Bolt Graphics alleges 13x boost over Nvidia RTX 5090 with lower wattage but significant caveats

Bolt Graphics touts expansive Zeus GPU specs, challenging Nvidia but with questionable claims.

: Bolt Graphics, a Californian startup, is promoting its Zeus GPU series as superior to Nvidia's RTX 5090 by claiming substantial gains in efficiency and performance. Despite promising a 13x improvement with over 120W less power draw and larger memory capacities, the company's metrics and reliance on older VRAM raise skepticism. These GPUs feature path tracing capabilities, expandable VRAM, and high gigaray counts but remain unverified beyond synthetic benchmarks. Production delays extend availability to 2027, by when competitors Nvidia and AMD could have further advanced.

Bolt Graphics, a newcomer in the advanced graphics processing unit (GPU) market, is making waves with bold claims about their upcoming Zeus GPU lineup. These GPUs reportedly promise to outclass Nvidia's flagship RTX 5090, notably asserting a 13-time improvement in performance while consuming notably less power. Their 1c-032 model purportedly achieves 77 gigarays in path tracing—an essential technology for realistic lighting in games—compared to the RTX 5090's 32.

Despite promising specifications that suggest these GPUs could consume less than half the power of their Nvidia counterparts, several aspects of Bolt Graphics' claims are suspect. For one, the company is using older LPDDR5X and DDR5 memory formats rather than the more advanced GDDR6 and GDDR7 used in Nvidia's high-end models. This could hinder their performance when handling demanding gaming applications, where these newer memory formats are critical.

The specifications released further details four planned GPU models in the Zeus lineup: the 1c-032, 2c-064, 2c-128, and 4c-256. Their flagship 4c model, as outlined, would feature jaw-dropping capacities such as 307 gigarays and 512 MB of cache while using slightly less power than its counterpart from Nvidia. However, the robustness of these claims rests solely on synthetic benchmarks and what Bolt describes as 'pre-silicon' performance estimates.

The temporal promise of these GPUs is not immediate. Manufacturing is expected to start only by late 2026, effectively delaying any consumer availability to 2027. This timeline allows competitors, notably AMD and Nvidia, the opportunity to release and evolve their next-generation hardware offerings. As such, real-world comparisons remain unforthcoming, casting further uncertainty over whether Bolt Graphics’ Zeus series cards can make a significant impact.

The unveiled specifications also highlight a notable shortfall in gaming-relevant metrics such as FP32 and FP16 TFLOP counts, crucial determinants of gaming efficiency and frame rates. While the Zeus architecture might find applications in High-Performance Computing (HPC) or rendering work, gamers seeking assured performance gains are advised caution until corroborated by real-world testing and driver software optimization.

Sources: TechSpot, X

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