Intel Xeon Gold 6146 vs HiSilicon Kirin 970

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CPU comparison with benchmarks


Intel Xeon Gold 6146 CPU1 vs CPU2 HiSilicon Kirin 970
Intel Xeon Gold 6146 HiSilicon Kirin 970

CPU comparison

Intel Xeon Gold 6146 or HiSilicon Kirin 970 - 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 Intel Xeon Gold 6146 has 12 cores with 24 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 4.20 GHz. Up to 768 GB of memory is supported in 6 memory channels. The Intel Xeon Gold 6146 was released in Q3/2017.

The HiSilicon Kirin 970 has 8 cores with 8 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 2.40 GHz. The CPU supports up to 8 GB of memory in 4 memory channels. The HiSilicon Kirin 970 was released in Q3/2017.
Intel Xeon Gold (163) Family HiSilicon Kirin (29)
Intel Xeon Gold 5100/6100 (34) CPU group HiSilicon Kirin 970 (1)
1 Generation 6
Skylake Architecture Cortex-A73 / Cortex-A53
Desktop / Server Segment Mobile
-- Predecessor --
-- Successor --

CPU Cores and Base Frequency

The Intel Xeon Gold 6146 has 12 CPU cores and can calculate 24 threads in parallel. The clock frequency of the Intel Xeon Gold 6146 is 3.20 GHz (4.20 GHz) while the HiSilicon Kirin 970 has 8 CPU cores and 8 threads can calculate simultaneously. The clock frequency of the HiSilicon Kirin 970 is at 2.40 GHz.

Intel Xeon Gold 6146 Characteristic HiSilicon Kirin 970
12 Cores 8
24 Threads 8
normal Core architecture hybrid (big.LITTLE)
Yes Hyperthreading No
No Overclocking ? No
3.20 GHz (4.20 GHz) A-Core 2.40 GHz
4x Cortex-A73
-- B-Core 1.84 GHz
4x Cortex-A53

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.

Intel Xeon Gold 6146 Characteristic HiSilicon Kirin 970
-- AI hardware --
-- AI specifications --

Internal Graphics

The Intel Xeon Gold 6146 or HiSilicon Kirin 970 has integrated graphics, called iGPU for short. The iGPU uses the system's main memory as graphics memory and sits on the processor's die.

no iGPU GPU ARM Mali-G72 MP12
GPU frequency 0.75 GHz
-- GPU (Turbo) --
-- GPU Generation Bifrost 2
Technology 16 nm
Max. displays 1
-- Compute units 12
-- Shader 192
No Hardware Raytracing No
No Frame Generation No
-- Max. GPU Memory 2 GB
-- DirectX Version 12

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.

no iGPU GPU ARM Mali-G72 MP12
No Codec h265 / HEVC (8 bit) Decode / Encode
No Codec h265 / HEVC (10 bit) Decode / Encode
No Codec h264 Decode / Encode
No Codec VP9 Decode / Encode
No Codec VP8 Decode / Encode
No Codec AV1 No
No Codec AVC Decode / Encode
No Codec VC-1 Decode / Encode
No Codec JPEG Decode / Encode

Memory & PCIe

The Intel Xeon Gold 6146 can use up to 768 GB of memory in 6 memory channels. The maximum memory bandwidth is 128.1 GB/s. The HiSilicon Kirin 970 supports up to 8 GB of memory in 4 memory channels and achieves a memory bandwidth of up to --.

Intel Xeon Gold 6146 Characteristic HiSilicon Kirin 970
DDR4-2666 Memory LPDDR4X-2133
768 GB Max. Memory 8 GB
6 (Hexa Channel) Memory channels 4 (Quad Channel)
128.1 GB/s Max. Bandwidth --
Yes ECC No
-- L2 Cache --
25.00 MB L3 Cache 2.00 MB
3.0 PCIe version --
48 PCIe lanes --
47.3 GB/s PCIe Bandwidth --

Thermal Management

The thermal design power (TDP for short) of the Intel Xeon Gold 6146 is 165 W, while the HiSilicon Kirin 970 has a TDP of 9 W. The TDP specifies the necessary cooling solution that is required to cool the processor sufficiently.

Intel Xeon Gold 6146 Characteristic HiSilicon Kirin 970
165 W TDP (PL1 / PBP) 9 W
-- TDP (PL2) --
-- TDP up --
-- TDP down --
-- Tjunction max. --

Technical details

The Intel Xeon Gold 6146 is manufactured in 14 nm and has 25.00 MB cache. The HiSilicon Kirin 970 is manufactured in 10 nm and has a 2.00 MB cache.

Intel Xeon Gold 6146 Characteristic HiSilicon Kirin 970
14 nm Technology 10 nm
Monolithic Chip design Chiplet
x86-64 (64 bit) Instruction set (ISA) Armv8-A (64 bit)
SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX2, AVX-512 ISA extensions --
LGA 3647 Socket --
VT-x, VT-x EPT, VT-d Virtualization None
Yes AES-NI No
Windows 10, Linux Operating systems Android
Q3/2017 Release date Q3/2017
3250 $ Release price --
show more data show more data


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Average performance in benchmarks

⌀ Single core performance in 1 CPU benchmarks
Intel Xeon Gold 6146 (100%)
HiSilicon Kirin 970 (32%)
⌀ Multi core performance in 1 CPU benchmarks
Intel Xeon Gold 6146 (100%)
HiSilicon Kirin 970 (12%)

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.
Intel Xeon Gold 6146 Intel Xeon Gold 6146
12C 24T @ 4.20 GHz
1086 (100%)
HiSilicon Kirin 970 HiSilicon Kirin 970
8C 8T @ 2.40 GHz
349 (32%)

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.
Intel Xeon Gold 6146 Intel Xeon Gold 6146
12C 24T @ 3.60 GHz
11642 (100%)
HiSilicon Kirin 970 HiSilicon Kirin 970
8C 8T @ 2.40 GHz
1455 (12%)

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.
Intel Xeon Gold 6146 Intel Xeon Gold 6146
12C 24T @ 4.20 GHz
1237 (100%)
HiSilicon Kirin 970 HiSilicon Kirin 970
8C 8T @ 2.40 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.
Intel Xeon Gold 6146 Intel Xeon Gold 6146
12C 24T @ 3.60 GHz
9166 (100%)
HiSilicon Kirin 970 HiSilicon Kirin 970
8C 8T @ 2.40 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.
Intel Xeon Gold 6146 Intel Xeon Gold 6146
@ 0.00 GHz
0 (0%)
HiSilicon Kirin 970 HiSilicon Kirin 970
ARM Mali-G72 MP12 @ 0.75 GHz
330 (100%)

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.
Intel Xeon Gold 6146 Intel Xeon Gold 6146
12C 24T @ 3.60 GHz
23299 (100%)
HiSilicon Kirin 970 HiSilicon Kirin 970
8C 8T @ 2.40 GHz
0 (0%)

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.
Intel Xeon Gold 6146 Intel Xeon Gold 6146
12C 24T @ 4.20 GHz
183 (100%)
HiSilicon Kirin 970 HiSilicon Kirin 970
8C 8T @ 2.40 GHz
0 (0%)

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.
Intel Xeon Gold 6146 Intel Xeon Gold 6146
12C 24T @ 3.60 GHz
2399 (100%)
HiSilicon Kirin 970 HiSilicon Kirin 970
8C 8T @ 2.40 GHz
0 (0%)

Devices using this processor

Intel Xeon Gold 6146 HiSilicon Kirin 970
Unknown Huawei Honor 10
Huawei Note 10
Huawei Play
Huawei Honor View 10
Huawei Mate 10 Pro
Huawei P20
Huawei Nova 3
Huawei Nova 4

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