MTT S80 Graphics Card Drops to $164, Still Overpriced
Real-world performance overshadows features like 16GB GDDR6 VRAM
The Moore Threads MTT S80 graphics card has been subject to a significant price cut in its home country (h/t VideoCardz) in honor of Singles' Day. However, even at the new price of ¥1,199 ($164), it is not likely to fly off the shelves because issues like real-world performance and idle power consumption weigh heavily against it.
On paper the MTT S80 looks pretty attractive: it packs a modern 12nm PowerVR-based GPU with 4096 GPU cores, 16GB of GDDR6, and support for the latest PCIe Gen5 spec. Moore’s Threads claims a peak performance of 14.2 TFLOPS, and the memory is said to deliver 448 GB/s bandwidth.
But the MTT S80 excellent specs are less appealing when we start to look at the software / driver side of things. Support for new PC games and apps is limited, for example. This GPU is advertised as DirectX 11 capable, but it still seems happier with DX 9 titles.
Things look even worse for the Chinese graphics card when put under the beady eyes of testers outside of China. We have reported on both BullsLab Jay testing the MTT S80 (back in Feb.) and, more recently, Japan’s PC Watch checking out the card through an extensive test suite (in June).
When tested, the evidence shows that the MTT S80 is something of a sheep in wolf’s clothing. It has good specs on paper and even looks the part with its beefy triple fan cooling shroud. However, tests show the 255W MTT S80 performs somewhat similarly to an old 30W Nvidia GeForce GT 1030. Meanwhile, a modest GPU such as the GTX 1050 Ti absolutely towers over the MTT S80 — and has much better support in APIs, apps, and games.
People might be attracted by the MTT S80 (and S70) graphics cards at their ‘limited time’ pricing for 11.11 Singles' Day. But if they care to do the teeniest bit of research, Chinese PC enthusiasts will find their hard-earned cash is likely better spent elsewhere — for example, anything from our best graphics cards rankings.
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
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George³ Now have one recent review with better results. This graphic card performing better than GTX 1650.Reply -
bit_user At least such an affordable price should get it into the hands of developers. Then, if/when the next generation launches, software support should be in much better shape.Reply
I don't know if that's what they're thinking, but it's more likely that developers who want one already have it and they're simply trying to liquidate their inventory. -
artk2219 I kind of want one, its getting cheap enough I could get one to throw in my collection. Best deal I found was when someone was selling a Voodoo 5 5500 for 10 bucks complete in box, I snapped that up in a heartbeat.Reply -
Order 66 16GB of VRAM at $164 sounds great if only the software and support was up to par. If AMD really wanted to bring the fight to Nvidia next gen, they should totally do something like this for a card under $200 with proper drivers and support. RX 8500xt with 16GB of GDDR6, anyone?Reply -
bit_user
What good is that much memory, with such a low-end GPU?Order 66 said:16GB of VRAM at $164 sounds great if only the software and support was up to par. If AMD really wanted to bring the fight to Nvidia next gen, they should totally do something like this for a card under $200 with proper drivers and support. RX 8500xt with 16GB of GDDR6, anyone? -
Order 66
On paper the GPU is not that low end, it's on paper specs put it roughly on par with an RX 6800. I think it is the software that is mainly holding it back. And if you're referring to the hypothetical RX 8500xt, ideally (but not unrealistically so) it would have the GPU performance of a 6700xt or better with 16GB of VRAM on a 256 bit bus.bit_user said:What good is that much memory, with such a low-end GPU? -
bit_user
Yes, mainly that. Well, you didn't say anything about increasing the bus width. I thought you were just focused on capacity. Even with a wider bus, you still need a reasonably powerful GPU to run at resolutions where high-res textures & geometry (what usually goes in all that memory) would make sense.Order 66 said:if you're referring to the hypothetical RX 8500xt, ideally (but not unrealistically so) it would have the GPU performance of a 6700xt or better with 16GB of VRAM on a 256 bit bus.