Bolt Graphics has successfully taped out its Zeus GPU, which is expected to offer up to 6x faster HPC & 5x faster Path Tracing performance than NVIDIA's RTX 5090.
The Bolt Graphics Zeus "12nm" GPU Aims To Offer 5x Faster Path Tracing Performance Than An RTX 5090 "5nm" Graphics Card
Last year, Bolt Graphics announced its Zeus chip and claimed some big numbers. Today, we can finally confirm that Zeus wasn't just a paper announcement, as the chip has been successfully taped out. In a press release shared with us, Bolt Graphics confirms that its Zeus GPU test chip has been taped out at TSMC using a 12nm FFC process node.
So what is Zeus? According to Bolt graphics, Zeus is a GPU and an architecture that has been tested on an FPGA and evaluated by Bolt's customers over the past four years. The company went with a GPU design because it serves applications beyond just gaming, such as HPC and AI. The goal with Zeus is to create a product that doesn't cost too much, consume too much power, or take too much rack space.
The Zeus platform integrates a custom GPU architecture with a full software stack to create a unified system designed to operate across multiple compute markets. The platform uses established semiconductor processes, with the test chip successfully designed into TSMC 12 FFC. The Zeus scalable architecture also addresses advanced nodes, including 5 nm.
via Bolt Graphics
So what do the Zeus specs look like? When Zeus launches, it will be available in two form factors: PCIe cards and 2U server configurations.
There are three configurations mentioned. A single-chip Zeus codenamed "Bolt Zeus 1c26" and a dual-chiplet Zeus codenamed "Bolt Zeus 2c26". The single-chiplet Zeus will feature the following specs:
- Single-Slot PCIe, Full Length Form Factor
- 5/10/20 TFLOPs (FP64/FP32/FP16)
- 307.2/614.4 TFLOPs (INT16/INT8)
- 128 MB On-Chip Cache
- 32 GB LPDDR5X Memory
- Up To 160 GB @ 363 GB/s
- 2 x DDR5 SO-DIMM Slots
- 77 Gigarays (Path Tracing)
- 2x 8K60 Streams
- 120W TBP
The dual chiplet configurations will come in 64 GB and 128 GB LPDDR5X flavors, and the specs for these are listed below:
- Dual-Slot PCIe, Full Length Form Factor
- 10/20/40 TFLOPs (FP64/FP32/FP16)
- 614.4/1228.8 TFLOPs (INT16/INT8)
- 256 MB On-Chip Cache
- 64-128 GB LPDDR5X Memory
- Up To 320-384 GB @ 725 GB/s
- 4 x DDR5 SO-DIMM Slots
- 154 Gigarays (Path Tracing)
- 4x 8K60 Streams
- 250W TBP
| Feature | Bolt Zeus 1c26-032 | Bolt Zeus 2c26-064 | Bolt Zeus 2c26-128 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Form Factor | Single-Slot PCIe, Full Length | Dual-Slot PCIe, Full Length | Dual-Slot PCIe, Full Length |
| Board Power | 120 W | 250 W | 250 W |
| FP64 / FP32 / FP16 vector tflops | 5 / 10 / 20 | 10 / 20 / 40 | — |
| INT16 / INT8 matrix tflops | 307.2 / 614.4 | 614.4 / 1,228.8 | — |
| On-chip cache | 128 MB | 256 MB | 256 MB |
| Memory | Up to 160 GB @ 363 GB/s 32 GB LPDDR5X 2x DDR5 SO-DIMMs | Up to 320 GB @ 725 GB/s 64 GB LPDDR5X 4x DDR5 SO-DIMMs | Up to 384 GB @ 725 GB/s 128 GB LPDDR5X 4x DDR5 SO-DIMMs |
| Path Tracing | 77 gigarays | 154 gigarays | — |
| Video Encoding & Decoding (AV1, H.264/265) | 2x 8K60 streams | 4x 8K60 streams | 4x 8K60 streams |
| I/O | 400 GbE (QSFP-DD) & GbE (RJ-45 BMC) 2x PCIe 5.0 x16 DisplayPort 2.1a & HDMI 2.1b | 400 GbE (QSFP-DD) & GbE (RJ-45 BMC) 2x PCIe 5.0 x16 DisplayPort 2.1a & HDMI 2.1b | 400 GbE (QSFP-DD) & GbE (RJ-45 BMC) 2x PCIe 5.0 x16 |
The Bolt Zeus 2U Server further scales up the output with up to 2 GB of on-chip cache, 9216 GB memory at 5.8 TB/s, 1 TB LPDDR5X memory, 32 GB of DDR5 DIMMs, and 1228 Gigarays of Path Tracing capability.
This time, Bolt Graphics is sharing updated performance figures in which it is claiming a 5x increase in path tracing performance versus the RTX 5090. This is a 250W 2c26 Zeus configuration being compared to a 575W RTX 5090 GPU. The HPC numbers also see up to a 6x uplift, while EM simulation performance witnesses a huge 300x bump, though this is comparing a 4c Zeus configuration against a single RTX 5090.
The main advantages of Zeus lie in the fact that it uses LPDDR5X and DDR5 memory, which, although cheaper than GDDR DRAM, are still mighty expensive in today's world. Zeus will offer 19x higher memory capacities in the Zeus Rack configuration versus NVIDIA's RTX PRO Blackwell Rack while keeping the TCO costs much lower (17x) versus NVIDIA's solution in HPC and Path Tracing workflows.
Hopefully, by the time Zeus GPUs roll out, memory prices will be back to normal. Bolt Graphics is currently estimating mass production and product availability by the end of 2027.
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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