of modern Ryzens also have significantly lower latencies and better throughput than their Intel counterparts. I wonder if you or George ever had a chance to speak to one of Intel's lead CPU architects about this.
@Chester: Thanks! I would love to see more of these deep dives into CPUs that we here in the US usually don't see or even know much about!
A few comments/observations:
- I see this PRC-homegrown x64 CPU more as an insurance policy by their government than anything else. In addition to full control over the microcode and firmware (security), a lot of important software is still x86/x64 native. Having their fully homegrown x64 CPUs also shields China against getting a possible complete cut off from getting new AMD and Intel CPUs.
- The historically poorer performance of the L3 Cache in Intel's CPUs (vs. AMD since Ryzen) is still with us, and continues to be a bit of an Achilles heel for Intel. The superiority of AMDs X3D Ryzens in gaming and certain productivity apps is not simply due to just having more L3 cache. L3 caches of modern Ryzens also have significantly lower latencies and better throughput than their Intel counterparts. I wonder if you or George ever had a chance to speak to one of Intel's lead CPU architects about this.