New RISC-V CPU claims recordbreaking performance per watt

Ars Technica summarises and looks at the various claims made by Micro Magic about their RISC-V core.

Micro Magic Inc.-a small electronic design firm in Sunnyvale, California-has produced a prototype CPU that is several times more efficient than world-leading competitors, while retaining reasonable raw performance.

We first noticed Micro Magic's claims earlier this week, when EE Times reported on the company's new prototype CPU, which appears to be the fastest RISC-V CPU in the world. Micro Magic adviser Andy Huang claimed the CPU could produce 13,000 CoreMarks (more on that later) at 5GHz and 1.1V while also putting out 11,000 CoreMarks at 4.25GHz-the latter all while consuming only 200mW. Huang demonstrated the CPU-running on an Odroid board-to EE Times at 4.327GHz/0.8V and 5.19GHz/1.1V.

Later the same week, Micro Magic announced the same CPU could produce over 8,000 CoreMarks at 3GHz while consuming only 69mW of power.

I have some major reservations about all of these claims, mostly because of the lack of benchmarks that more accurately track real-world usage. Extraordinary claims requite extraordinary evidence, and I feel like some vague photos just doesn't to the trick of convincing me.

Then again, last time I said anything about an upcoming processor, I was off by a million miles, so what do I know?