Lisuan 7G106: China’s first gaming GPU primarily based on 6 nm – a miracle? Or only a prototype searching for that means?

“7G” – a code that just about feels like “miracle” in Chinese. Whether this can be a advertising and marketing fortune cookie or a technological prophecy stays to be seen, studies btarunr from TechPowerUP. What Lisuan Technology is presenting with the 7G106 (internally referred to as G100) is nothing lower than the primary critical try to emancipate itself from Nvidia & AMD. No license alliance, no Western IP crutch – a GPU from scratch, manufactured within the 6 nm DUV course of, and this in a rustic that’s solely simply starting to interrupt free from the spell of Western know-how exports.

Architecture: One monolith for a lot of containers

The TrueGPU structure of the 7G106 is a monolithic all-rounder. It depends on SIMD engines, FP32 peaks of 24 TFLOP/s and a 192-bit reminiscence interface with 12 GB GDDR6 – not a world file, however pragmatic in view of the goal group (China, mid-range, gaming with out ray tracing fetish). 192 TMUs, 96 ROPs – feels like a design that they wished to make work with out incurring money owed with TSMC or the HDMI antitrust authorities. Speaking of HDMI: no luck. Four DisplayPort 1.4 with DSC 1.2b – a pleasant reminder that Lisuan shouldn’t be prepared to pay for Western license video games. HDMI prices cash, and if you must lower your expenses, you begin with symbolic politics.

Raytracing? No. SR-IOV? Yes.

What it lacks technically (ray tracing, DX12 Ultimate), it makes up for with a full set of virtualization features. SR-IOV with 16 containers – i.e. GPU sharing at enterprise degree. They are clearly not solely pondering of players, but in addition of state knowledge facilities and cloud suppliers with a patriotism assure.

Geekbench and the parable of the miracle chip

Early checks on Geekbench had been sobering: 256 MB VRAM, 300 MHz, simply 15,000 factors. Performance on the degree of a GTX 660 Ti – museum materials from in the present day’s perspective. But as is the case with A0 steppings: what works, works badly, and that’s okay. It solely acquired thrilling with the newest leak. Now instantly: 48 compute items, 2 GHz clock, 12 GB VRAM, 111,000 factors in OpenCL – roughly at RTX 4060 degree. This shouldn’t be a revolution, however an illustration of energy: you’ll be able to. Not good but, however at the least. If that is true – and if it’s not all simply benchmarks on steroids – Lisuan might certainly change into Asia’s first unbiased GPU forge.

But the market doesn’t overlook

However, a GPU shouldn’t be a benchmark chart, however an ecosystem. And there’s an enormous hole: no dev kits for studios, no driver assist à la Nvidia Game Ready, no experience in recreation engines, no DirectML, no AI integration, no DLSS counterpart. Hardware with out software program is like an airplane with out an engine: spectacular on paper, ineffective within the air.

A diplomatic capitulation or a technological improve?

Lisuan walks a effective line between political image and actual product. On the one hand, the 7G106 is a technological assertion, virtually a geopolitical manifesto towards Western tech hegemony. On the opposite hand, the present standing is strongly paying homage to the stage at which AMD’s Vega 10 was circling round with out driver assist – technically spectacular, however unrealistic. The GPU is meant to talk PCIe 4.0, decode 8K movies, encode AV1 and in addition function a VGPU for 16 digital machines. Sounds nice, however so long as clock speeds, energy budgets and actual drivers are lacking, all the pieces stays grey idea. The PCB typically exhibits an 8-pin, typically a 16-pin. Which applies? Nobody is aware of. What does it value? Nobody is aware of both. When will it arrive? Maybe subsequent yr. Maybe by no means.

Between hope and {hardware} phantasm

Lisuan Tech has thrown the primary stone – and this stone shouldn’t be a pebble, however a 6 nm monolith with ambitions. The 7G106 shouldn’t be an RTX or Radeon killer, however a wake-up name for the Western GPU duopolists: China now not simply needs to repeat. It needs to play alongside. Even if it nonetheless wants 1-2 years of observe. If Lisuan will get the software program issues below management and may ship in sequence, it’s no marvel. It is step one in direction of asserting itself in a market that has to date been dominated by Nvidia and flanked by AMD – each with a deep US pedigree. Will that be sufficient? That’s not for Geekbench to resolve, however for the gamer with a pockets and ambition.

Source:‘TechPowerUP