China's domestic GPU maker, Loongson, is prepping the 9A2000 graphics card which is said to be on par with NVIDIA's RTX 2080.
Loongson is planning to expand its GPU lineup with an NVIDIA RTX 2080-equivalent 9A2000 graphics card and a faster 9A3000 in the future
There are a couple of GPU underdogs that are exerting their best efforts to develop powerful GPU solutions for gaming and various workloads. Among them is Loongson, which is a Chinese GPU manufacturer that introduced the 9A1000 GPU recently, offering RX 550-equivalent performance. The company is now about to release a brand new GPU called 9A2000, which is supposedly several times faster than the 9A1000.
As per ITHome, the company's boss Hu Weiwu claims that the 9A2000 graphics card will be equivalent to NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 2080 graphics card in gaming performance. This looks like a solid upgrade over the 9A1000 as RTX 2080 can still play almost all the modern titles on ultra settings at 1080p pretty easily. The 9A2000 is said to be almost 8-10 times faster than the 9A1000 and is said to offer better power efficiency with design optimizations.
Not only the company is planning to launch the 9A2000 graphics card, but it will also continue growing with more upcoming GPUs such as the 9A3000, which will be faster than the 2nd GPU in the lineup. We don't know about its development progress yet but the 9A2000 is set to pave the path for better Loongson GPUs. The next-gen 9A3000 is also expected to feature a brand new process node and built upon the foundations of 9A2000 which will reduce silicon area and also feature lower power consumption through design optimizations on existing processes.
It is also reported that the 9A2000 will be able to play Black Myth: Wukong, which is one of the most popular single-player games ever made by Chinese developer Game Science. As of now, the company has processors for both the mainstream and the server markets. Loongson last year started shipping the LS3A6000 CPU for the domestic market and is the first CPU in the 4th-generation series. The company is also preparing next-gen CPUs that will feature performance on par with 12th-gen Intel CPUs with an 8-core design.
The Loongson 3B6600 octa-core CPUs are on the way, which will compete against Intel's Alder and Raptor Lake chips. This is a solid performance uplift by Loongson in both the CPU and GPU departments but as of now, the driver support is still lacking. As for the 9A1000, there is no DX12 support but the company is considering providing DX12 support for this series soon.
About the author: Sarfraz Khan is a hardware reporter with a focus on PC components and the builder community. With years of experience writing about PC hardware and laptops, his work has been featured on several reputable technology publications. Sarfraz's hands-on experience is demonstrated through his first-person accounts of using and comparing different hardware configurations, providing practical and relatable insights for everyday users. His technical analysis is respected by peers in the enthusiast community and has been cited by specialized hardware sites such as Germany's Igor's Lab.
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