Loongson Challenges Intel and AMD: The 3C3000 Arrives from China, an Economic 16-Core CPU with Only 40W
Loongson has presented the 3C3000, a new 16-core server processor designed to reduce costs for low-end business infrastructures. The announcement came through a corporate statement and pertains to a chip based on the proprietary LoongArch architecture, aimed at freeing the Chinese market from Western x86 and Arm platforms. This is yet another step for China towards a server infrastructure built on technologies designed and produced domestically.
The newcomer targets file servers, databases, web systems, and business processes for small and medium enterprises. According to the company, the general computing performance of the 3C3000 is in line with that of the previous 3C5000, but with a more contained consumption and cost profile, tailored for those who do not require high-end data center acceleration or capability.
The chip integrates LA364E 64-bit cores, enclosed in a 37.5x37.5 mm FCBGA1371 package, and is pin-compatible with the previous 3B6000. This choice allows system manufacturers to reuse existing platform designs without having to redesign motherboards from scratch. The 16 physical cores, paired with 16 threads, operate at frequencies between 1.5 and 1.8 GHz. Each core supports 128-bit vector instructions and three-way out-of-order execution, with two fixed-point units, one vector unit, and two memory access units per core.
Cache, Memory, and Cost-Effective Connectivity
Cache and memory remain at modest levels for a modern server standard, aligning with the economic positioning of the product. Each core has 64KB of L1 instruction cache and 64KB of L1 data cache, with 16MB of shared L2 cache among all cores. The integrated memory controller manages two DDR4-2400 ECC channels at 72 bits, ensuring server-level error correction—a typical requirement for machines destined for continuous business workloads.
On the expansion front, the 3C3000 offers two PCIe x16 interfaces, totaling 32 PCIe lines, also configurable into multiple x4 or x8 interfaces as needed by the platform. A third PCIe x16 interface can operate in LCL (Loongson Coherent Link) mode for interconnecting two processors, useful for those looking to scale beyond 16 cores on a single node. The features are rounded off with SPI, UART, three I2C interfaces, AVS, and 16 GPIO.
The declared typical consumption is 40W at a frequency of 1.5 GHz, supporting dynamic clock shutdown of the main module and dynamic frequency adjustment to contain consumption under lighter loads. The chip also integrates a security module developed internally by Loongson, with support for national Chinese cryptographic algorithms for encryption and decryption.
Unlike the 3C6000, launched a year earlier and credited by Loongson with performance comparable to an Intel Xeon, the 3C3000 targets a different audience: low-cost general computing, without high-end acceleration or artificial intelligence loads. The ecosystem factor is also significant, with support for local Chinese software and hardware remaining one of the most common selling points of the product. As is customary for server processors, Loongson has not disclosed a price: sales typically go through system integrators and enterprise agreements negotiated on a case-by-case basis, rather than traditional retail channels.