Loongson Unveils 64-Core LS3C6000 Server CPUs to Rival Intel “Ice Lake-SP” Xeons
China’s Loongson has introduced its latest server processor family, the LS3C6000 series, its most powerful domestically designed processor. These new chips use Loongson’s fourth-generation microarchitecture and pack 16 64-bit superscalar LA664 cores on each die. With simultaneous multi-threading, the single-die “S” model handles 32 logical threads, while the dual-die “D” and quad-die “Q” versions support 64 and 128 threads, respectively. Operating between 2.0 GHz and 2.2 GHz, the family delivers peak double-precision FP64 performance of 844.8 GigaFLOPS for S units, 1.612 TeraFLOPS for D units, and 3.072 TeraFLOPS for Q units. Each core benefits from 64 KB of dedicated instruction cache and 64 KB of data cache, plus a 256 KB private L2 cache, while a shared 32 MB L3 cache serves all cores on a die.
Memory bandwidth is served by four 72-bit DDR4-3200 channels in the S version and eight channels in larger SKUs, and connectivity comes via 64 PCI Express lanes for S models and 128 lanes for D and Q models, alongside SPI, UART, I²C and GPIO ports. Security is addressed through an integrated SE module with a secondary LA264 core that accelerates SM2, SM3, and SM4 cryptographic functions. Loongson relies on its proprietary Coherent Link interconnect, which uses PCI Express-style links and board-level direct paths to scale up to 256 logical cores in multi-socket systems. Power consumption ranges from 100 to 120 W for S parts, 180 to 200 W for D parts, and 250 to 300 W for Q parts. Loongson suggests that its 16-core S model competes with Intel’s (now old) third-generation Xeon Scalable processors, while its 64-core Q model is roughly comparable to the Xeon Platinum 8380 with 40 cores and 80 threads.
Ryan C. Smith has been doing professional computer support since 1996. He worked at all the major companies such as SONY, HP, Network Appliances, Palm and many more. He was top of his class at Heald College for Computer Technology. He is familiar with Windows Servers, Windows, Networking, Linux, and Web Servers. He has a photographic memory when it comes to computers.
