Huawei-Powered Desktop PC Tested, Eight-Core 7nm Kunpeng 920 Processor

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Not all cores are created equal

Huawei, through its HiSilicon subsidiary, has a line of promising 7nm ARM v8-based Kunpeng processors that stretch up to 64 cores for the data center and support leading tech, like PCIe 4.0. Now at least one model of the chip is being used for desktop systems, too. Chinese YouTube channel 二斤自制 purchased and tested a Huawei-powered desktop PC that features both the company's eight-core eight-thread 7nm Kunpeng 920 ARM v8 processor and the Huawei D920S10 desktop motherboard in a third-party system, giving us the first glimpse of the new products enabled by Huawei's recent entrance into the market as a supplier to OEMs that produce desktop PCs. 

The development could help further China's targeted strategy to reduce its reliance on western semiconductor technology. Still, in many ways, the system highlights the difficulties the country has encountered, particularly in terms of software support. In fact, that's the primary focus of the video. The video doesn't give us much in the way of broadly-comparable benchmarks (though there are a few tidbits), but we do learn some specs that we'll cover below.
 
The narrator spends much of the video covering the problems she encountered with running meaningful software applications. Due to Kunpeng's ARM architecture, the system is limited to running the China-produced 64-bit UOS operating system that is largely a modified flavor of Linux. The narrator commented that the UOS operating system runs smooth and has an intuitive interface, and it even supports a 4K resolution at 60Hz via a Yeston RX550 graphics card. Still, she had to pay an extra 800 Yuan (~$115) to gain access to the app store. Moreover, the store had a woeful selection of applications, lacking such staples as Adobe and other apps. That's exacerbated by the system's lack of support for 32-bit software.

The system did run a Blender BMW test render, but it completed in 11 minutes and 47 seconds, which is woefully slower than most modern chips. The system did well streaming 4K video, but 'choked' during local playback due to poor encoding performance. The narrator says the system is obviously best for light office work only. 

The channel purchased the system for 7,500 Yuan (roughly $1,060 USD), and it comes with an eight-core eight-thread 2.6 GHz Kunpeng 920 2249K processor soldered to the motherboard. We can't find specs for this processor online, but the video lists it with 128K of L1 memory (64K I$, 64K D$), 512K of L2, and 32MB of L3.
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