RISC-V CPU Performance Up 8x In Five Years: SiFive HiFive Unmatched To SpacemiT K3

Written by Michael Larabel in Processors on 9 June 2026 at 10:12 AM EDT. Page 5 of 6. 28 Comments.
Google Draco benchmark with settings of Performance Per Thread, Model: Lion. SpacemiT K3 Pico ITX was the fastest.
Opus Codec Encoding benchmark with settings of Performance Per Thread, WAV To Opus Encode. HiFive Unmatched was the fastest.

The single-threaded Opus audio encoder shows the significant gains made to RISC-V core performance over the past five years.

WavPack Audio Encoding benchmark with settings of Performance Per Thread, WAV To WavPack. SpacemiT K3 Pico ITX was the fastest.

The WavPack audio encoding gains were even more impactful.

GraphicsMagick benchmark with settings of Performance Per Thread, Operation: HWB Color Space. SpacemiT K3 Pico ITX was the fastest.
GraphicsMagick benchmark with settings of Performance Per Thread, Operation: Noise-Gaussian. SpacemiT K3 Pico ITX was the fastest.
GraphicsMagick benchmark with settings of Performance Per Thread, Operation: Enhanced. SpacemiT K3 Pico ITX was the fastest.
GraphicsMagick benchmark with settings of Performance Per Thread, Operation: Resizing. SpacemiT K3 Pico ITX was the fastest.
GraphicsMagick benchmark with settings of Performance Per Thread, Operation: Rotate. SpacemiT K3 Pico ITX was the fastest.
GraphicsMagick benchmark with settings of Performance Per Thread, Operation: Sharpen. SpacemiT K3 Pico ITX was the fastest.
GraphicsMagick benchmark with settings of Performance Per Thread, Operation: Swirl. SpacemiT K3 Pico ITX was the fastest.

RISC-V still has a ways to go in competing with modern x86_64 and AArch64 processors as shown by the previous benchmarks, but it was fascinating to quantify the performance difference of RISC-V hardware from the past five years.

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