(Credit: Chaowanke)
The Lisuan LX 7G100 could be the first gaming GPU from China to offer something Western gamers might be interested in: real gaming performance.
According to the first reviews, it's roughly RTX 3060-like in its capabilities, but with 12GB of VRAM and an ongoing global GPU shortage, that's not half bad, VideoCardz reports. The real issue, though, is the price. At close to $500 equivalent in China, where it's likely to sell at its cheapest, this card isn't about to beat Nvidia, AMD, and Intel's best alternatives any time soon.
Chinese GPU manufacturers first came to our attention in 2022, when Moore Threads released its first consumer card: the S60. However, it was limited to DirectX9 support, lacked the ability to handle tessellation, only worked on a handful of motherboards, and to say getting drivers working was difficult would be an understatement. But now, a few years on, another Chinese GPU maker, Lisuan, has released a new model that's surprisingly effective.
The LX 7G100 is a 12GB VRAM GPU based on a self-developed TrueGPU architecture, and is the first one outside of AMD, Intel, or Nvidia, to be certified by Microsoft WHQL. It also ships with full support for DX12, Vulkan 1.3, OpenGL 4.6, and OpenCL 3.0, and supports resolutions up to 8K at 60Hz and HDR, with FreeSync. It's about the most complete GPU we've ever seen out of a Chinese developer, and the performance in games isn't entirely terrible, either.
Tested by Chinese tech reviewer Chaowanke, the card ran 3DMark benchmarks well, achieving almost the same scores as the RTX 3060 in several tests. The RTX 4060, Intel Arc B580, and AMD RX 6600 XT all blew it away, but it was able to run the benchmarks and deliver playable-like performance.
Indeed, in Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p, medium image quality, it managed 88 FPS average, though that was with FSR3 and Frame Generation enabled. In comparison, even the RX 6600 XT managed over 220 FPS average.
In Black Myth: Wukong, the Lisuan card managed just 56fps, while the other cards all managed at least 80fps, the RTX 4060 115fps. There were similar tales for other tested games too, including Forza Horizon 5, GTA V Enhanced, and Elden Ring.
But the real story here isn't that this card is competitive with Western alternatives. It's not, and it's way too expensive. But this is a gaming GPU that can play real games at launch. That's a huge step up from just a few years ago and suggests we may only be a few more years away from a Chinese GPU that could compete directly with Nvidia or AMD in lighter games.
Considering the industry is crying out for competition so we don't just keep feeding all our money into the data center monster, that could be welcome news.