Russian CPU falls short in Intel and Huawei comparison. Disappointing results raise concerns.
Baikal Electronics, a CPU manufacturer from Russia, recently conducted benchmarks to compare its Baikal-S server processor against Huawei’s Kunpeng 920 and Intel’s Xeon Gold 6230. The results showed that while the performance of Baikal-S wasn’t outstanding, it wasn’t disappointing either.
The Baikal-S chip boasts 48 Arm Cortex-A75 cores on a 16nm process node, with a base clock of 2 GHz and a boost clock of 2.5 GHz. In contrast, the Kunpeng 920, particularly the 920-4826 model, is equipped with 48 TaiShan v110 cores running at 2.6 GHz. It’s essential to note that Baikal’s processor uses an older process node compared to Kunpeng 920’s more advanced 7nm TSMC HPC manufacturing process.
| Processor | Base/Boost Clock (GHz) | Cores/ Threads | Lithography | Microarchitecture | TDP (W) | L3 Cache (MB) |
| Xeon Gold 6230 | 2.1/ 3.9 | 20/40 | 14nm | Cascade Lake | 125 | 27.5 |
| Baikal-S | 2.0/2.5 | 48/48 | 16nm | Arm Cortex-A75 | 120 | 24 |
| Kunpeng 920 | 2.6/ N/A | 48/48 | 7nm | TaiShan v110 | 158 | 48 |
Meanwhile, the Intel Xeon Gold 6230 CPU, with its 20 cores (40 threads) and base and boost clock speeds up to 2.1 GHz and 3.9 GHz respectively, may not be a direct and fair competitor for the Baikal-S. To ensure a fairer comparison with Intel’s server chips, Baikal could have benchmarked one of Intel’s Xeon Platinum products, many of which offer 48 or more cores.
However, it’s worth mentioning that Baikal did not disclose the specifications of the test systems or the testing environment, so it’s essential to approach these results with caution.
Baikal Electronics conducted tests on only three processors, but they didn’t run all the benchmarks on each. Whether this was an attempt to selectively highlight the Baikal-S’s performance remains unclear. For us, evaluating the results proved challenging, as we had to sift through all the data and identify the most relevant metrics for comparison, given the absence of specific benchmark data.
| Processor | Stream (single- thread) | Stream (Multi-thread) | Coremark (Multi-thread) | Coremark (single- thread) |
| Xeon Gold 6230 | N/A | 62 GB/s | 539036 | N/A |
| Baikal-S | 19 GB/s | 83 GB/s | 769354 | 16302 |
| Kunpeng 920 | N/A | 110 GB/s | 945564 | 18398 |
Granted, CoreMark may not provide a complete evaluation of processors, but it revealed some noteworthy differences. In the single-threaded test, the Kunpeng 920 outpaced the Baikal-S by up to 13%, and in the multi-threaded test, it surpassed the Baikal-S by 23%. On the other hand, the Baikal-S outperformed the Xeon Gold 6230 by 43% in the same benchmark.
Baikal Electronics’ products may not yet match the competition from Intel, AMD, or Huawei, and their results confirm it. However, the company remains hopeful that the Baikal-S can catch up, especially with its multi-socket support. A two-socket configuration is reportedly ready, and a quad-socket design is in progress.
Representatives reveal that Baikal Electronics has already started working on the Baikal-S2, a next-generation 6nm chip featuring 28 Arm Neoverse-N2 cores clocked at 3 GHz, and supporting up to eight channels of DDR5 memory. The Baikal-S2 is expected to be released between the second and third quarters of 2025, promising a significant performance boost of up to 6 times that of the Baikal-S.
CEO, Lead Writer
Sajid Ali is a tech enthusiast and gamer who loves to write reviews about gaming hardware. He has a passion for staying up-to-date with the latest technological advancements and loves sharing his knowledge with others. Sajid studied Intermediate Computer Science at Degree College and went on to earn his Bachelor's in Computer Science from GSC. In his free time, you can find him testing out new hardware and software, or playing the latest video games. Sajid's in-depth understanding of computers and his love for gaming make him the perfect author to turn to for all things tech and gaming.
