Loongson has shared new details about its upcoming 3B6600 CPU and 9A1000 GPU, two chips aimed mainly at China’s domestic PC market.
The company has made steady progress in recent years, but its next products still appear to be several generations behind Intel, AMD, and modern Radeon or GeForce hardware. Even so, Loongson’s work matters because it shows how China’s chip industry is trying to build more of its own PC hardware stack despite limited access to some foreign technology.
The Loongson 3B6600 is expected to be a mainstream CPU for desktops and laptops. It uses LA864 CPU cores and includes LG200 integrated graphics. Compared with the older 3A6000, Loongson says the new chip should deliver around 30 percent better performance at the same clock speed in pre silicon testing.
The 8 core 3B6600 is expected to reach around 60 to 80 points in SPEC 2006 single core testing. That would put it closer to Intel’s 12th Gen processors from 2021, rather than today’s latest Intel Core Ultra or AMD Ryzen 9000 chips.
That sounds weak by global standards, but it may still be useful for domestic systems that need basic productivity, office work, education, government use, and local PC deployments.
Loongson is also working on server chips. Its 3C6000 series is expected to scale up to 64 cores, while the future 3D7000 lineup could use 32 plus core chiplets and reach more than 128 cores.
The GPU side is more modest. Loongson’s 9A1000 discrete GPU is expected to offer performance similar to AMD’s Radeon RX 550, a low end GPU from 2017. That means it is not meant to challenge modern gaming cards. Instead, it is designed to provide basic display and graphics support for systems using Loongson CPUs.
The 9A1000 is said to offer five times the performance of Loongson’s older 2K3000 graphics solution. It also supports newer APIs, offers up to 40 TOPS of AI compute, and should have Windows compatible drivers.
| Product | Target performance | Main purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Loongson 3B6600 CPU | Near Intel 12th Gen level in some tests | Mainstream desktops and laptops |
| Loongson 9A1000 GPU | Around Radeon RX 550 level | Basic display, graphics, and domestic PC use |
| Loongson 3C6000 CPU | Up to 64 cores | Servers |
| Loongson 3D7000 CPU | More than 128 cores planned | Future high core count servers |
| Loongson 9A2000 GPU | Higher performance than 9A1000 | Future GPU design |
| Loongson 9A3000 GPU | Sub 10nm process planned | Longer term GPU roadmap |
The 9A1000 reportedly taped out in September 2025, while the 3B6600 has completed design and is expected to tape out by the third quarter of 2026. Engineering samples are planned for the second half of 2026, with launch expected next year.
Loongson is also looking beyond CPUs and GPUs. The company says it is researching the DRAM market and has partnered with domestic manufacturers on logic silicon wafers for HBM chips. That could eventually help future Loongson GPUs use more domestic memory technology.
The company is also watching the Android market and may use open source HarmonyOS as part of a future entry into mobile or Android based devices.
Loongson’s roadmap is not exciting if you compare it directly with Intel, AMD, or NVIDIA. A 2027 GPU matching a Radeon RX 550 is far behind the global market. But the point is not only raw performance. The point is building a local hardware ecosystem that can run domestic PCs, servers, operating systems, drivers, and eventually memory.
For China, that kind of self reliance has become more important than chasing the latest gaming benchmark. Loongson still has a long way to go, but the company is slowly filling in more pieces of a domestic chip platform.
Discussion (0)
Be the first to comment.