Spotted at Computex: Let Bygones be Bygons, with a Sugon Hygon

Big credit to Patrick Kennedy from ServeTheHome for spotting this gem on the show floor, but it looks like if you want a Chinese branded EPYC CPU with some minor changes, it’s coming. Back in 2016, AMD and Hianjin Jaiguang Advanced Technology Investment Co. (THATIC) formed a joint venture (JV) to develop custom Zen-based processors just for the Chinese market. Within the JV, AMD would provide its Zen microarchitecture, whereas the rest of the SoC would be designed by the JV. AMD owns 49% of the company, while THATIC owns 51%. The first product out of that partnership is the Hugon Dhyana family of processors, and the first retailer with systems is Sugon.

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There are lots of questions surrounding exactly what these CPUs are. A Weibo user from China has published a screenshot allegedly taken on one of Hugon Dhyana-based machines which reveals that the eight-core Dhyana 3185 features 768 KB L1 cache, 4 MB L2 cache, and 16 MB L3 cache, the same configuration as AMD’s low-end eight-core EPYC processors. They look like EPYC processors, but with different cryptography engines inside the chip. Differences beyond that are unknown, but it still uses the same packaging and the same socket as EPYC. Now with a visual image, we can tell another key significant difference – while the carrier for Threadripper is orange, and for EPYC is blue, with Hygon CPUs it is red. This is very important.

Other details about the CPU were not present – we found the CPU in a system being developed by one of the JV OEM partners. We’re working with that partner to hopefully get a system in for testing.

Interestingly enough, we got the bottom right of the CPU translated. A literal translation is 

'Using Cores to Calculate The Future'

However, the second character used in the slogan is a homonym, which could be translated as:

'Using Passion to Calculate The Future'

For a Chinese CPU, the synergestic phrasing is very poetic.

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Note, if anyone from Sugon or Hygon wants to get in touch to talk about a review, please email our CPU editor Dr. Ian Cutress: [email protected]