HiSilicon Kirin 955 vs Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3

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CPU comparison with benchmarks


HiSilicon Kirin 955 CPU1 vs CPU2 Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3
HiSilicon Kirin 955 Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3

CPU comparison

HiSilicon Kirin 955 or Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 - which processor is faster? In this comparison we look at the differences and analyze which of these two CPUs is better. We compare the technical data and benchmark results.

The HiSilicon Kirin 955 has 8 cores with 8 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 2.50 GHz. Up to GB of memory is supported in 2 memory channels. The HiSilicon Kirin 955 was released in Q2/2016.

The Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 has 8 cores with 16 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 3.50 GHz. The CPU supports up to 768 GB of memory in 4 memory channels. The Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 was released in Q3/2014.
HiSilicon Kirin (29) Family Intel Xeon E5 (71)
HiSilicon Kirin 950 (2) CPU group Intel Xeon E5 v3 (32)
4 Generation 5
Cortex-A72 / Cortex-A53 Architecture Haswell E
Mobile Segment Desktop / Server
-- Predecessor Intel Xeon E5-1660 v2
-- Successor Intel Xeon E5-1660 v4

CPU Cores and Base Frequency

The HiSilicon Kirin 955 is a 8 core processor with a clock frequency of 2.50 GHz. The Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 has 8 CPU cores with a clock frequency of 3.00 GHz (3.50 GHz).

HiSilicon Kirin 955 Characteristic Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3
8 Cores 8
8 Threads 16
hybrid (big.LITTLE) Core architecture normal
No Hyperthreading Yes
No Overclocking ? No
2.50 GHz
4x Cortex-A72
A-Core 3.00 GHz (3.50 GHz)
1.80 GHz
4x Cortex-A53
B-Core --

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Processors with the support of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can process many calculations, especially audio, image and video processing, much faster than classic processors. Algorithms for ML improve their performance the more data they have collected via software. ML tasks can be processed up to 10,000 times faster than with a classic processor.

HiSilicon Kirin 955 Characteristic Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3
-- AI hardware --
-- AI specifications --

Internal Graphics

The integrated graphics unit of a processor is not only responsible for the pure image output on the system, but can also significantly increase the efficiency of the system with the support of modern video codecs.

ARM Mali-T880 MP4 GPU no iGPU
0.90 GHz GPU frequency --
0.90 GHz GPU (Turbo) --
Midgard 4 GPU Generation --
16 nm Technology
2 Max. displays
4 Compute units --
64 Shader --
No Hardware Raytracing No
No Frame Generation No
-- Max. GPU Memory --
11 DirectX Version --

Hardware codec support

A photo or video codec that is accelerated in hardware can greatly accelerate the working speed of a processor and extend the battery life of notebooks or smartphones when playing videos.

ARM Mali-T880 MP4 GPU no iGPU
Decode / Encode Codec h265 / HEVC (8 bit) No
Decode Codec h265 / HEVC (10 bit) No
Decode / Encode Codec h264 No
No Codec VP9 No
Decode / Encode Codec VP8 No
No Codec AV1 No
No Codec AVC No
No Codec VC-1 No
Decode / Encode Codec JPEG No

Memory & PCIe

The HiSilicon Kirin 955 supports a maximum of GB of memory in 2 memory channels. The Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 can connect up to 768 GB of memory in 4 memory channels.

HiSilicon Kirin 955 Characteristic Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3
LPDDR4, LPDDR3 Memory DDR4-2133
Max. Memory 768 GB
2 (Dual Channel) Memory channels 4 (Quad Channel)
-- Max. Bandwidth 68.2 GB/s
No ECC Yes
-- L2 Cache --
-- L3 Cache 20.00 MB
-- PCIe version 3.0
-- PCIe lanes 40
-- PCIe Bandwidth 39.4 GB/s

Thermal Management

The TDP (Thermal Design Power) of a processor specifies the required cooling solution. The HiSilicon Kirin 955 has a TDP of --, that of the Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 is 140 W.

HiSilicon Kirin 955 Characteristic Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3
-- TDP (PL1 / PBP) 140 W
-- TDP (PL2) --
-- TDP up --
-- TDP down --
-- Tjunction max. --

Technical details

The HiSilicon Kirin 955 has a 0.00 MB cache, while the Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 cache has a total of 20.00 MB.

HiSilicon Kirin 955 Characteristic Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3
16 nm Technology 22 nm
Chiplet Chip design Monolithic
Armv8-A (64 bit) Instruction set (ISA) x86-64 (64 bit)
-- ISA extensions SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX2
-- Socket LGA 2011-3
None Virtualization VT-x, VT-x EPT, VT-d
No AES-NI Yes
Android Operating systems Windows 10, Linux
Q2/2016 Release date Q3/2014
-- Release price --
show more data show more data


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Average performance in benchmarks

⌀ Single core performance in 1 CPU benchmarks
HiSilicon Kirin 955 (30%)
Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 (100%)
⌀ Multi core performance in 1 CPU benchmarks
HiSilicon Kirin 955 (11%)
Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 (100%)

Geekbench 5, 64bit (Single-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.
HiSilicon Kirin 955 HiSilicon Kirin 955
8C 8T @ 2.50 GHz
330 (30%)
Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3
8C 16T @ 3.50 GHz
1088 (100%)

Geekbench 5, 64bit (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.
HiSilicon Kirin 955 HiSilicon Kirin 955
8C 8T @ 2.50 GHz
989 (11%)
Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3
8C 16T @ 3.20 GHz
8622 (100%)

Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The single-core benchmark only evaluates the performance of the fastest CPU core, the number of CPU cores in a processor is irrelevant here.
HiSilicon Kirin 955 HiSilicon Kirin 955
8C 8T @ 2.50 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3
8C 16T @ 3.50 GHz
1448 (100%)

Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The multi-core benchmark evaluates the performance of all of the processor's CPU cores. Virtual thread improvements such as AMD SMT or Intel's Hyper-Threading have a positive impact on the benchmark result.
HiSilicon Kirin 955 HiSilicon Kirin 955
8C 8T @ 2.50 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3
8C 16T @ 3.20 GHz
8769 (100%)

iGPU - FP32 Performance (Single-precision GFLOPS)

The theoretical computing performance of the internal graphics unit of the processor with simple accuracy (32 bit) in GFLOPS. GFLOPS indicates how many billion floating point operations the iGPU can perform per second.
HiSilicon Kirin 955 HiSilicon Kirin 955
ARM Mali-T880 MP4 @ 0.90 GHz
122 (100%)
Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3
@ 0.00 GHz
0 (0%)

Estimated results for PassMark CPU Mark

Some of the CPUs listed below have been benchmarked by CPU-monkey. However the majority of CPUs have not been tested and the results have been estimated by a CPU-monkey’s secret proprietary formula. As such they do not accurately reflect the actual Passmark CPU mark values and are not endorsed by PassMark Software Pty Ltd.
HiSilicon Kirin 955 HiSilicon Kirin 955
8C 8T @ 2.50 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3
8C 16T @ 3.20 GHz
12608 (100%)

CPU-Z Benchmark 17 (Multi-Core)

The CPU-Z benchmark measures a processor's performance by measuring the time it takes the system to complete all benchmark calculations. The faster the benchmark is completed, the higher the score.
HiSilicon Kirin 955 HiSilicon Kirin 955
8C 8T @ 2.50 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3
8C 16T @ 3.00 GHz
4301 (100%)

Cinebench R15 (Single-Core)

Cinebench R15 is the successor of Cinebench 11.5 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.
HiSilicon Kirin 955 HiSilicon Kirin 955
8C 8T @ 2.50 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3
8C 16T @ 3.50 GHz
177 (100%)

Cinebench R15 (Multi-Core)

Cinebench R15 is the successor of Cinebench 11.5 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.
HiSilicon Kirin 955 HiSilicon Kirin 955
8C 8T @ 2.50 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3
8C 16T @ 3.20 GHz
1360 (100%)

Devices using this processor

HiSilicon Kirin 955 Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3
Unknown Unknown

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