China is, without a doubt, the home of the knock-off product and if you’re buying any graphics card from an independent manufacturer there, well… the phrase ‘caveat emptor’ comes to mind. Over the last couple of years, however, a number of companies within the country have been making what could only be called very noteworthy strides into entering the mainstream market with their own products. Nothing, as of yet to worry the more established names such as Nvidia or AMD… As of yet!
In a report via TechSpot, however, one manufacturer may be set to launch a brand new graphics card which, if true, may offer performance comparable to a Nvidia 1080.
Chinese Graphics Card Manufacturer & Their Nvidia 1080 Rival
The company, Jingjia Micro, (full name – Changsha Jingjia Microelectronics Co., Ltd) has reportedly been working on a new graphics chipset that, if the rumours are to be believed, will match the speed of the Nvidia 1080.
Now, of course, the Nvidia 1080 isn’t exactly a new or cutting edge graphics card. It is, however, still pretty damn fast! It is also remarkably popular given the price point of the 20XX series. On the whole, however, for consumers, this could be excellent news!
At the time of writing, specifications are still rough and unconfirmed. It is, however, suggested that the graphics card will run boost with a 1,800MHz+ clock speed, have 16GB of HBM and support for PCIe 4.0. With a 28nm node design, however, it will clearly not be anywhere near as efficient as Nvidia. Still, those figures do seem to accurately suggest a competitive performance!
Why Is This Good News?
For many years now (and perhaps too long) we have only had 2 mainstream graphics card manufacturers. With Intel set to enter the market next year, however, if Jingjia Micro can produce a legitimately strong GPU, we might (entirely unexpectedly) find ourselves with 4 designers to choose from. More makers mean more competition and, in theory, better prices. That is, at least, the theory.
Based on the nature of Chinese products as well, if this ‘1080 rival’ comes to the market at a significantly lower price, I know for a fact I’d be eying it up with some interest! A Nvidia 1080-like card for around £250? Sounds good to me!
What do you think? Would you like to see more GPU manufacturers? Do you think this card could compete with Nvidia? In addition, would you buy it? – Let us know in the comments!
