Picture showing the first Chinese entry-level gaming GPU produced by Zhaoxin reveals performance clues

We’ve been hearing that China is trying to produce its own compute GPUs for a few years now, and the plan was to also release some entry-level gaming GPUs this year. While advancements with the chip production nodes and CPU manufacturing are going well for China, the GPU side seems to be lagging, at least for the gaming models. Earlier this year we saw the first depictions of the 7 nm compute GPUs produced in China by Tianshu Zhixin, but the entry-level gaming GPUs expected to be released by Zhaoxin this year appear to be in a bit of trouble, as a post on the Baidu forums suggests that Zhaoxin already cancelled a dGPU model. However, we do get to see what it looks like and the post also hints at some performance metrics.

Last year, Zhaoxin announced its intentions to launch a 70 W TGP entry-level GPU for the Chinese market in 2021. This model was supposed to be manufactured on a 28 nm node, so it would not really be an alternative to anything currently produced by AMD, Nvidia and soon Intel. According to the Baidu post, Zhaoxin named this GPU “Ji Riu” 3000, and it looks to be assembled by subsidiary Glenfly Technology (the G logo on the cooler), which also provided the images. From what we can see, the card seems quite small and the cooler only covers the GPU core, which means it does not really heat up too much, plus it probably consumes less than 70 W since it only runs on the power provided by the PCIe X16 slot. It also features only HDMI and D-Sub connectors and appears to be running the Unigine Heaven benchmark at 32 fps. We do not know the exact benchmark settings used here, but 32 fps is still pretty low regardless, considering that an Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti can run this benchmark in 1080p at 131 fps.

Even if this is indeed a cancelled model, it at least proves that Zhaoxin is not sitting on its hands and is actually trying out designs. One of the companies controlling Zhaoxin is VIA Technologies that used to produce the S3 Graphics processors back in the early 2000s, so these new Chinese GPUs could be based on that IP with some modern modifications. Zhaoxin still has time to deliver on its promise to release a GPU this year.

Buy the EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 XC Gaming on Amazon