Lisuan Technology, a Chinese graphics card startup, has announced via the company's official WeChat account that its forthcoming G100 graphics card has successfully powered on, marking a significant milestone in its deployment. The G100 purports to be China's first domestic 6nm graphics card.
As China embarked on its journey towards technological independence, a wave of industry veterans joined the gold rush. Founded in 2021, Lisuan Technology is among the youngest startups in the graphics card sector, alongside Moore Threads (2020) and Biren (2019).
Lisuan Technology has considerable backing, as it was reportedly established by industry veterans boasting more than 25 years of experience in Silicon Valley. The same can be said for Moore Threads, which was founded by Zhang Jianzhong, the former vice-president and general manager of Nvidia China.
Little information is available regarding the G100, besides its use of Lisuan Technology's proprietary TrueGPU architecture. In contrast to some Chinese firms that license intellectual property (IP) from sources like Imagination, TrueGPU asserts that it is an in-house architecture developed from the ground up.
Lisuan Technology previously stated that the G100 is created using a 6nm process node but did not reveal the manufacturer. Due to U.S. export restrictions, China cannot access the 6nm node, ruling out Samsung and TSMC as options. As a result, it is likely that the Chinese foundry SMIC is responsible for producing the silicon using its 6nm manufacturing process, which is also implemented for Huawei's latest Ascend 920 AI chip.
With limited information, we can only rely on rumors regarding the specifications of G100. For example, it is claimed that the G100 provides performance similar to the GeForce RTX 4060. This claim generates significant skepticism, as the GeForce RTX 4060, despite being a last-generation product, is still regarded as one of the best graphics cards available; we have yet to see a Chinese-made graphics card rival it.
Additionally, the G100 is rumored to feature ample memory and modest power consumption. The G100 reportedly supports popular APIs such as DirectX 12, Vulkan 1.3, OpenGL 4.6, and OpenGL 3.0, suggesting that G100 could be a decent gaming graphics card.
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Work on the G100 started in 2021, with Lisuan Technology originally aiming for a 2023 launch. However, financial difficulties obstructed these plans, and by 2024, the company neared bankruptcy. To support the struggling startup, Dongxin Semiconductor, its parent company, provided a substantial financial boost of $27.7 million, enabling continued development of the G100.
Lisuan Technology has successfully obtained the first G100 chips from the foundry, and they are operational. The outcomes seem to meet the startup's expectations. As a result, the company has moved forward with software and hardware validation as well as driver optimization.
Clearly, the G100 has considerable progress ahead before reaching the retail market. It is reportedly in the tape-out phase and is currently undergoing risk trial production. Completing a 6nm tape-out requires substantial time and investment, indicating that Lisuan Technology is at a pivotal point in G100's development. Lisuan Technology intends to deliver small quantities of G100 in the third quarter of this year. Nonetheless, given the timeline, mass production likely won't happen until 2026.
Targeting the performance of the GeForce RTX 4060 isn't bad; however, the G100 needs to function as a reliable graphics card right from the start. It’s unreasonable to expect Lisuan Technology's first attempt to compete with the likes of Nvidia, AMD, or even Intel.
Creating a good graphics card from scratch demands considerable time and effort. Moore Threads has demonstrated that the software aspect is just as crucial as the hardware, given that new driver updates can significantly boost performance. We might see the first benchmarks for the G100 before the end of the year.
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Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.
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usertests This secret trick will allow you to beat the 4060: Make a GPU 90% as fast, but give it double the VRAM.Reply -
Eximo And on paper the Intel A770 should be a beast, it isn't. Seems like more of the Moorethreads stuff. A GPU with fine looking stats, but little real world performance. Driver maturity.Reply -
hotaru251 Reply
i wouldnt anymore.The Historical Fidelity said:I highly doubt the company’s assertions…
the 60 tier now are effectively 50 tier gpu's. They are AWFUL value. China being able to catch up to that isnt THAT far of a fetch. -
A Stoner At least I saw some skepticism on the RTX 4060 performance claim. I had started to doubt your ability to report on Chinese propaganda without a bias towards trust of China. This assuages that doubt to a degree.Reply -
A Stoner Reply
60 tier are 50 tier performance at 70 or 80 tier prices.hotaru251 said:i wouldnt anymore.
the 60 tier now are effectively 50 tier gpu's. They are AWFUL value. China being able to catch up to that isnt THAT far of a fetch. -
bit_user Reply
But Intel and MooreThreads at least started with mature IP, as the foundation. Intel extended their iGPU architecture and MooreThreads licensed Imagination IP that was an extension of their prior phone/tablet GPUs. Both should not only include a tried & tested foundation for graphics, but also some firmware and tools for it.Eximo said:And on paper the Intel A770 should be a beast, it isn't. Seems like more of the Moorethreads stuff. A GPU with fine looking stats, but little real world performance. Driver maturity.
To do absolutely everything, from scratch, is a monumental undertaking. And then to have it be remotely competitive would take further years of refinement, as your examples of Intel and the MT S80 showed us. -
Geef Tomshardware should make a page showing stories from Chinese companies that 'say' their newest chip/device 'may' be best performer. Each story can have a big GREEN ✅check mark or a large RED X depending on whether it was true or false.Reply
Hey, for all we know it 'may' just be a bunch of green check marks! 😜 -
Pemalite It's the software side that will be their undoing.Reply
Chinese manufacturers just don't support their products long term, let alone with competent software support.
AMD, Nvidia and Intel Drivers are monolithic with millions and millions of lines of code and are actually larger and more complex than even the Windows kernel.
I wish them luck... But like we saw with Intel (Arc), Matrox (Parhelia), S3 (Chrome), Power VR (Kyro) if you aren't willing to invest in your software to build compatibility and performance, you won't be able to compete with nVidia and AMD.
Intel has come a long way, but it's drivers still have a ton of quirks. I.E. I get a Red Sky in Crysis on my Arc GPU... A fresh Chinese entrant into the market have a tall hill to climb, -
das_stig G100 provides performance similar to the GeForce RTX 4060. This claim generates significant scepticism (Real English), as the GeForce RTX 4060Reply
More anti-China bashing, for first card, even if a poor performing 4060, it's an impressive achievement and let's look to the future, a Chinese competitor to NV/AMD in CPU/GPUs is good for the consumer.