Bolt Graphics recently achieved the first hardware development milestone for the Zeus GPU. They transitioned from design to actual physical silicon. This is an important milestone because it means they are able to manufacture their custom designed GPU. It's an important step for any new GPU company. The news is important for potential users and developers to keep an eye on. It shows if they'll be able to eventually meet the high performance goals they've set for the GPU.
Bolt Graphics Zeus GPU clears first silicon tests
The Zeus GPU is being designed for professional rendering and scientific simulations. It's not meant for normal gaming. Bolt Graphics designed the Zeus GPU for heavy workload. The GPU also features integrated 400 GbE networking. It's a different approach to GPU's compared to normal consumer GPU's. It's designed for high end computing and networking.
Specifications
- Process Node: TSMC 12 nm (prototype); TSMC N5P (commercial)
- Die Size: 6 mm²
- Power Consumption: 1.4 W
- Memory Configuration: 32 GB LPDDR5X (entry-level), up to 2.25 TB DDR5 RDIMMs (server)
- Networking: Integrated 400 GbE
For the first test chip, Bolt Graphics is using the TSMC 12 nm process node. The chip is only 6mm^2 in size. The chip only uses about 1.4W of power. The first bring-up of the chip was completed within 24 hours. They confirmed that there weren't any functional problems found during the initial test phase. The commercial chips will transition to the TSMC N5P process node. It will be a more advanced process node that provides better efficiency.
According to Bolt Graphics, the Zeus architecture should be able to provide up to 10x the path tracing performance compared to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090. The silicon actually exceeded their internal performance and efficiency estimates. However, those performance numbers are not independently verified by any benchmarks yet. The current prototype only verifies the architecture. It doesn't validate the full size GPU performance yet.
Bolt Graphics is aiming for developers to have access to Zeus hardware in Q1 2027. The first hardware will be available for Early Access Program customers at the end of 2027. Finally, mass production of the Zeus PCIe cards and servers is targeted for 2028 now. Bolt Graphics opened a new office in Taipei to help work with their manufacturing partners during the development process.
Source: NotebookCheck
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