HiSilicon Kirin 960 vs Intel Xeon Gold 6256

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CPU comparison with benchmarks


HiSilicon Kirin 960 CPU1 vs CPU2 Intel Xeon Gold 6256
HiSilicon Kirin 960 Intel Xeon Gold 6256

CPU comparison

In this CPU comparison, we compare the HiSilicon Kirin 960 and the Intel Xeon Gold 6256 and use benchmarks to check which processor is faster.

We compare the HiSilicon Kirin 960 8 core processor released in Q4/2016 with the Intel Xeon Gold 6256 which has 12 CPU cores and was introduced in Q1/2020.
HiSilicon Kirin (29) Family Intel Xeon Gold (163)
HiSilicon Kirin 960 (2) CPU group Intel Xeon Gold 5200/6200 (55)
5 Generation 2
Cortex-A73 / Cortex-A53 Architecture Cascade Lake
Mobile Segment Desktop / Server
-- Predecessor --
-- Successor --

CPU Cores and Base Frequency

The HiSilicon Kirin 960 is a 8 core processor with a clock frequency of 2.40 GHz. The processor can compute 8 threads at the same time. The Intel Xeon Gold 6256 clocks with 3.60 GHz (4.50 GHz), has 12 CPU cores and can calculate 24 threads in parallel.

HiSilicon Kirin 960 Characteristic Intel Xeon Gold 6256
8 Cores 12
8 Threads 24
hybrid (big.LITTLE) Core architecture normal
No Hyperthreading Yes
No Overclocking ? No
2.40 GHz
4x Cortex-A73
A-Core 3.60 GHz (4.50 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 960 Characteristic Intel Xeon Gold 6256
-- AI hardware --
-- AI specifications --

Internal Graphics

Graphics (iGPU) integrated into the processor not only enable image output without having to rely on a dedicated graphics solution, but can also efficiently accelerate video playback.

ARM Mali-G71 MP8 GPU no iGPU
0.90 GHz GPU frequency --
-- GPU (Turbo) --
Bifrost 1 GPU Generation --
16 nm Technology
2 Max. displays
8 Compute units --
256 Shader --
No Hardware Raytracing No
No Frame Generation No
2 GB 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-G71 MP8 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
Decode / Encode Codec AVC No
No Codec VC-1 No
Decode / Encode Codec JPEG No

Memory & PCIe

Up to 6 GB of memory in a maximum of 2 memory channels is supported by the HiSilicon Kirin 960, while the Intel Xeon Gold 6256 supports a maximum of 1024 GB of memory with a maximum memory bandwidth of 140.7 GB/s enabled.

HiSilicon Kirin 960 Characteristic Intel Xeon Gold 6256
LPDDR4-1600 Memory DDR4-2933
6 GB Max. Memory 1024 GB
2 (Dual Channel) Memory channels 6 (Hexa Channel)
12.8 GB/s Max. Bandwidth 140.7 GB/s
No ECC Yes
-- L2 Cache --
4.00 MB L3 Cache 33.00 MB
-- PCIe version 3.0
-- PCIe lanes 48
-- PCIe Bandwidth 47.3 GB/s

Thermal Management

The HiSilicon Kirin 960 has a TDP of 5 W. The TDP of the Intel Xeon Gold 6256 is 205 W. System integrators use the TDP of the processor as a guide when dimensioning the cooling solution.

HiSilicon Kirin 960 Characteristic Intel Xeon Gold 6256
5 W TDP (PL1 / PBP) 205 W
-- TDP (PL2) --
-- TDP up --
-- TDP down --
-- Tjunction max. 76 °C

Technical details

The HiSilicon Kirin 960 has 4.00 MB cache and is manufactured in 16 nm. The cache of Intel Xeon Gold 6256 is at 33.00 MB. The processor is manufactured in 14 nm.

HiSilicon Kirin 960 Characteristic Intel Xeon Gold 6256
16 nm Technology 14 nm
Chiplet Chip design Monolithic
Armv8-A (64 bit) Instruction set (ISA) x86-64 (64 bit)
-- ISA extensions SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX2, AVX-512
-- Socket LGA 3647
None Virtualization VT-x, VT-x EPT, VT-d
No AES-NI Yes
Android Operating systems Windows 10, Linux
Q4/2016 Release date Q1/2020
-- Release price 3900 $
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Rate these processors

Here you can rate the HiSilicon Kirin 960 to help other visitors make their purchasing decisions. The average rating is 4.0 stars (2 ratings). Rate now:
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Average performance in benchmarks

⌀ Single core performance in 1 CPU benchmarks
HiSilicon Kirin 960 (31%)
Intel Xeon Gold 6256 (100%)
⌀ Multi core performance in 0 CPU benchmarks
HiSilicon Kirin 960 (0%)
Intel Xeon Gold 6256 (0%)

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 960 HiSilicon Kirin 960
8C 8T @ 2.40 GHz
381 (31%)
Intel Xeon Gold 6256 Intel Xeon Gold 6256
12C 24T @ 4.50 GHz
1222 (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 960 HiSilicon Kirin 960
8C 8T @ 2.40 GHz
1521 (100%)
Intel Xeon Gold 6256 Intel Xeon Gold 6256
12C 24T @ 4.20 GHz
0 (0%)

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 960 HiSilicon Kirin 960
8C 8T @ 2.40 GHz
403 (100%)
Intel Xeon Gold 6256 Intel Xeon Gold 6256
12C 24T @ 4.50 GHz
0 (0%)

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 960 HiSilicon Kirin 960
8C 8T @ 2.40 GHz
1393 (100%)
Intel Xeon Gold 6256 Intel Xeon Gold 6256
12C 24T @ 4.20 GHz
0 (0%)

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 960 HiSilicon Kirin 960
ARM Mali-G71 MP8 @ 0.90 GHz
245 (100%)
Intel Xeon Gold 6256 Intel Xeon Gold 6256
@ 0.00 GHz
0 (0%)

Devices using this processor

HiSilicon Kirin 960 Intel Xeon Gold 6256
Huawei Honor 8 Pro
Huawei Honor 9
Huawei Mate 9
Huawei Mate 9 Pro
Huawei Mate 9 Porsche
Huawei MediaPad M5
Huawei Nova 2s
Huawei P10
Unknown

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