Zhaoxin KX-5640 ES and S3 Chrome 860

[masterdeejay]

I have bought an interesting lenovo brand motherboard from china. It is from 2018
Zhaoxin KX-5640 ES is a system on chip with S3 Chrome 860 integrated.
Zhaoxin have (or not?) the x86 license from VIA to make CPU-s, and also have the S3 for the GPU.
Performance is like an old core2quad or Phenom gen1. GPU is not so good.... like a Geforce4MX but with DX11 support. So the GPU is only for windows desktop and browsing, not for gaming.
I dont have the stock cooler for the cpu ( i used an s478 cooler duct taped on the mobo), i contacted lenovo for the part number but they cant find this motherboard type (possible only sold to china or because it is an ES board (rev0.3) or it is only made for the chinese government?)
I have found driver for the GPU (microsoft update catalog)

 

[QuietBob]

That certainly is an interesting chip, thanks for sharing!
Could you post a screenshot from GPU-Z and maybe run a few more benchmarks? I'd really like to see how it performs in CPU-Z, Cinebench and 3DMark06 (game, CPU and feature tests)

 

[masterdeejay]

That certainly is an interesting chip, thanks for sharing!
Could you post a screenshot from GPU-Z and maybe run a few more benchmarks? I'd really like to see how it performs in CPU-Z, Cinebench and 3DMark06 (game, CPU and feature tests)

GPU-Z is full blank, no info.
It is the same gpu (device ID) as Chrome 645/640 (VX11), drivers is the same, 28nm is the same but integrated in the SOC. VIA/S3G Chrome 645/640 using ZX C860 drivers // Dota 2
Only the memory bandwith is higher (DDR4 2400 64bit or 128bit with dual channel if i can make it work) and it is integrated in Cpu.
Geekbench 5 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/9366701
i will test it with a few benchmark. It is an S3 card so maybe it have the old MeTaL Api for Unreal Gold
I dont think this GPU capable to run any modern game at least 30fps.

Zhaoxin have discrete video card, it is the same 28nm DX11 card.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/zhaoxin-discrete-gpu

For the cpu: (it is from Wikipeda) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhaoxin
I have the ZX5000 series 4 core verison, but the dual channel not working (bios bug?), and the pcie slot not recognizing all cards (old Ati X300 is working, Quado NV450 and 9800Gtx+ not)
PSU connector is 10 pin lenovo 12v only, but i have a 10-24 pin converter.

 

[QuietBob]

GPU-Z is full blank, no info.

Does AIDA show anything in the GPU page? The CPU Queen result would indicate ST performance on a par with the Athlon64 Windsor. Unfortunately, I can't run Geekbench5 on my older systems for comparison, as they use Win7 or older.

 

[The red spirit]

Interesting stuff, but that 3DMark 2001 SE score is really not so decent. That's nVidia GeForce 5200 Ultra ballpark. That's pretty slow, but anyway 3DMark 2001 SE doesn't scale well with modern hardware and it didn't scale well even with slightly newer hardware. It aged really badly, so it's better to use a newer 3DMark instead. 2003 as far as I know scales better.

 

[QuietBob]

Interesting stuff, but that 3DMark 2001 SE score is really not so decent. That's nVidia GeForce 5200 Ultra ballpark. That's pretty slow, but anyway 3DMark 2001 SE doesn't scale well with modern hardware and it didn't scale well even with slightly newer hardware. It aged really badly, so it's better to use a newer 3DMark instead. 2003 as far as I know scales better.

3DMark01 uses the fixed function rendering pipeline of Direct3D 7/8. So does 3DMark03 - apart from two tests, which makes it slightly less CPU-bound. In general, both benchmarks are largely dependent on CPU power. 3DMark05 does away with the fixed pipeline, but is still CPU-bound.
3DMark06 utilizes Direct3D 9.0c / Shader Model 3.0 for some tests and so is more representative of "modern" APIs.

 

[masterdeejay]

3Dmark06 default setting, still very low fps. It is win11 (tpm/secure boot hacked setup) but drivers are the same.

CPUZ bench valid: https://valid.x86.fr/w6p83w
GPUZ and Aida64 latest show nothing about the gpu.


I have tried a few ram modules: All of my ecc regs not working. Standard desktop Teamgroup 8gb 2400 not working, Crucial Balaistix 4gb 2400 not working, only works with a Dell server 1Rx8 2400T non reg but ECC memory and only in the first slot. I dont have another to test it in dual channel.
This is a lenovo brand motherboard so it is possible only a few type of ram works in it. Or just because it is an ES cpu and ES board.

 

[The red spirit]

3DMark01 uses the fixed function rendering pipeline of Direct3D 7/8. So does 3DMark03 - apart from two tests, which makes it slightly less CPU-bound. In general, both benchmarks are largely dependent on CPU power. 3DMark05 does away with the fixed pipeline, but is still CPU-bound.
3DMark06 utilizes Direct3D 9.0c / Shader Model 3.0 for some tests and so is more representative of "modern" APIs.

I can't tell you anything so advanced, but I can tell you that ATi X800 XT PE with Athlon 64 3400+ achieves around 20000 points in 3DMark 2001 SE. I wanted to run that same benchmark with Athlon 870K and GTX 650 Ti, expecting huge gains in score, but it only got 36000 points. GTX 650 Ti is supposed to be several times faster than ATi card and Athlon X4 870K was supposed to be quite a lot faster than Athlon 64. At least 2 times in single core performance and at least 8 times in multicore performance. I'm pretty certain, that 3DMark 2001 just has some code that was relevant many years ago, but nowadays it's irrelevant and thus is doesn't reflect the actual power of GPU. Its not even good DX7 test as GTX 650 Ti is a lot faster in DX7 than in 3DMark too. It's a nice looking benchmark, but it really shouldn't be used anymore. That old benchmark make S3 chip look worse than it really is. At least I hope it does.

Some older and likely weaker S3 chip can run Serious Sam Fusion at acceptable graphics and framerate:

If owner still has that computer, it would be nice if it was retested with more accurate benchmarks. I don't expect wonders, but it would interesting to know how well it performs. Oh and it really needs that dual channel memory. Single channel is painful with IGP.

 

[QuietBob]

3Dmark06 default setting, still very low fps. It is win11 (tpm/secure boot hacked setup) but drivers are the same.
View attachment 214318
CPUZ bench valid: https://valid.x86.fr/w6p83w
GPUZ and Aida64 latest show nothing about the gpu.
View attachment 214319View attachment 214320
View attachment 214321
I have tried a few ram modules: All of my ecc regs not working. Standard desktop Teamgroup 8gb 2400 not working, Crucial Balaistix 4gb 2400 not working, only works with a Dell server 1Rx8 2400T non reg but ECC memory and only in the first slot. I dont have another to test it in dual channel.
This is a lenovo brand motherboard so it is possible only a few type of ram works in it. Or just because it is an ES cpu and ES board.
View attachment 214327

Thanks for those! In 3DMark06 my Phenom II X4 @ 2 GHz scores 3163 in the CPU test. The slowest Athlon 64 X2 does 1528 at the same clock speed. For graphics, my stock 7600GT scored 1266 in SM2.0 and 1172 in SM3.0.
And in CPU-Z that KaiXian performs exactly like the Jaguar!

Some older and likely weaker S3 chip can run Serious Sam Fusion at acceptable graphics and framerate:

It's the same GPU as in the OP's post. The Serious Engine powering the First Encounter is very well optimized for low-end graphics cards and will run great on even weaker hardware

 

[The red spirit]

It's the same GPU as in the OP's post. The Serious Engine powering the First Encounter is very well optimized for low-end graphics cards and will run great on even weaker hardware

Well video uploader played it at low, but at 720p. I would imagine that minimum resolution that you tested with likely something bellow 640x480 and even then ATi X200 only managed 37 fps, meanwhile S3 860 manages 40-50. GeForce 6100 might be closer to S3 860, but I still think that S3 860 is faster.