Chinese graphics maker is developing a GPU to rival Nvidia's GTX 1080

[Gahl1k]

Since there's a lot of misinformation in pretty much all articles about this, here's some context:
Jingjia micro developed the very first domestically manufactured GPU, the JM5400 (GT 210 40nm), in 2014 based on the 65nm node in order to replace ATI 780, M54, M72, M96, etc. cards used in military equipment and aircraft. After the success of JM5400, they managed to R&D the 28nm node. In 2017, they announced the JM7200 (GT 640 28nm), based on the 28nm, which the company planned to release to the consumer desktop market. It released in 2018 to a major success, and they went to the drawing board to refine the node even more to help them deliver GTX 1080 performance level domestically. Of course, this won't come cheap as the company sought investment for the R&D process (880M Yuan, or around $150 million dollars at the time, which is quite cheap compared to, as the company claims, the several billion dollars nVidia invested in the R&D process to bring Pascal architecture--and its cards' performance--to the world), and they already secured the funds to start the process. They hope (as they postponed the release of JM7200 by 2 years) to release a GTX 1050-like card by 2020, and a GTX 1080-like card by 2021 (including every other card between the two).

TLDR; a Chinese company wants to disrput the domestic GPU market in China and replace foreign companies (AMD and nVidia). In only 3 years (starting from basically zero) they managed to go from GT 210-performance on a 65nm node to GT 640-performance on a 28nm. They want to reach GTX 1080-performance on a refined 28nm node by 2021.

 

[NahNood]

Can't wait to see those drivers. lol

 

[Bluescreendeath]

. supposedly the most advanced country when it comes to technology and you can't even compete with a 2080? what a joke.

I think you're confusing China with Japan.

 

[Nero7]

Jingjia face the same problems as any other hardware design company, trying to break into the GPU market - all of the technology required to achieve decent performance is patented to hell and back by the likes of Intel, AMD, Nvidia, PowerVR, Matrox, etc. Their current products have no support for Direct3D and there doesn't seem to be any plan to do so with future models. In other words, they're not aiming markets outside of China and let's face it, that's hardly a small market.

Oh yeah patents will stop China and this GPU was made from scratch, totally not by stealing intellectual property.

This could seriously disrupt the GPU market for example when cards from other manufacturers are simply not permitted or cost twice as much in china. The entire chinese market could break away from Nvidia and AMD.

I suspect that the same will happen to car manufacturers. Right now they all make plenty of money there but the chinese are already making their own cars based on knowledge collected on the foreign ones and soon the chinese will drive chinese cars and we might have to as well.

 

[neeyik]

Oh yeah patents wil stop China and this GPU was made from scratch, totally not by stealing intellectual property.

It's perfectly possible to make a basic GPU without resorting to stealing anything - there are plenty of freely usable cell libraries and simulators such as Miaow for analysing compute structures. My initial assumption from reading this news piece was that Jingjia were aiming for the gaming market, but it seems that this isn't the case (which removes a lot of the IP issues). So for the simple display side of things, manufacturing a rasteriser from scratch isn't a problem; for the compute industry, the task is bigger but again, not as problematic as creating a new gaming GPU.

This could seriously disrupt the GPU market for example when cards from other manufacturers are simply not permitted or cost twice as much in china. The entire chinese market could break away from Nvidia and AMD.

That's very much the idea.

 

[ferrellsl]

I was interested until I saw what level of OpenGL support it has. It's only supporting version 1.3 which puts this card graphically alongside offerings from 20 years ago. There are much cheaper ways to play Quake II level games. The hardware specs are meaningless if this card doesn't support current software specifications and standards.

 

[p51d007]

Oh you can bet it might be a couple versions off the latest, and it was reverse engineered from borrowed/stolen ideas, but will be MUCH cheaper than a traditional OEM version. That's how they
do it over there. But, WE KEEP BUYING IT!

 

[ferrellsl]

Oh you can bet it might be a couple versions off the latest, and it was reverse engineered from borrowed/stolen ideas, but will be MUCH cheaper than a traditional OEM version. That's how they
do it over there. But, WE KEEP BUYING IT!

Well, it's more than just a couple versions. OpenGL is now at 4.5 on most consumer gaming cards and I don't know of any gamers who want to step back to 1998, which is about the time that version 1.3 was king. I don't think nVidia nor AMD have anything to worry about in regard to this Chinese offering.

 

[EEatGDL]

Omg not something better than the old 1080! wow and its made by chinese people who hate america and send us cyberattacks all the time and spy on us and steal our jobs!

That first part sounds like North Korea and not China. If you know a bit of history: China only has a hate-relationship with Japan; it is more likely to find America hating China a lot more than China hates America. As for "stealing your jobs"... what jobs exactly?

 

[Ludak021]

That's the thing, isn't it? Who cares about Direct3D.

There's a 2.7 billion strong market between India and China alone. Develop a "competent" GPU, cultivate talent to go to work on it, and you'll see a new ecosystem of platforms and titles to fill them.

Just because the current "China special" right now is a famicom emulator with the same 33 games looping forever doesn't mean it has to stay that way.

Game developers do. In case you havent noticed, the vast majority of PC games use Direct3D.

The vast majority of games are not for PC. Vast majority of profits from games are not from PC.

 

[xZEDx]

It's really incredible how seriously racist such a large portion of these commenters are. Is Techspot also doubling as a gathering place for /r/gamingcirclejerk and white nationalists?

I was thinking the exact same!, wow.
the hate in the harts of white Americans is so absolutely vile towards any other nation or race.
even talk on a technology site is a kindling for race wars. LMFAO

 

[poohbear]

Don't you love how anti-competitive the stacks of patents let AMD and NVIDIA be? If only there were some form of oversight committee to prevent the existence of a duopoly.

so wait, after all the R&D they invested in developing their technologies, they're just supposed to make it free? Here's an idea: the Chinese company can license their technologies and pay royalties like any other civilized country instead of all the intellectual property thefts China did for decades. GPUs are some of the most advanced processors the west has produced, it didn't happen in an oppressive state-run environment, it happened in the environment which is the USA. So yes let them (AMD & Nvidia & Intel) enjoy the fruits of their labor and research.

 

[Puiu]

That's the thing, isn't it? Who cares about Direct3D.

There's a 2.7 billion strong market between India and China alone. Develop a "competent" GPU, cultivate talent to go to work on it, and you'll see a new ecosystem of platforms and titles to fill them.

Just because the current "China special" right now is a famicom emulator with the same 33 games looping forever doesn't mean it has to stay that way.

Game developers do. In case you havent noticed, the vast majority of PC games use Direct3D.

The vast majority of games are not for PC. Vast majority of profits from games are not from PC.

If you are thinking of mobile games then yeah, nobody cares. PC and consoles (all consoles combined) are pretty much the same revenue wise (at around 25% each). I have no idea why you think PC is a small market.

 

[neeyik]

Those % estimates are slightly different for 2019 (console is a little higher than PC) but one can't really say 'nobody cares' to the mobile market:

Source

 

[toooooot]

Time to steal some NVIDIA and AMD tech. Jk, they have done it long ago.
They probably used everything from those two, and now it just means they can reproduce something close enough to those nvidia cards.

I dont want to sound too cynical, but come on, they have no way to create something as good without
using the research that took nvidia and amd years and years.

 

[toooooot]

It's not amazing what the Chinese can do, after all, they surely stole American technology and illegally copied their IP like they did with most everything they have. BUY AMERICAN PEOPLE!

To be honest, we did it too, just long time ago so most people dont know about it.
Every developing country does that. Of course, we are talking about China this way because they
perfected the art of copying to the level no country has ever done.

 

[neeyik]

I dont want to sound too cynical, but come on, they have no way to create something as good withoutusing the research that took nvidia and amd years and years.

No way at all? So purchasing companies, hiring engineers from the multitude of tech companies in Taiwan, and utilising the vast number of students graduating each year wouldn't have been considered?

Designing and making a GPU isn't so technically hard that it's the sole preserve of the finest minds of Caltech and MIT. There has been something like 30 or so such companies in the past 25 years. Off the top of my head (so by no means a complete list) the likes of 3DLabs, ArtX, BitBoys, Rendition, and Trident all developed functional GPU designs or commercially available products.

However, designing and making progressively better GPUs is financially hard, which is why all those that I mentioned have long since disappeared (mostly by being purchased by another GPU company). The IP of those creations was picked up by the likes of AMD, Intel, and Nvidia, but the people weren't.

25 years ago the GDP of China was a fraction of what it is now and the likes of SMIC, Alibaba, Huawei can afford to invest huge sums of money into research and development in other companies, who can in turn, hire the best staff and facilities locally and around the world.

While you're unlikely to see a Jingyia graphics card sitting on US/European shelves next to an AMD, Intel, and Nvidia collection in the next 5 years, consumers in China, India and other countries may well do. The compute market almost certainly will.

 

[Extra145]

That's the thing, isn't it? Who cares about Direct3D.

There's a 2.7 billion strong market between India and China alone. Develop a "competent" GPU, cultivate talent to go to work on it, and you'll see a new ecosystem of platforms and titles to fill them.

Just because the current "China special" right now is a famicom emulator with the same 33 games looping forever doesn't mean it has to stay that way.

2.7 billion with 99+% of them so poor they can't afford a bowl of rice. The TRUE market is much, much smaller than 2.7 billion!

The idea that less than 1% of Chinese citizens are able to afford food is completely absurd. That would be a state of famine. There are plenty of things to criticize China for without making stuff up.

 

[Uncle Al]

More competition is always better for the consumer but we'll have to wait and see if these guys will fight fair or just try to undercut everyone to the point that they are the only ones that survive. Personally, after seeing some of the "stuff" tried with the cell phone market I'm going to be very leery about jumping into this kind of graphic's card until they are well established and "accepted" by the rest of the computing community ...

 

[captaincranky]

The idea that less than 1% of Chinese citizens are able to afford food is completely absurd. That would be a state of famine. There are plenty of things to criticize China for without making stuff up.

The 'truth of the matter' is, the people who build iPhones, can't come close to affording them. The reason these people work for Foxconn, is because they;re doing a lot better than they were before they got the job.

Make what you will of that. Those facts were from a broadcast 'expose', of Foxconn, and its partner in crime, Apple.

Are the people of China starving? Dunno. But whether or not they're starving, perhaps you're over reacting to a hyperbole with a grain of truth to it.

Think about it. China is the world's >>2nd<< largest economy. Erstwhile the US has the world's largest economy.

The US has something on the order 330,000,000 inhabitants, while China's current population is about 1.400.000.000. That's a smaller pie being split in over a billion (with a "B"), more ways.

 

[Thorney]

Cant believe nobody here is thinking about the future positives, all that seems to matter is USA! USA! USA!
Another GPU manufacturer who may just be China exclusive now, could potentially become worldwide and that will help bring down the prices we have had the moment. Nvidia and AMD are just running wild at the moment.

 

[OortCloud]

Cant believe nobody here is thinking about the future positives, all that seems to matter is USA! USA! USA!

Thank you! There is a grown-up on here after-all!

 

[poohbear]

Omg not something better than the old 1080! wow and its made by chinese people who hate america and send us cyberattacks all the time and spy on us and steal our jobs!

That first part sounds like North Korea and not China. If you know a bit of history: China only has a hate-relationship with Japan; it is more likely to find America hating China a lot more than China hates America. As for "stealing your jobs"... what jobs exactly?

China used to love all things Japanese in the 80s and 90s. When it rose to power, and needed a scapegoat, it started hating Japan again. What makes you think the same won't happen with their sentiment to the USA? The population is easily manipulated by the Chinese government to love and hate who they want since censorship is the rule of the land. There's a period in Chinese history when they were completely exploited by western powers, you don't think they'll reference that when they want the population to hate the USA?

 

[ziffel66]

Sure, let a chinese company have kernel-level access to your OS. Where can I sign up?

 

[McMurdeR]

Jingjia face the same problems as any other hardware design company, trying to break into the GPU market - all of the technology required to achieve decent performance is patented to hell and back by the likes of Intel, AMD, Nvidia, PowerVR, Matrox, etc. Their current products have no support for Direct3D and there doesn't seem to be any plan to do so with future models. In other words, they're not aiming markets outside of China and let's face it, that's hardly a small market.

Oh yeah patents will stop China and this GPU was made from scratch, totally not by stealing intellectual property.

This could seriously disrupt the GPU market for example when cards from other manufacturers are simply not permitted or cost twice as much in china. The entire chinese market could break away from Nvidia and AMD.

I suspect that the same will happen to car manufacturers. Right now they all make plenty of money there but the chinese are already making their own cars based on knowledge collected on the foreign ones and soon the chinese will drive chinese cars and we might have to as well.

This is the first sensible post in the thread. The key point about this news is that north American GPU giants will have a hard time generating growth in the massive Asian markets, where things like patents and Direct3D won't matter a damn.