Moore Threads: China’s Domestic GPU Challenger

Moore Threads Technology Co. Ltd, founded in 2020, is making waves in the GPU market with its first consumer graphics cards, the MTT S80 and MTT S70. As China’s only domestic developer of gaming GPUs, Moore Threads is positioning itself as a viable alternative in the entry-level and mainstream gaming segments.

History and Funding

Moore Threads was established by Zhang Jianzhong, the former global vice-president of Nvidia and general manager of Nvidia China. The company has received significant funding from investors such as Shenzhen Capital Group, GGV Capital, Sequoia Capital China, ByteDance, and Tencent in its first year of operation.However, in October 2023, the United States Department of Commerce added Moore Threads to the Bureau of Industry and Security’s Entity List, imposing sanctions on the company.

MTT S80: World’s First PCIe Gen 5 Gaming GPU

In late 2022, Moore Threads launched its flagship GPU, the MTT S80, which became the world’s first PCIe Gen 5 gaming graphics card. Despite being the first of its kind, the MTT S80’s initial performance was comparable to an Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 6400, making it suitable for China’s popular games like League of Legends and World of Warcraft.In June 2024, a driver update for the MTT S80 significantly boosted its performance by double digits in several AAA titles, with an 80% improvement in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. The driver also added support for 18 additional games.

MTT S70 and S60

The MTT S70 is a slightly less powerful variant of the S80, featuring 3,584 MUSA FP32 cores, 112 Tensor Computing Units, and 7GB of GDDR6 memory. The MTT S60, on the other hand, is designed for desktop PCs and workstations, offering 2,048 GPU cores and 8GB of LPGDDR4X memory.

Performance Comparison

While the MTT S80 and S70 have seen significant performance gains through driver updates, they still lag behind the latest offerings from Nvidia and AMD. For example, the Nvidia RTX 4080 and RTX 4080 SUPER offer significantly higher performance than the MTT S80, with the RTX 4080 delivering up to 2.4x the performance of the RTX 3080.The Tesla H100, Nvidia’s latest data center GPU, is also far more powerful than the MTT S80, with up to 8 petaflops of AI performance and 3.2 TB/s of memory bandwidth.

Challenges and Future Prospects

Moore Threads faces several challenges, including recent layoffs due to U.S. sanctions and the need to optimize drivers for its first-generation products. However, the company remains focused on building a comprehensive product line and expanding its portfolio of supported games.With strategic partnerships and support from Chinese gamers, Moore Threads is positioning itself as a viable alternative in the domestic GPU market. As the company continues to refine its products and driver support, it may become a more significant player in the global GPU landscape.